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Tracking serials, lots and expiration dates
Serial/lot number&expiration date tracking is paramount when it comes to warranty management, tracing defective batches, quality control and regulatory compliance.
To start with, you must keep in mind that QuickBooks Online does not read serials and lots. Сopies of HandiFox-generated transactions containing either of them will display no serial/lot number information whatsoever in QuickBooks. This being said, for advanced inventory tracking you will have to completely rely on HandiFox Online.
HandiFox allows adding serialized and lot-numbered items when you receive (Item Receipt), count (Counting Session), transfer, invoice, get paid for (Receive Payment), and document returns (Credit Memo) of inventory. In this article you will learn
How to enable serial/lot number and expiration date (S.L.E.D) tracking
How to track serials, lots and expiration dates
How to add serialised and lot-numbered to transactions
How to print S.L.E.D information on labels
Turning on advanced tracking
Serial/lot number and expiry date tracking can be enabled while creating a new item (Inventory->Item list->
Tick “Tracking” and choose a tracking method from the drop-down list. As seen from the screenshot below, HandiFox allows tracking serial numbers, lot numbers, expiration dates as well some of these parameters in combination.
The Auto Pick option sets the logic which the system will utilize to arrange items on transactions. The First In - First Out (FIFO) method arranges items in the order they were checked into the system. First Expired- First Out (FEFO) is a fulfillment method that lets you clear out soon expiring articles first. None - the system will arrange serial- and lot-number tracked items alphabetically.
Note that once the tracking is on, it cannot be disabled! The only option to stop the system serial/lot number tracking certain products is make these products inactive and delete all associated transactions.
Serial/lot number window and what it tells you
Navigate to Inventory->Serial/Lot numbers to track, edit, and adjust quantities of serial&lot number tracked items.
By default, it lists all the products you have on hand, whether they are serial/lot number tracked or not. Here, you can enable tracking and let the system assign serial/lot numbers, as well as set expiry dates for the articles that didn’t have them.
The “Unassigned Qty” status signals that the on-hand quantity is different from the product’s quantity based on assigned lots, encouraging you to record lots for the remaining unassigned quantity.
To see only products with serials and lots, click on the gear icon and tick “Show only tracked items”. If you click on any of those you will see which lots, where (on which site), and how many of them are in stock, as well as their expiration dates which you can sort by date (by clicking on the Exp.date column).
To expand the details, click on the lot reference number and you will be able to see the transaction history and offered to adjust quantity.
Adding serial/lot number tracked inventory to transactions
As said before, serials and lots are reflected on Item Receipt, Inventory Transfer, Counting Session, Invoice, Sales Receipt and Credit Memo transactions. As soon as an item whose serial/lot number or expiry date you are tracking is added, the system will place a down arrow to its left prompting you to click on it. Down below you will see lines where you can manually input or scan in serials/lots.
When doing inventory counts watch for color changes - orange is a heads-up about discrepancies in counting. If you have counted more or fewer items than the New quantity on hand, all lines go orange. As soon as you increase/decrease the quantity for some items and things start adding up, it changes to green. On invoices, the color change signals that quantities for specific lots do not tally with the total quantity for the lot number tracked item. The “New” notification appears when you have added new serials/lots that the app is not familiar with. For such serials/lots you can set expiry dates right away.
On sales transactions, you can either manually add serials/lots you intend to sell to the customer or let the system suggest which serials/lots should be sold off based on the pre-defined tracking method (FIFO or FEFO). To make use of the latter, click Auto Pick.
Printing
HandiFox Online allows printing labels with serial/lot numbers. Go to Serial/Lot numbers, select a product, use checkboxes in the left-most column to choose the lots you would like to print labels for, and click on the printer icon.
Use the checkboxes to select data that will go on the labels and the size.
The printed copies of transactions with serial/lot number tracked products will reflect all reference information in the description column. Below is the hard copy of an invoice containing lot numbered items.
