Items with Lot and Serial Numbers: General Information

Lot numbers and serial numbers are used to track certain types of inventory items as they are received, stored, manufactured, and shipped. Some products, such as food products and chemical compounds, are tracked by lot because they have expiration dates, while other products, such as medications, are tracked because laws require manufacturers to keep accurate records about their distribution. Still other products—such as electronics, appliances, and cars—must be tracked individually from the manufacturer to the consumer because of safety and warranty issues, so serial numbers are used for tracking them.

If the Lot and Serial Tracking feature is enabled on the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form, you can set up the tracking of stock items by lot or serial number, as well as by expiration date.

Learning Objectives

In this chapter, you will do the following:

• Configure the tracking of items with lot and serial numbers
• Process purchase and sales documents that contain lot- and serial-tracked items

Applicable Scenarios

You may need to use items with lot or serial numbers in the following cases:

• Your organization purchases items with serial numbers provided by vendors and you need to track these items by the serial numbers in a warehouse.
• Your organization accepts returns or replacements of serialized items that it has sold.
• Your organization provides services (such as installation or repair) for serialized items that it has sold.
• A vendor from which your organization buys items sells them in lots and provides lot numbers and expiration dates for each lot, which you want to track for the items.
• Your organization sells items in lots and it is important to keep the assigned lot number tracked in the sales documents.
• Your organization sells items with an expiration date and issues items based on this date.

Items with Serial Numbers

A serial number is a unique number that identifies a single item of stock, such as a camera, laptop, or bicycle.

Serial numbers can be generated by the system. This can be useful if items to be assigned to serial numbers are produced by your organization or are supplied by a vendor and the items do not have serial numbers assigned by the vendor.

Alternatively, you can manually assign a serial number to each item so that the system reflects the numbers provided by a vendor. The settings that control the tracking of a serialized item are specified by the serial class assigned to the item.

Items with Lot Numbers

A lot number is a unique identification code assigned to a specific quantity or lot of items. The same lot number is assigned to every item of the particular lot.

You can either enter a lot number manually (if it is provided by a vendor) or configure the automatic generation of lot numbers for items that are produced by your organization or are not supplied by vendor's lot numbers. The settings that control the tracking of items by lots are specified by the lot class assigned to the items.

Lot and Serial Classes

The settings that control the tracking of items by lot and serial numbers are specified for a lot or serial class on the Lot/Serial Classes (IN207000) form. When the Lot and Serial Tracking feature is enabled on the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form, the preconfigured DEFAULT class is displayed on the Lot/Serial Classes form. This item class is used for items that are not tracked by lot and serial numbers. For item classes and items that have been created before the feature was enabled, the system inserts this class automatically.

When you are creating a lot or serial class, you specify the following:

• Tracking method: This method defines whether the class provides settings for non-tracked items, for serialized items, or for items tracked by lot numbers.
• Whether an expiration date must be tracked: You can configure the system so that it requires an expiration date to be entered for an item of the class when it is received.
• Assignment method: This method defines when the lot or serial number should be assigned to an item of the class: on item receipt or on item issue.
• Issue method: This method defines the order in which items of the class must be issued from a warehouse.
• Settings for the generation of lot or serial numbers: You can configure the system so that it generates lot or serial numbers automatically for items of the class; you can also specify the structure of automatically generated numbers.

For more information on the settings of a lot or serial class, see Items with Lot and Serial Numbers: Tracking Settings and Items with Lot and Serial Numbers: Numbering Settings.

Assignment of a Lot or Serial Class to Item Classes and Stock Items

After you have configured lot and serial classes according to the business processes of your organization, you need to assign these classes to the item classes that will be assigned to stock items. If the stock items were created before you assigned lot or serial classes to these item classes, you also need to assign lot or serial classes to these stock items.

You specify a lot or serial class for each item class in the Lot/Serial Class box on the General tab of the Item Classes (IN201000) form. When you create stock items and select a particular item class for which a lot or serial class is assigned, the system will copy the lot or serial class specified for the item class to the settings of the stock item. It will also insert the appropriate settings that have been specified for both the item class and the lot or serial class.

Change of a Lot or Serial Class for a Stock Item

We recommend that you carefully plan the assignment of the lot and serial classes to stock items and avoid changing the lot and serial class for an item after you have started processing transactions with the item.

If you want to change the lot or serial class for a stock item, you select another class in the Lot/Serial Class box on the General tab of the Stock Items (IN202500) form.

If you want to change the lot or serial class for a stock item that has a history of sales, purchases, or inventory operations, make sure that the following conditions are met:

• All documents that contain this stock item have been processed to completion.
• All quantities of the item have been issued from the stock.