Warehouse FAQs

A warehouse management system (WMS) is a software system that keeps track of everything happening across your warehouse network. Everything from the placement of product within bins around your warehouse to product details, vendors, customers, orders and picking, packing, fulfillment, and shipping is held within a warehouse management system.

For each company, the answer will be slightly different. However, there are some key indicators that may help determine when you will want to switch from your eCommerce/paper/shipping software into a fully-fledged WMS. Here are a few key indicators to look for:

• Daily shipping volume exceeds 350 orders per day

• The amount of time it takes to print pick lists, pick items, and get orders shipped is longer than the day allows

• You are growing too fast to train people on your manual processes, and need software to standardize the training and workload

• The manual tasks of field sales and order management cause redundant workloads across multiple departments

• Shipping time for orders goes beyond three to four days

• Replenishment of pick bins prevents the order picking flow

• Unable to cross-dock items from one warehouse to another before the supply is depleted in the requesting warehouse

SKUSavvy is a full-fledged warehouse management system for small and medium-sized enterprises. It is designed to help companies transition from simpler systems and paper-based systems that may be holding them back. We handle the needs of companies who are growing rapidly or simply realize the need for a more technically capable system. That said, here are the core capabilities we can help with:

• Role based task assignment and permissions for users throughout the software

• Product management to handle details and multiple units of measurement

• Automated purchase order creation and sending to vendors

• Automated PO approval process from vendors with real-time tracking

• Allow vendors to pay, and get paid from customers through an interactive portal

• Lead-time prediction using a rolling average between the time a PO was placed, and when it was received

• Product check-in

• Automated reporting for differences in the PO received vs. ordered quantities

• Product allocation to bin locations throughout the warehouse based on a similar product within other bins

• Visual warehouse layout with an interactive map of every position within your warehouse

• Automated replenishment between pick bins and different units of measurement

• Cross-docking between multiple warehouses initiated internally between teams

• Field sales capability to view pricing and availability of product via any mobile device for mobile sales fleets

• Order management to bring down orders from eCommerce sites and other marketplaces

• Batching of orders for picking in the most efficient manner around the warehouse

• Order packaging according to batches of similar products

• Automated shipping address validation

• Automated shipping rate shopping and purchase

• Print multiple shipping labels at once to fulfill multiple orders at once

• Box sizing suggestions to effectively guide employees toward the right materials to package with

• Returns management with different return address capability

• Automated tracking updates for your customers

Bulk upload products: this process should be done within Shopify currently since SKUSavvy does not support bulk uploads directly. These products will come into SKUSavvy in moments

Bulk upload inventory: since SKUSavvy relies on a visual warehouse management style each item coming into the warehouse should be added manually to a bin location. Bin locations can be as broad or specific as needed.

Product movement can be made directly from one bin to another bin with a bin-to-bin transfer. You can also modify the physical location of the bin at any time on the warehouse layout editor.

New bins can be created within the layout at any time to turn one space into multiple for additional lot locations within the same bay for instance.

Yes, products hold variants and a variant can have an assigned UOM which can be allocated to bin locations, picked from, and replenished to other bin locations. Go within a product to assign a unit of measure as an option on the variant.

This is a new feature coming to SKUSavvy which will enable you to quickly print barcodes on the fly during check-in, inventory adjustments, and picking/shipping

You should have all products barcoded. SKUSavvy can generate barcodes that are recognized system-wide if you don't already have barcodes.

Within SKUSavvy, pick sheets are actually digital pick lists that show the product, quantity to pick, and locations within the warehouse. Currently, there is only a batch barcode that prints out which will bring you back to the batch when scanned.

If the order has not yet been picked, and it is updated the batch will reflect the new quantity to pick. If the order has already been picked, the current method to return the product is to simply scan the quantity back into the warehouse and manage the return from whichever order channel it came from.

By default orders are routed to the appropriate warehouse depending on available inventory and the location of the delivery. You can split fulfill the order across different locations with different shipments, or cross-dock the inventory from one location to another to complete the fulfillment as one.

Yes, items can have multiple bin locations within one warehouse. The only exception is that perishable items of different lots/expiration dates must be stored in different bin locations for proper traceability.