Warehouses explained - How to manage stock for multiple locations

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Sumtracker supports inventory management for multiple locations. Each location is represented by a warehouse in Sumtracker. For each product in Sumtracker you have different stock levels per warehouse. For example see the below screenshot from Sumtracker,

You can see that SKU COFFEE-MUG-1 has different stock levels per warehouse.

How is inventory for multiple warehouses updated on your online store?

Among the platforms that Sumtracker is integrated with, only Shopify supports multiple locations. Other platforms do not have the concept of inventory per location.

So for all online stores (except Shopify) Sumtracker will update the total inventory at warehouses for each product. For example from the screenshot above the total inventory for COFFEE-MUG-1 is 135 units (90 + 35). When inventory is synced to your online store 135 units will be updated.

How can you select specific warehouses to use for your online store?

Sumtracker has an advanced feature using which you can select which warehouses you want to use to update inventory from.

For example you can select that for your Etsy store only the inventory for NEW SOUTH warehouse is to be used. You can set this by following the below steps:

1. Click on the settings button for you Etsy store form the dashboard page

2. Click on Warehouse Links tab and then click on the add new warehouse link button

3. Create a warehouse link for the warehouse you want to use for inventory update for this store. In the warehouse field select the warehouse. The priority field is used to determine which warehouse should be given preference to pick inventory from when a new order comes. You can create multiple warehouse links per online store.

An example how this is useful,

Let say you have 3 warehouses one of which is your retail store. You don't want to use your retail store's inventory to be used for your Etsy or Big Commerce orders. Using the above steps you can make warehouse links for the other 2 warehouses. Now sumtracker will not use the 3rd warehouse which is the retail store to pick inventory for the order for your online store.

Note: The above is valid for only this particular online store. If you want to do this for any other online store you have to do the same steps for it.

How are Shopify locations managed?

Shopify supports inventory at multiple locations. When you connect your Shopify store with Sumtracker, the locations from your Shopify store are synced with Sumtracker. A Sumtracker warehouse is created for each Shopify location. You see the location and warehouse mapping by going to the warehouse links tab from the store detail page.

From the screenshots you can see the name of the location on your Shopify store and the name of the warehouse it is linked to. Shopify has the concept of fulfilment priority which is used to determine which location will be given priority to pick inventory for a new order. Read this document for more details on how to set it up in Sumtracker.

How to create, edit and delete warehouses?

You can create multiple warehouses in Sumtracker. Each warehouse has a unique code and an address.

To edit create or edit a warehouse go to settings and then select the warehouses option

To delete a warehouse you have to first archive it.

  • A warehouse should be archived if it was in use before but no longer in use. You should not delete it.
  • A warehouse can be archived and then deleted if it was never used.

Check the related articles to learn more about warehouses in Sumtracker.

What happens when a warehouse is archived or deleted?

Archiving means 
  • all the stock in the warehouse will be set to 0
  • you will stop seeing this warehouse in any dropdown and filters
  • all the historical data in reports will remain as it is
You will have the choice to 'Undo Archive' the warehouse and resume using it like before. 

After archiving, you have the option of deleting a warehouse as well. Deletion is only possible when you have removed all the stock from the warehouse. 

Deleting will permanently delete all the historical data of the warehouse throughout the software, including reports. This action cannot be undone. So this should only be done when you want to completely remove the warehouse and its historical data from the system.

How to set the order in which Warehouses appear in Sumtracker?

If you have multiple warehouses, you can select the order in which the warehouses appear throughout the app. 

This can be done from Settings > Warehouse settings page

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