Locations

Locations are the places where you store inventory that can be used to fulfil orders. A location can be a warehouse, a retail store, or any other place you hold stock.

Locations are available on plans with Locations enabled. You can open the Locations page from the Preferences menu.

The Locations page

The page lists the locations in your store. Each row shows the location's name, address and whether its inventory is available for sale online.

At the top of the list you can see how many locations you are using and how many your plan allows. Drag a location by its handle to change the order in which locations are used to fulfil orders.

For each location you can:

• click the row to edit its name and address,
• click the gear icon to configure pickup and local delivery,
• click Disable to stop using it, or Enable to use it again, or
• click the trash icon to delete it.

Adding a location

Click Add a Location, enter the location's details, then click Create Location. A location records:

• Location Name — a name such as "Main Warehouse".
• Inventory at this location is available for sale online — when ticked, the stock at this location can be used to fulfil online orders.
• Point of Sale Location — link this location to the matching location in your Point of Sale system so inventory stays in sync. This is only shown when a Point of Sale system is connected.
• Address — the location's street address, city, state, country and postal code.
• Phone and Email — the location's contact details.

The default location

The default location is used when no other location is specified. Only locations whose inventory is available for sale online can be set as the default. The store owner can change the default location at the bottom of the Locations page.

Unavailable inventory

Each location tracks four kinds of stock that are on hand but can't be sold. You manage them from the Locations section of the Edit Variation window: click the Unavailable quantity for a location to open the breakdown.

The four reasons are:

• Damaged — stock that is damaged and can't be sold as-is.
• Quality Control — stock that is waiting for a quality check before it can be sold.
• Safety Stock — stock held back as a buffer to guard against overselling.
• Other — anything else that is on hand but not for sale.

For the selected reason you can:

• Move from Available — set stock aside from the location's available stock. On hand does not change.
• Return to Available — put the stock back on sale. On hand does not change.
• Add unrecorded stock — record stock that is physically present but was not in the system. On hand increases.
• Remove / dispose — remove stock that is no longer physically present. On hand decreases.

Use Move from Available to create a safety-stock buffer. Use Add unrecorded stock only when the units really exist but have not been counted.

On hand is the total physical stock at the location: Available + Committed + Unavailable. The History link in the same window shows recent adjustments, including who made them and why.

Order allocation

When an online order is placed, Spiffy Stores decides which location fulfils each item. Only locations that are enabled and available for sale online are considered. The store owner can choose how the location is chosen at the bottom of the Locations page:

• Default location first — prefer the default location.
• Most stock — prefer the location holding the most stock.
• Location priority order — use the order of the locations in the list.
• Closest to customer — prefer the location closest to the customer.

Tick Minimise splits to prefer a single location that can fulfil the whole order, even if it ranks lower.

If no single location can cover the quantity ordered for an item, the order is split across locations: the units are drawn from the other online locations in the order the locations are listed, and each location's stock is reduced by the units it supplies. The Committed figure for each location then shows only the units that location still has to ship.

Bundles are always fulfilled from one location, so a bundle that no single location can cover is not split.

Pickup orders are never split: the customer collects the units from the store they chose, so an item that the pickup location cannot cover is not fulfilled from another location.

A split line shows the units coming from each location in the order's Location column, so you can see what to pick from where. The order is packed as one parcel per location, and each location is shipped and tracked separately, so an order can have more than one shipment. Shipping an order creates one shipment per location, each with its own tracking number, shipping confirmation email and packing slip, and the order page shows what has shipped and what is still to ship at each location. To ship one parcel, click Ship beside it on the order: the shipping form opens for that parcel only, so you can enter its tracking number and choose whether to email the customer.

Shipping is calculated for each location and added together, so the customer pays for every parcel. A flat rate is charged once, however many locations are used.

To print what to pick, click Pick list beside a parcel on the order, or beside a location on the Locations page to print everything still to pick for that location across all paid orders. The Orders page also has a Pick Lists menu listing each location with the number of items waiting to be picked there.

If your store has no Locations defined, the menu offers a single Default location list instead, covering all orders. A store that does have Locations also shows an Unassigned list for older orders whose stock was not recorded against a location.

Choose how the pick list is grouped and sorted from the Pick list options in the sidebar: group by order (one block per order) or by product (one row per product, with the order numbers it covers), and sort by bin location (the warehouse walk order, with items that have no bin code last), SKU or order. Each option applies immediately when clicked. Each line shows the bin code, SKU, product and options, and the quantity to pick, with a column to tick items off. Items already shipped are excluded, and partly shipped orders appear again for the remainder.

Pickup and local delivery

Click the gear icon beside a location to configure how it fulfils orders:

• Location Pickup — let customers pick up their orders at this location. You can offer pickup anywhere or only for selected postcodes, and add opening hours and collection instructions.
• Local Delivery — deliver orders to customers directly from this location. You can deliver anywhere or only to selected postcodes.

Click Apply Settings to save.

Disabling and deleting locations

A location that is no longer in use can be disabled. Its inventory is excluded from online fulfilment and from pickup and delivery, but its details and stock levels are kept. Click Enable to use it again.

A location can be deleted from the list. Deleting a location removes the stock levels held at it; purchase orders, transfers and receipt history that refer to it are kept. A deleted location cannot be recovered.