Best way to track consumption

general
1

I have multiple warehouses and would like to track inventory consumption to a job number so when I run a report I can see everything that was used on a particular job number.

What is the best way to set this up?
How can I show inventory consumed on a job number?

2

Hey @Mark

Great question.

A few questions so I can make sure I provide a suitable implementation.

  • Can you provide a concrete example of a “job” that consumes inventory?
  • Is this for manufacturing (i.e. the process yields some new product at the end) or do you just need to send the material to a black hole?
  • Do you consume the same products each time i.e. the quantities may vary but the products (BoM) is the same each time you run that particular job.
  • Do you have several different jobs / processes that consume different material?

Justin

3

I’ll try my best.

We are using Open Boxes to track inventory which will be used for installs.

  • Warehouse has 1 widget in inventory.
  • Widget is used at a Customer’s house Job # 01.

How do I show the inventory being removed from the warehouse and it is now installed on Job #01?

Sometimes we use the same materials for each install, sometimes we use different items. Maybe I’m trying to use Open Boxes in a way that it was not meant to be used.

Would Job #01 need to be a location type or a warehouse?

4

Would Job #01 need to be a location type or a warehouse?

So yeah I would create a location type for the type of job (i.e. Widget X Installation Job) and a location for each new installation job (or use the customer name and/or address if that doesn’t need to be de-identified). You can also use Location Groups to group based locations on some other attribute you care about (e.g. customer type). The downside to this approach would be that you’d have to create a new location for each job. However, this shouldn’t be all that time-consuming.

How do I show the inventory being removed from the warehouse and it is now installed on Job #01?

Once you have recorded inventory for the item and created the destination location where the item will be sent, then you can use the Stock Movement feature to move the item to the destination.

Sometimes we use the same materials for each install, sometimes we use different items.

The reason I asked about the materials is because we have two features, that with some customizations, that allow you to define a list of products (and quantities) that can be used to prepopulate a Stock Movement. One is Bill of Materials, the other is called Stocklists. If you’re interested, I can explain those features and what customizations they’d need to support your use case.

Maybe I’m trying to use Open Boxes in a way that it was not meant to be used.

I wouldn’t say this is a use case we designed around, but the software should be able to handle it. And, as I mentioned above, we can add some customizations to make your specific processes easier.

One question I have … do you also handle maintenance and repair of these installed widgets? If so, the product we’re probably moving towards asset management and less on consumption, but since we don’t support that yet we can leave that discussion for another time.

I’ll work on recording a video to show you how I think you could implement this use case.

5

So here’s how I would probably implement your use case.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Lt-LiQzpCBIfkZELezM4CSZ3balKHB4U/view

6

Thanks for the video and the help. Instead of tracking the consumption to the job number or customer address we decided to only track it to the employees warehouse on wheels (Their truck). I think this is as far as we need to go tracking the inventory at this point.

Widget A -> Warehouse A -> Truck A

Thanks for the quick response.