Inventory Management on Trucks

To track Inventory on Vehicles, you’ll need to do some setup in LOU.

Determine what the baseline Inventory List should be for each Vehicle.
Add Vehicles as Stock Sites
Create the Vehicle Stock Site Links

Ideally, this is a 1:1 match (Vehicle Stock Site:Vehicle)
Vehicles should not be linked to Warehouse Stock Sites

Make sure your Stock Site Selection Matrix is set up correctly. Think of it as a sentence: When Transactions are associated with Department for Document Type and contain SKUs from SKU Category being delivered to the Customer via Distribution Method, stock should come from Stock Site.

Choose *Default* when you want all Document Types, SKU Categories, and Distribution Methods for transactions from that Department to come out of that Stock Site.
Ideally, you have at least one line item per Department.
If a transaction scenario is unaccounted for in the matrix, LOU will use the Default Stock Site defined in Setup / Inventory / Stock Sites.

STOP HERE!

If you already have Vehicles set up as Stock Sites and carrying Inventory, and you want to correct or catch up management on vehicles, you need to do two things: correct Negative Quantities and get an accurate count of Inventory on those Stock Sites.

Step 1: Physical Count

Do this for each of the Vehicle Stock Sites before adding Inventory.

Step 2: Run the Negative Inventory Report.

Go to Operations / LOUs Reports / SKU Quantities by Company and choose the Negative Quantities Report Template.

This will give you an accurate look at what remaining SKUs need to be corrected either through a Stock Transfer or by creating a Purchase Order.

Inventory Baseline

Now that you’ve set everything up and corrected all current Inventory counts and quantities, you can add Inventory to the Vehicle Stock Sites to create your baseline Inventory.

Stock Transfers: For the Inventory you have on hand, but need to move to the Vehicle Stock Sites, perform a Stock Transfer. LOU doesn’t have a mass transfer feature, so you will need to do this SKU-by-SKU, one Stock Site at a time.
Purchase Orders: For Inventory that you do not have on hand, you’ll need to create Purchase Orders, place orders with your Vendors, and then Receive Inventory into those Vehicle Stock Sites.

Day to Day

Once you’ve got Inventory set up where you want it for your trucks, these tips will help you maintain it.

Use Transfer Inventory to Vehicles every day.

This feature allows you to create Pick Lists and initiate Stock Transfers to your Vehicle Stock Sites by the Vehicle for the day. This process will help ensure the SKUs for the day are on the Vehicles and prevent negatives from happening.
This will help initiate the transfer to “restock” that Inventory baseline after SKUs are used the previous day.

Maintain a regular schedule for Physical Counts

Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly – whatever frequency makes sense to you. Just make sure it’s done routinely and more often than once a year or once in a while.

Use Review & Invoice at the end of the day or the beginning of the next for the previous day’s work.

This allows you to quickly review orders and look at Outcomes, send Door Hangers, etc.

Never invoice into negative. When you click Invoice, if you see the warning message that doing so will create a negative quantity do not click OK. Instead, cancel and resolve the quantity in the stock site and then invoice.
Use the Inventory Replenishment tile often to be aware of how SKUs are moving through your company and be able to make necessary transfers, adjustments, or purchases to keep things positive.