Bin Management

You can use bin management to identify places in your warehouse where you store inventory items. Bins help you track on-hand quantities within a warehouse. Tracking items by bins can help organize receiving items and simplify picking items to fulfill orders.

For example, if you use bins, when you receive a purchase order, the order provides which bin to put the items away in. Then, your stock level of that item in that bin is tracked.

When you enter the item on a sale, you can specify the bin to pull the item from based on available quantities. This helps warehouse employees know exactly where to go to find the quantity of items they need when picking and fulfilling an order. They also know exactly what items need to be put away, or stocked, and where, after they are received from vendors.

There are two NetSuite features for bin management:

Bin Management – A basic means of tracking inventory in bins. This feature requires that you associate bins with items before you can use bins on transactions. This feature does not allow using bins with serialized and lot numbered items or on a per-location basis.

Read Basic Bin Management.
Advanced Bin / Numbered Inventory Management – An enhanced version of tracking bins, including for serial numbered and lot numbered items and on a per-location basis. Using this feature, you are not required to pre-associate bins with items to use bins on transactions. Also, you can associate bins with serialized and lot numbered items or use bins on a per-location basis.

Read Advanced Bin / Numbered Inventory Management.

The information in the following sections apply whether you use the Bin Management or the Advanced Bin / Numbered Inventory Management features.

Note:

Some sections below mention various preferences available to be used with bins. To learn more, see Setting Bin Preferences.

Putting Away Items in Bins

To put away an item immediately, you can edit the quantities placed in each bin. If you set the Use Preferred Bin on Item Receipts preference, all items are placed in the preferred bin for that location by default.

To put away an item later, set the quantity for the preferred bin to zero. The item is included with the preferred bin number on the putaway sheet.

Read more in the topic Bin Putaway Worksheet.

Receiving with Bins

When a purchase order or customer return is received, bin numbers are included on the following transactions:

Cash Refunds
Credit Card purchases
Checks
Vendor Bills
Inventory Adjustments
Inventory Transfers

Bins on Sales

When a sales order is placed by a customer, the bin numbers are included on the following transactions:

Picking tickets
Item fulfillments
Invoices

After an item is added to one or more bins, you can transfer items between bins, if needed. For more information, read Bin Transfers.

Important:

If you use the Bin Management and the Multi-Location Inventory features, you must either use bins in all locations or in no locations.

When you use bins with Bin Management, all locations must have at least one bin. If you use the Advanced Bin / Numbered Inventory Management and the Multi-Location Inventory features, you can use bins on a per-location basis. Any location that uses bins must have at least one bin.

Bins on Picking Tickets

Your employees can print the picking tickets to automatically find the bins for the items needed to fill the order. Bins are included on a picking ticket using the following logic:

If the preferred bin has sufficient quantity to pick item, only the preferred bin is printed on the picking ticket.
If you need multiple bins to meet the item quantity, each bin is listed on the picking ticket, with the preferred bin listed first.
If the preferred bin has zero quantity, and no other bin has quantity to pick all items, bins appear in order of descending quantity.
Only bins with quantity greater than or equal to the quantity ordered are printed on the picking ticket.
A Bin Number column is only included on a picking ticket if the ticket includes items with associated bin numbers.

A picker can pull a quantity from a bin different from what is listed on the picking ticket. However, the picker should edit the quantity taken from each bin on the item fulfillment page.

Data Per Bin

Using either bins feature, item costing is not calculated per bin. Only on-hand quantity is tracked per bin. Available, committed, backordered, and ordered quantities are also not tracked per bin.

Specifying Bins on Transactions

Bins are required on all cash sales, invoices, and negative inventory adjustments with bin items. This is true with any state of the Require Bins on All Transactions Except Item Receipts preference.

For example, you enter a cash sale with a bin item that specifies a location. The item is required to have at least one bin in that location. Also, when you enter an inventory adjustment, any line that deducts a quantity of an item that uses bins will require a bin.

When you edit an existing sale transaction that has a bin item but no bin specified, bins must be specified on the transaction.

If you do not specify a bin, you see the notice: “The number of bins entered (0) is not equal to the item quantity (x)”.

Note:

NetSuite does not require bins on positive adjustments or purchases because you can use a Bin Putaway Worksheet later. This is true unless the Require Bins on All Transactions Except Item Receipts preference is enabled.

Bins and Assembly Items

If you use the Assembly Items feature, you must designate a bin for any component item in a build which uses bins. If a parent assembly item uses bins, you must designate a bin for that item to unbuild it.

You are not required to designate a bin for a member item in an unbuild or for an assembly item in a build. This is true unless the Require Bins on All Transactions Except Item Receipts preference is enabled.

Putting Away Items in Bins

Receiving with Bins

Bins on Sales

Bins on Picking Tickets

Data Per Bin

Specifying Bins on Transactions

Bins and Assembly Items

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