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- Food & Beverage ERP
- Features
- Inventory & shelf life
Inventory & shelf life
Give production and shipping a dependable view of what they can use. Follow ingredient, packaging and finished-product stock by company, warehouse, lot and identifiable portion, with current holds, reservations and shelf-life requirements alongside the quantity.
OverviewCount Review Queue×
Food & Beverage ERP · Inventory & shelf life
New
Count Review Queue
Approval conditions
| Count number | Warehouse | Counter | Policy | Lock | Planned end | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IC-53846 | Cedar Road chilled depot | Rina Choudhury | Allergen segregation policy, 2026 | Cedar Road chilled bay lock | 18 Oct | |
| IC-23849 | Bayfield dispatch center | Rina Choudhury | Batch trace response policy, 2026 | Orchard Lane bottle count lock | 04 Nov | |
| IC-30963 | North Mill dry goods store | Nadia Ibrahim | Shelf life release policy, 2026 | North Mill oats rack count lock | 11 Oct | |
| IC-41654 | Orchard Lane packaging site | Grace Okafor | Warehouse count policy, 2026 | South Fork overflow rack lock | 24 Oct | |
| IC-85484 | West Creek ingredient store | Asha Patel | Incoming ingredient policy, 2026 | South Fork overflow rack lock | 27 Oct |
6 of 6 records
Cedar Road chilled depotInventory counts · IC-53846
Pending reviewCounterRina Choudhury
PolicyAllergen segregation policy, 2026
LockCedar Road chilled bay lock
Planned end18 Oct
What you can do
See stock at its actual location
Inventory positions describe current physical custody. Cost layers retain the carrying value associated with that stock, while stock events preserve actual receipts, movements, issues and corrections. Historical receipts remain useful provenance without being added to the current balance again.
Staged materials are still inventory until actual production issue. Issued resources belong to the batch’s WIP and are reconciled there. Goods away in transfer remain separately identifiable in owned transit, with their departure quantity and value preserved until actual destination receipt or an approved resolution.
Keep partial lots identifiable
Lot portions distinguish containers or other exact subpopulations that can receive different decisions. A partial release makes only its identifiable quantity eligible; the rest of the supplier or manufacturing lot retains its own position.
An internal split preserves the external lot identity and source. Opening part of a delivery records the affected population and its opening evidence while unopened goods keep their prior dates. Actual issues, transfers, returns and shipments retain those immutable population references.
Overlapping holds remain effective until every applicable restriction is resolved. Moving a container to another bin or retaining an order reservation does not remove its hold. Existing claims remain traceable and blocked while the team resolves the restriction.
Apply the right shelf-life rule
Reviewed policies distinguish manufacture, receipt, best-before, expiry and first-opening evidence. Timezone and cutoff rules make the actual eligibility boundary explicit, including how missing required dates are handled.
Expiry and applicable open-life deadlines block use and shipment. Best-before treatment and customer minimum remaining life follow their approved policies. The customer check uses the agreed delivery date, so a rescheduled delivery can require a new lot selection even when an earlier allocation was suitable.
| Checkpoint | What is reconsidered |
|---|---|
| Reserve | Current eligible stock, active claims and customer requirements |
| Issue | Actual population, holds and time of use |
| Pack | Selected material, packaging and current eligibility |
| Hand over | Actual shipment scope, current dates and agreed delivery basis |
Quality Manager independently reviews supported date corrections or extensions with evidence and retained history. Repacking and relabeling preserve prior age; a changed date alone does not establish fitness.
Move and reserve without losing ownership
Reservations distinguish available quantity from stock already claimed for a customer or batch. Converting a soft claim to a hard claim replaces its earlier state; picking then carries that ownership through the physical work.
Warehouse Manager independently authorizes protected transfers and stock decisions. Warehouse Operator records actual handling and partial destination receipt. A short or uncertain transfer remains unresolved at its real location rather than becoming a complete receipt at both ends.
Manual or imported storage observations retain their actual time, source and affected scope. Deviations feed the appropriate quality review and hold; recording an observation is distinct from operating a sensor or controlling storage equipment.
Count and correct the right population
A physical count locks the scoped warehouse positions and compares actual stock with the retained identity and version snapshot. Away transit and issued WIP are reconciled separately from a floor count.
Independent Warehouse Manager reviews adjustments. Discovered or changed identities, held or committed stock and above-value differences require the additional Finance Manager review and known cost specified by policy. Quantity and percentage tolerance tests remain distinct; an expected-zero discovery needs explicit review.
Bring returns back under control
Customer returns preserve the original shipment and issue-cost lineage and enter the required quality hold before reuse. Supplier returns remove the current carrying of the actual receipt descendants sent back. Physical disposition, commercial credit and cash refund remain separate decisions.
Consumed, shipped or otherwise committed descendants must be traced before a correction. Restoring quantity at an exhausted source would conceal the performed work. Lot Availability and Shelf Life shows current eligibility, while the allocation and dispatch process follows that stock through actual handover.
What it keeps track of
Data model- Warehouses
- Physical sites may host segregated entity-owned positions; legal owner stays on each position.
- Locations
- Shallow warehouse bins, staging and transit custody locations.
- Lots
- Entity/product lot identity with supplier/production provenance and independently controlled eligibility.
- Lot portions
- Identifiable internal lot populations with actual segregation and source-preserving splits; not independent regulatory lot codes.
- Serials
- Unique individual stock identity; same serial cannot be simultaneously stocked, consumed or delivered twice.
- Inventory positions
- Current owned stock by complete identity and custody state; provenance is not a second balance.
- Stock layers
- Remaining quantity/carrying value with receipt/output/return lineage.
- Stock events
- One immutable group of stock movements and the associated journal effect.
- Stock movements
- Signed position/layer legs; transfers balance quantity and value by SKU.
- Inventory reservations
- Exclusive bounded demand claims through picking and owned transit.
- Stock transfers
- Same-entity transfer with actual dispatch/partial receipt and retained owned transit.
- Stock transfer lines
- Partial transfer quantities retain equal in-transit ownership and cost.
- Count locks
- Time-bounded counted scope protecting all identities, including newly appearing positions.
- Inventory counts
- Blind scoped counts with explicit review and cost before adjustment.
- Count lines
- Observed base quantity and signed variance against an unchanged locked population.
- Returns
- Bounded customer/supplier physical return authorization, separate from commercial credits.
- Return lines
- Exact original commercial/stock scope and actual returned quantities.
- Return dispositions
- Independent actual goods disposition without automatic credit or refund.
- Shelf life policies
- Versioned product-specific shelf, opening and remaining-life rules with explicit evidence and date meaning.
- Lot date events
- Immutable scoped manufacture, received, opening and date-decision evidence; current dates are controlled projections.
- Storage observations
- Actual manual or imported condition observations with bounded place/time/population coverage.
Who uses it
Permissions- Warehouse Operator
- Records actual custody, movements, counts and authorized physical dispositions.
- Warehouse Manager
- Independently reviews stock release, transfers, returns and count adjustments.
- Quality Inspector
- Records condition evidence.
- Quality Manager
- Independently decides quality and date changes.
- Production Manager
- And Sales Coordinator follow their material or customer claims.
- Accountant
- Reconciles carrying value, with Finance Manager approving protected value changes.
Set up Food & Beverage ERP your way.
Start free, then use Proto to change fields, steps and approvals before your team goes live.