Within Dynamics, a Default Bin can be assigned to an item for each Site. This is ideal when all of your items have a single designated location within your warehouse or stockroom. From the Panatracker mobile interface, this bin designation will be displayed for the user (read only). There are no transactions associated to the bin level with this setup. In other words, you will not be moving the item form the designated bin to another bin. This also doesn’t support keeping track of the item in other physical locations within your site.
By enabling multi-bins in GP (under Inventory>>Setup>>Inventory Control), you will enable the ability to set up multiple bin locations for your site and provide the flexibility to maintain inventory levels for the same item in multiple locations.
Other bin set up options also become available. You will be able to designate bins based on various transactions which include purchase receipts, sales order fulfillment (pick), returns, assembly and manufacturing issues and receipts. These can be set up on a site level or on each item. As an example, for the site, you may define a dock bin area for receiving. All items would be received to that dock bin area and then a put-away would be completed as a second step. For an item-level assignment, a sales order fulfillment default would be assigned. This would provide a directed pick.
Priority bin setup allows further definition. As an example, you may set Priority 1 the same as your Sales Order Fulfillment default as this will be the bin you primarily want to keep stock. If you have additional ‘overflow’ bin areas, they can be set as 2, 3, etc. Within the PanatrackerGP application, additional validation can be enabled on priority bins. This combination will provide support to better contain inventory stock areas to a few instead of just anywhere. Min and max quantities can also be set on each priority bin.
Multi-bin tracking provides additional location-level reporting. You will find cycle counting can now be added based on segmented areas within each site. A quick spot count can also be completed as quantities are now reported to a more finite location. Multiple bins are ideal when inventory is moved regularly within the site locations or when the same item is stocked in multiple physical areas.
Without the use of mobile and barcode technology, multiple bin tracking is difficult to manage. Once you add a solution (PanatrackerGP), enabling multi-bins will add maximum efficiency to your inventory management.
Tips for enabling multi-bins
If you are already using inventory within GP, you will need to plan and coordinate enabling of the multi-bin function. Here is a quick checklist, but we recommend you also work with your Dynamics GP partner for this process.
- Plan your bin setup. You will want a logical sort order for your bins. We often recommend spacing your numbering a bit to accommodate addition of bin areas. It may be better to start with larger areas. You can always add more bins, but it is difficult to remove existing bins later.
- Be sure all inventory transactions are posted (adjustments, site transfers). When you enable multi-bins, you will need to run an inventory reconcile and check links in GP. This will create an ‘autocreate’ bin as a default if any inventory transactions are still pending.
- When you have added your bins to GP, you can then use the PanatrackerGP application to assign your existing inventory to its bin location. We typically recommend using the bin move transaction, taking it from the autocreate bin and assigning it to the new bin setup location.
- If you have sites that won’t have multiple bin locations, you will still need a bin setup and all transactions will still require a bin assignment. Many of our customers will set up a bin that matches the same name as the site for this case.