Manage Stock By Warehouse Pros & Cons

[Former Member]

Hello

i'm looking for addvice on weather to stop managing stock by warehouse i am aware it effects things like MRP and maximum and minimum stock levels can only be set globally but what i would like to know is?

How are costs effected?

Do we have to update costs for all warehouses when doing a price change?

Is updating costs easier?

Thanks

Marc

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Marc

The main purpose for this setting is to determine how the system treats the warning when going below minimum stock. If it is critical for each warehouse to be checked individually, then this should be ticked. The major factor is whether or not it will be accurate to set this across warehouses. Bear in mind that 1 warehouse may have negative and another positive and across warehouses the nett effect is positive, therefore the minimum check will pass. But if this is set per warehouse, it would fail on the warehouse that is in negative.

May I ask why there are over 100 warehouses? This sounds a little crazy? I know there is a customer in South Africa with over 300 warehouses and his Database is growing so rapidly that a backup takes almost 3 hours to run currently.

Kind regards

Peter Juby

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Peter,

sorry for the delay Peter i've been out of the office. The reason for the amount of warehouses is that we are using them as locations at the request of accounts i think the size of our database doubled when we did it (we used to have 5).

Thanks

Marc

Edited by: Rui Pereira on Dec 9, 2008 6:00 PM

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Marc,

Peter has already given you clear answer to your question. Once the initial setting is there, there is no way to go back to change.

Only one thing could be a little help: if you checked Auto. Add All Warehouses to New Items , it can be unchecked.

Thanks,

Gordon

[Former Member]

Hi Marc

Thanks for the response. The problem with setting Item Cost per Warehouse is that the moving average or FIFO is now set per warehouse and cannot be changed. Changing Manage Inventory per Warehouse will have little effect as this only determines how the minimum & maximum stock levels are calculated. Costing is the issue here, and I am afraid you are stuck with it by warehouse. The only time a cost will differ from one warehouse to another, is if a Receipt document such as GRPO has a different cost for any of the warehouses. Also when doing transfers by using issues and receipts, you could add "extra costs" to these warehouses such as delivery and insurance costs, by changing the unit price.

So the answer to your questions are as follows:

How are costs effected? Answered above

Do we have to update costs for all warehouses when doing a price change? No, but might be necessary as each warehouse could have a different cost and selling prices based on cost would be impacted. Also depends how your price lists are configured. Becomes difficult to decide which warehouse price to use as a basis. Also consider the impact on Cost of Sales from different warehouses.

Is updating costs easier? Would be if the Item Cost per Warehouse was not set, unfortunately in your case it is limited to how you manage the costs per warehouse in receipts.

The problem when implementing SAP Business One is that customers are seldom aware of what the Basic Initialization settings affect in the system and the fact that some cannot be changed once the first transaction is processed. Such is the case with the Manage Item Cost per Warehouse option. Depending on the number of warehouses you have, it could be simple to keep in synch or become a nightmare.

Hope the above answers your questions.

Kind regards

Peter Juby

[Former Member]

thanks for the answer Peter,

the reason i asked the original question is we have around 100 warehouses set up as we are using them as locations so updating prices can take a very long time even when using the DTW and what we was hoping was by taking off manage stock by warehouse it would make our life easier.

In your opinion is it better to have manage stock by warehouse (in the item master) switched on or off?

Thanks

Marc

[Former Member]

Hi Marc

First a few questions to understand what you have configured.

1. Are you using item cost per warehouse defined under Administration > System Initialization > Company details > Basic Initialization TAB? If so, then the cost at warehouse level option can not be changed after the first transaction is posted in the system.

2. Are you only using the tick box under Inventory Data TAB of Item Master called Manage Inventory by Warehouse?

3. Under Administration > System Initialization > Document Settings > General TAB, have you ticked the Manage Inventory by Warehouse box?

It is important to understand your exact setup before attempting to answer your questions.

Kind regards

Peter Juby

[Former Member]

Hi Peter

1. basic initialisation - default valuation method is standard,

manage item cost per warehouse is ticked and greyed out

allow stock release with out cost is ticked

2. yes

3. this is not ticked

hopefully these answers wher what you are looking for

Thanks

Marc