Minimum Version Required: 25.08
Steps
This feature allows for the accurate display of inventory to sales reps based on the specific warehouse supplying products to a customer, rather than just the customer's primary location. This is especially useful for customers serviced from more than one warehouse and the orders are shipped directly from the source warehouse that is not the customer's home warehouse. With the proper routing setup, sales and delivery teams can ensure the orders get routed to the correct location.
This is different than the alternate locations feature because this setup is if you are delivering directly from multiple warehouses, whereas alternate locations involves picking from an alternate location and shuttling and cross-docking orders at the customer's location.
Example:
The Safeway customer has product groups set on their stop so that their orders for wine and spirits products are delivered directly from the Fort Collins warehouse, beer products from the Denver warehouse, and non-alcohol products from the Colorado Springs warehouse. Also notice the new inventory location field on the Stops table for the presell stops, which ensures that David Stone, the sales rep will see the available inventory at each source location.
Example:
The Sterling Walmart customer is serviced by the Sterling warehouse for beer for both sales and delivery, and non-alcohol products sourced from the Gering warehouse. Also notice that there are two different sales reps selling each of those two product groups. Since this is a Sterling customer, it is not necessary to set the inventory location on Colton Burton's presell stop, however on Joe Datel's presell stop, it is necessary to set the inventory location to the Gering warehouse since this is not the customer's location. This will ensure that when Joe is ordering non-alcohol products for this customer, he will see the available inventory in the Gering warehouse.
Best Practices
1. Go to the Stops table
2. Identify Customers Serviced by Multiple Warehouses:
Determine which customers receive different product groups from distinct warehouses.
This feature is designed for scenarios where orders are shipped directly from the source warehouse to the customer, not for cross-docking or shuttling operations like with Alternate Locations.
3. Associate Product Groups with Stops:
Ensure that the relevant product groups are correctly associated with their corresponding stops. This allows for granular control over which products are sourced from which warehouse.
4. Set the "Inventory Location" Field for Non-Primary Warehouses:
For each presell stop where products for a customer are sourced from a warehouse that is not their primary (home) warehouse, it is essential to populate the "Inventory Location" field on that specific stop.
Purpose: This explicitly tells the system which warehouse's inventory should be displayed to the sales representative for the products associated with that stop.
Example: If a customer's primary warehouse is "Sterling" but their non-alcohol products are sourced from "Gering," the presell stop for non-alcohol products must have the "Inventory Location" set to "Gering warehouse."
5. Omit "Inventory Location" for Primary Warehouses:
If a product group for a customer is sourced from their primary (home) warehouse, it is generally not necessary to explicitly set the "Inventory Location" on that presell stop. The system will typically default to the customer's primary location.
Example: If a Sterling customer's beer products are sourced from the Sterling warehouse, the "Inventory Location" on the beer presell stop can be left blank, as Sterling is the customer's home warehouse.