Lot and Expiry Control
OpenBoxes has a feature that requires lot and expiration information to be entered for select products.
This feature is very helpful for inventory management, particularly for items where lot and expiration information is critical such as drugs or perishable products. Once this feature is enabled for a particular product, users are required to enter lot and expiry information before they can proceed with some transactions.
This page is focused on providing an overview of the lot and expiry control feature. For additional information on activating lot and expiry control for an item, please see Enabling lot and expiry control.
As noted above, the lot and expiry control feature is quite useful for the inventory management of critical products. OpenBoxes facilitate this by guiding users to enter lot and expiration information. Once the lot and expiry control feature is activated, OpenBoxes will validate whether lot and expiration information is included in key transactions, and alert users when its missing.
This feature is most pronounced in workflows involving inbound movements, receiving products, and inventory adjustments such as recording stock. To see this feature in action, we’ve profiled some examples below.
Lot and Expiry Validation on Inbound Movements
Let’s suppose that lot and expiry control is activated for item 10043 and we need to create an inbound stock movement to resupply our depot. We follow the inbound stock movement workflow and create an inbound with qty of 5,000 and attempt to leave the ‘Add Items’ page before entering our lot and expiry information. The validation step in OpenBoxes will alert us to the missing information. We can see that the lot and expiry boxes are outlined in red and a message is displayed alerting me to the issue when I point to those fields.
In order to proceed, we need to enter the missing lot and expiration information. After entering these details, we’ve met the requirement and can move into the remainder of the workflow by hitting the ‘Next’ button.
The example above focused on the creation of a inbound stock movement without a purchase order. However, if we create our inbound shipment directly from a purchase order, there will also be a validation step in that workflow. While the view looks slightly different from our previous example, OpenBoxes will continue to highlight areas that need lot and expiry information to be entered if the feature is enabled. Once the lot and expiry information are added, users can proceed to the next stage of the workflow.
Lot and Expiry Validation on Recording Stock
Let’s suppose lot and expiry control continues to be activated for item 10043 and we need to make an inventory adjustment by recording stock. We can get to this workflow by selecting ‘Record Stock’ from the electronic stock card. For this example, let’s add a new line item. I’ve selected a bin location and quantity, but left the lot and expiration fields empty. When we attempt to save this new entry, the validation once again alerts us that we haven’t entered lot and expiration information, and that it is required to proceed.
After meeting the requirement by entering the lot and expiry information, we are able to proceed and record stock for this item. Hit ‘Save’ to complete the transaction. Because we met the requirement for lot and expiry information to be included for this item, our record was created and we are taken back to the stock card.