Tracking Serial, Lot, and Batch Numbers

Synopsis:

• What are Lot, Serial, and Batch numbers?
• How can I manage Lot,serial or batch numbers through the product life cycle including purchasing, selling, or manufacturing?
• How do I track Batch, serial or lot number history?

 Webinar transcript

APT University: Tracking Serial, Lot, and Batch Numbers

Preset notes: Make slides, enable both lot and batch

Hi there everyone, Welcome to AdvancePro University. Today we’ll be discussing our Lot, Serial, and Batch tracking capabilities.

Slide 1

We’re going to cover Setup and how to set your Products to require lot and serial numbers or batch numbers

We’re going to cover Receiving and shipping, as well as how to register lot numbers for any product currently in your warehouse.

Slide 2

So first, what are these Lot, Serial, and batch numbers

Lets start at the high Level with a SKU

A SKU stands for stock Keeping unit, so this number gets applied to all of your products in a particular model, so if you sell alarm clocks or engine parts for example, the SKU identifies ALL of those items, some people will also refer to this as a Part number – and part numbers can also apply to finished goods.

Next we’ll discuss Lot Numbers – A Lot number gets assigned to a group of products that were, for instance, manufactured on the same day., these are usually used for expiration and recall management. So you might have thousands of alarm clocks, but only 500 for example that are in the same lot.

A Batch number is similar to a lot number, the difference is, in AdvancePro, the Lot number refers to something whole that you use up as a whole unit, like an alarm clock, where the batch number refers to something you might use up bit by bit, like a peice of raw steel, or food by the pound. Another reason you might use batches in AdvancePro is the ability to use custom fields.

The Serial number refers to one unique unit, and that might have a lot number too. So now we’re talking about a specific alarm clock or engine part. So can potentially have a SKU, a Lot, and a serial being tracked for any single item.

Slide 3

So what do we use these numbers for?

There are lots of reasons you might use these numbers, some of the more common ones are:

Tracking Warranties
Managing Recalls
Tracking scheduled service times
Complying with Food/Medical safety regulations

So now Lets move to AdvancePro and discuss how advancepro uses lot, serial, or batch tracking. Today we’ll be focusing on purchasing and sales, so if you’re interested in seeing it work for manufacturing, please take a look at our previous videos on manufacturing at advanceprotech.com under the resources tab.

Once we’ve enabled the lot and serial module, we can go to View all products, choose the product we want to start tracking, and click the E button to edit it,

Now we’re going to the serial number tab, and we can see all the serial numbers associated with this product, if we are missing any stock, we can choose the warehouse, and Clock the LS button to add serial numbers, You’ll see this popup whenever a new serial or lot number is being entered, so receiving, manufacturing and entering the serial for the finished product, or performing a positive inventory adjustment.

So here we can simply enter a lot number and a quantity to create lot only, or we can define a list of serial numbers – if they’re sequential we just put in the start and finish numbers.

We can also assign a expiration and manufacture date, and we can scan these fields in manually, or we can enter them using an excel import instead.

Now when we click verify and update stock that’s going to enter these serial numbers or lot numbers or both into our records. You’ll notice here there’s a quantity to assign, you can’t create more serial numbers than items so you’re prevented from entering a quantity higher than this.

Next we’ll cover batch, you’ll see it as a separate tab here, depending on your settings you might only see one or the other.

So batch creation is very similar, you assign a batch number, put in a quantity, and you can assign expiration, mfg and expiration notice dates. You can also fill out custom fields. One nice thing is you’ll see a colored indictor which allows you to know what has past the expiration notice date, and what has fully expired.

The last tab in this area is for locking this product so that it requires either lot or batch tracking, once you enable this setting, the item must have a serial number assigned in order to do anything with it in AdvancePro.

So what does tracing look like in your workflow??

Lot numbers are always entered or assigned during the warehouse phase

So if we go to receive an order you’ll see that LS button, you can mark how many are being received and then create your lot, serial, or batch numbers.

If we go to pick, pack, or ship, you mark down how many are being shipped, and then you can choose your lot number serial number, or batch number from a list and assign it.

If you are manufacturing, this is done for the components to know which ones were used and for the finished good to create the new lot, serial, or batch number.

So Finally I would like to cover how to track activity.

There are two relevant reports I’m going to touch on,

The first is the track built serial numbers report, this one is available under the manufacturing heading report, and it allows you to see which serial numbers came from which work orders, then you can jump back into the work order to see what happned.

The other report is the Serial and lot report, and you’ll also see the batch report

This report is going to give you a record of each item with a lot or serial, or similar with the batch number, which Vendor order it came in on (if you assigned it when receiving), which customer order it went out on (if it has been shipped). It can also track customer returns, and vendor returns, as well as work orders and disassembly orders that it is linked to.

It also tells you the customer name if it is out with a customer.

So this concludes our brief tour of AdvancePro’s lot and serial number tracking.