This guide explains inventory tracking with serial numbers. It is intended for general users.
To increase accountability and traceability for inventoried line items, you can track them with serial numbers. Serialized line item codes (LICs) have a unique ID for each unit and are tracked individually. This is often helpful for expensive products or items that are unique, in spite of being the same model as other items (e.g. computers). They often come with their own warranty or maintenance constraints, sometimes linked to the date of purchase. Serialized tracking also helps you easily review all inventory transactions for each item.
Because serial numbers may be quite long, using barcodes and scanning software can be helpful. These tools both speed up the data entry and help prevent error from typos (e.g. transposing numbers or mistaking letters, such as "1I1" being entered as "111").
Enabling Serial Tracking
This setting must be put into place before you begin using the LIC (e.g. when you first create the LIC record). The Serialized tracking flag cannot be marked after other records are linked to the LIC (e.g. sales orders, GJ/GL entries, inventory transactions, etc).
On the detail view for a new inventoried item or inventoried assembly item, navigate to the Inventory Management tab. In the Inventory Setup section, mark the Serialized flag.
Additionally, the Next Serial field can help streamline things when your serialized inventory will have a continuing sequence of serial numbers. You can enter the next-expected serial number in this field. When you receive shipments that include this LIC, aACE will auto-populate this serial number for the first item, then auto-generate additional serial numbers for any additional items. The Next Serial field will then be updated to show the next number for expected use.
Note: Serial numbers with less than 5-digits will have leading zeroes appended.
Receiving Serialized Inventory
When you receive a shipment that includes LICs marked for Serialized tracking, the Shipping Log module's Packing List section displays the serial tracking Ref #s icon (
) for each serialized LIC. To receive the shipment, the system requires you to enter the serial numbers from the incoming units. Click the Ref #s icon to display the Serials popup:
You can enter serial numbers in several ways:
- Type in individual numbers separated by commas, semicolons, or carriage returns
Note: aACE converts carriage returns to a comma-separated list. - Type in a span of numbers (e.g. 1000...1009)
- Copy-paste a list of numbers (e.g. from a spreadsheet)
- Scan individual units with a barcode scanner
After you save the required serial numbers, the Ref #s icon is highlighted (
) and you can finish receiving the shipment.
Tracking Inventory Lots
For serialized products, the Inventory Lots module also shows the Serialized flag marked. The list view displays the reference numbers, so you can search the lots by serial number.
The details view provides more information. Serial numbers are listed in the Reference #s field and the Ref #s icon is highlighted (
). You can click that icon to display a popup with details about which serial numbers have been allocated to orders and which are remaining.
Shipping Serialized Inventory
When you ship serialized products for an order, the Shipping Log's Packing List section displays the Ref #s icon (
). You can edit the shipment and save changes; however, aACE will not allow you to mark the shipment as shipped until you click the Ref #s icon to display the Serials Selector dialog, then specify a serial number for each serialized item.
Handling Returns for Serialized Inventory
Beyond the regular steps for making inventory adjustments for returned product, adjustments for serialized items require additional details.