Advanced Serial Number Features

This section covers optional advanced features that capture additional data or extend the workflow. By default they are inactive.

Expiry Dates

If the Company-level profile setting Use expiry dates for batched & serialised items is active, Exo Business expects you to enter expiry dates on serial records if the Item Expires option is also checked on the Details 1 tab of the Stock item. Enter dates in the format dd.mm.yy.

Pre-Assignment

Pre-assignment links or associates a serial number with a document prior to the workflow that generates a resulting stock transaction. You can exchange alternative serial numbers for pre-assigned ones at any time before creating the stock transitions.  

Pre-assignment is optional. You must activate the Company-level profile setting Allow serial number assignment to use it.

You can pre-assign serial numbers using:

• Inwards Goods – enter serial numbers in Inwards Goods Receipts and then recall them for processing when costing Inwards Goods.

• Sales Orders – enter serial numbers when entering Sales Order and then recall them for processing during supply.

• Stock Transfer Requests – when you move stock to the In Transit location, the selected serial numbers are tagged as assigned to the Request document until received into the destination location if the pre-assignment profile is set. This ensures that only the sent serials are processed on during the Receive process.

Pre-assignment has no effect on free stock levels or other stock calculations. By associating a serial with a document, you can:

• Create a serial number record before processing stock transactions.

• Tag a serial to a document so that you can't select it on any other document.

• Quickly recall the pre-assigned list when generating the stock transaction.

Note: The true document class link fields are not updated until a stock transaction is processed. If a serial participates more than once for a document class (for example, returned item sold on a subsequent Sales Order), the original link is not lost until overridden by the new stock transaction. Unassigning a serial number restores the history that existed previous to assignment.

Pre-assignment is determined from the serial number property ISASSIGNED, which can be one of:

• N - not assigned

• i - Inwards Goods (Supplier)

• o - Sales Order (Customer)

• q - Stock Transfer Requests (Internal)

• r - (Reserved for future use)

Note: These values are case-sensitive.

An assigned serial number also has header and line level links in a pair of fields. The fields are separate from the links associated with the document class. If ISASSIGNED = 'N', they are not cleared after use. If you use using assignment links in Clarity reports, the query must explicitly check the ISASSIGNED field for the correct letter associated with the document class.

Bills of Materials

The BILLCODE is stored in the database field STOCK_SERIALNOS.KITCODE for participating serial numbers.

Exo Business can't determine individual component numbers for an individual serial number of an output stock item if the output quantity is greater than one. Exo Business can determine serial numbers, both component and output, for a document.

When a bill of material is embedded within another document (for example, Sales Order or Debtors Invoice), the BOM type relates to the serialised actions taken:

• A BOM of type Kit sells the component directly and does not manufacture an output item. A serial number is not requested for the OUTPUTCODE. The component lines are sales lines and serial numbers are requested only if the stock item’s serial type contains the debtor attribute.

• A BOM of type Build involves two processing functions: manufacture (internal attribute) and sale (Debtor attribute). Serial numbers are requested for items  that have either internal and/or Debtor attributes.  

The parent supply or invoice processes do not check for discrete multiples of a BOM across all components. For example, manufacturing five units where each require a component quantity of three does not enforce the supply or invoice quantities of that component to be a multiple of three. The row count for serials requested derives from the supply or invoice quantities entered.