Location Hierarchy

Stock always sits in a bin. Everything above the bin exists to help a person find it.

Warehouse
└── Zone
    └── Aisle
        └── Rack
            └── Shelf
                └── Bin

A bin belongs to a warehouse. The four levels between them are optional. A warehouse with ten bins and no zones is a valid warehouse.

Build only the levels your team says out loud. If nobody says “rack 3”, you do not need racks.

The levels

Level	What it is	Fields it carries
Warehouse	One building or site. Almost everything else belongs to one.	Code, name
Zone	A named area, such as receiving or bulk storage	Code, name, warehouse
Aisle	A walkway between racks. The main aid for an operator on the floor.	Code, name, warehouse, zone
Rack	One racking unit in an aisle	Code, name, warehouse, aisle
Shelf	One horizontal level of a rack. The level number gives the height.	Code, name, level, warehouse, rack
Bin	The smallest address. Stock lives here.	Code, name, type, warehouse, shelf

Every level below the warehouse carries the warehouse itself, and it is required. The parent named last in each row is the optional one.

Bin types

A bin has one of four types. The type decides which flow can use the bin.

Type on the form	Value in the data	What it holds
Storage Bin	STORAGE	Real stock on a shelf or on the floor. You create these.
Receiving Bin	RECEIVING_BIN	Goods that arrived and wait for put-away
Outbound Bin	DISPATCH_BIN	Goods reserved for a shipment and waiting to leave. The outbound screens call it the dispatch bin.
Transit Bin	IN_TRANSIT	Goods that left one warehouse and have not arrived at the next

The app creates one bin of each of the last three types when you create a warehouse. It names them Receiving Bin, Dispatch Bin, and In Transit. You can add more, but the app refuses to delete the last one of a type, because the receive, dispatch, and transfer flows need it.

Note

Outbound reserve draws stock from storage bins only. Stock that sits in a receiving, outbound, or transit bin is already inside a flow, so a second flow cannot take it.

An example layout

Warehouse: Main DC
├── Receiving Bin      (created with the warehouse)
├── Dispatch Bin       (created with the warehouse)
├── In Transit         (created with the warehouse)
└── Zone: BULK
    ├── Aisle: A
    │   └── Rack: A-01
    │       ├── Shelf level 1  →  Bin: A-01-01
    │       └── Shelf level 2  →  Bin: A-01-02
    └── Aisle: B
        └── Rack: B-01
            └── Shelf level 1  →  Bin: B-01-01

Deleting a location

You can delete a storage bin. You cannot delete a bin that the stock ledger refers to, because the ledger must keep its history. Move the stock out first, and keep the bin if it ever held stock.

To create these records, see Managing Locations.