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ABCs of Warehouse Management After Holidays
Originally published Wednesday, Apr 26, 2017
Floral holidays can be chaotic for everyone! Working long hours and all the extra pressure of delivering that just-in-time promise to customers can cause a difficult aftermath (to say the least) and getting back on track with normal operations can take even more time when unexpected things happen, especially when talking about inventory. To help you get on with your work, we put together a list of a few cases and how to solve them the best way possible:
Random Boxes (Physical box but not in Komet)
If you ever have a box around the warehouse that doesn’t have a Komet label on it (either shipping or receiving) you can be sure it won’t be in the system. It most likely isn’t even supposed to be yours. It could’ve been a vendor or carrier error. 2 options here, either you just dispose of it because of X reason or you want to keep it.
How to fix it: To keep the box, just manually Add Inventory. If you use scanners, make sure to print out the label generated and scan it as received. That way, the box will now be set in your Komet inventory.
Box Not Shipped (Physical box but not in Komet)
Ever had a box linger around in the warehouse when it was supposed to be shipped out? Of course it has! It happens all the time. Just that after the floral holidays it might be more than just one box. Usually here you would have to check with the customer whose missing the product whether they want to receive it after all or not.
How to fix it:
- If the box was scanned as shipped but not and the customer decides they no longer need the product, we suggest to scan as a return, remove the item/quantity from the invoice, and set the product to Open Market inventory so that it’s available to be sold again. (If the box was never scanned or shipped just skip the step of returning the box).
- If the box was scanned as shipped and the customer wants it, just ship it out. Otherwise, make sure to go through the whole shipping process if the customer still wants the product.
Missing Boxes (Box in Komet but not physically)
Missing boxes can happen either because there’s a discrepancy where the box still registers in Komet but it’s nowhere to be found or because it was never scanned for despatch but was sent to the customer. Either way, you have to make sure to reconcile the inventory in the system to either put it as a loss or mark it as shipped in the system.
How to fix it:
- If the product was never scanned as shipped avoid deleting it from the invoice at all costs. Just print out the label again and go through the process of shipping it out as you normally would.
- If the box is just lost and you have no idea where it is, we suggest placing it in a “Dump Account”. A Dump Account is just a fake customer that some companies create to keep track of losses. Once this account is created, just add the box to an order under it.
Note: All cases above are based on the premise that you are using scanners in your operations. Scanners are not necessary for normal operations within Komet’s inventory.
Hopefully, none of these cases will apply to you during this floral holidays but if they do know they’re always here, just like us! As always, we’ll have our extended service starting April 24th from 7 AM to 10 PM EST.
