Batches, serial numbers and a recall in one search

A supermarket in Mirdif gets the call every owner dreads: a batch of baby formula is recalled. The supplier gives the batch number. The shop has the product on the shelf, more in the back store, and a carton that went to the second branch yesterday. Some tins were sold last week.

Without batch tracking across locations, the answer is an afternoon of opening cartons. With it, it is one search.

Batches that travel with their expiry and cost

When goods are received with their batch and expiry, the batch stays attached to them everywhere they go. A transfer from the back store to the shop floor carries the batch, its expiry date and its cost. When you pick for a transfer, scanned batches go first, then the ones that expire first, so the oldest stock moves first.

Serial numbers, one by one

A mobile phone shop in Deira sells handsets that each have their own serial (IMEI). In Settings → Warehouses you mark the categories that are serial-tracked, phones and appliances for example. Their products are then received serial by serial, and a serial already in stock is refused: the same handset cannot be received twice, by mistake or otherwise.

When a phone moves to another branch, its serial is scanned at the pick and at the receiving, so you always know which handset is where.

A recall in one search

Search a batch or a serial and CreekPOS shows:

• every location that holds it, and how many;
• every transfer carrying it, still on the way;
• the receipts it was sold on.

So you pull the tins from the shelf and the store, stop the carton in transit, and know which customers bought it. The owner can also ask from the phone, in Ask your shop: "where is batch L2405?".

Counts and expiry, location by location

Each location can be counted on its own (all of it, one category or one bin), blind for staff by default, with a manager approving the difference. The expiry dates of the batches in each location feed the same expiry list you already use, so the back store's short-dated stock does not hide behind the shop floor's.

Batches, serials and recall are part of Warehouses: included in Online Restaurant and Chain, and an add-on for Online Retail at AED 49 a month before VAT. Read the ERP page and the manual section.