Transfers on the Floor: Pick, Pack, Discrepancies and Storage Rules

Before a pending transfer is dispatched, each line can be picked: the storekeeper enters how much actually came off the shelf. That quantity becomes the quantity that will be dispatched, and a pick below the request is recorded as a short pick. A pick cannot be more than was requested or more than the source has available, and a line that will send nothing should be rejected rather than picked at zero.

A picked line is then packed into a number of packages, a count rather than a description. Once packed, a line cannot be picked again, because that would change a sealed package. Picking and packing are optional; a transfer without them dispatches as it always has. Photos can be attached at the pack, dispatch, receipt and discrepancy stages, up to 24 per transfer, and a photo that fails never undoes the handover it belongs to.

In practice: a Nakuru distributor sends 60 cartons of cooking oil to its Eldoret branch. The picker finds only 54 on the shelf and picks 54; the dispatch is now 54, and the short pick is on record before anything leaves. The packer seals them into 9 packages and photographs the pallet. When Eldoret receives, everyone is comparing against 54, not 60, so a shortfall at the far end means something happened on the road.

When a delivery arrives short, the receiver records what arrived and must say why the rest did not; a discrepancy then opens as part of the same receipt, so a short receipt can never be saved without one. The missing units left the source at dispatch and reached no shelf at the destination, so until the case is resolved they are on neither shelf.

Investigate adds notes while you find out what happened and moves nothing. Resolve says where every missing unit is: found at the destination, which puts them on its shelf; sent back to the source, which puts them back there; or written off. The three numbers must add up to the missing quantity. For a serial-tracked item you name which serials were found or returned, and they must be ones recorded missing on this transfer. A write-off is the moment the inventory account shrinks: it posts to the same loss account a count shortage uses, at the cost fixed at receipt, and a retried request cannot post it twice.

In practice: Eldoret receives 52 of the 54 cartons and gives the reason as damaged in transit. The discrepancy opens for 2. The branch manager investigates, finds one carton behind another delivery in the bay, and resolves: 1 found at the destination and 1 written off. The found carton goes on the Eldoret shelf, the written-off one posts as a loss, and the case closes with nothing unexplained.

Reports, In-Transit Ledger lists every dispatched transfer line and checks it three ways. First, the line balances: dispatched equals received plus returned plus still in transit plus short. Second, the movement trace agrees: the stock movement records written at both ends match the transfer row, and lines older than tracing are marked untraced rather than wrong. Third, every short unit is accounted for: a shortfall with no discrepancy, or with one still open, is flagged. Filter by date, status and warehouse, export to CSV, or read it in the app.

In the AWRA app, pick, pack, discrepancy steps and photos queue while the phone is offline and send when it reconnects. A queued step is never applied twice. If the transfer has moved on in the meantime, for example it was dispatched from the web while the phone was offline, the step comes back as a conflict that names the change rather than being forced onto the new state.

In practice: at month end the warehouse controller filters the ledger to open flags. Three lines show units short with an open discrepancy; she chases the receiving branches to resolve them. One line shows the movement trace disagreeing with the transfer, which points at a record changed outside the transfer screens, and that goes to the system administrator rather than to the storekeeper.

On the Offline Operations screen, a phone can be given an Assigned warehouse. Every stock write from that phone is then held to that warehouse: counts, adjustments, holds and releases, transfers, POS, receiving inspections and assembly orders. A request naming another warehouse is refused with a message naming both, never silently moved, and this applies to whoever signs in, an admin included. Pick and pack belong to the source and a discrepancy to the destination, so a phone at the wrong end is refused for those steps. Web browsers are not affected.

A bin can declare the UN hazard classes it accepts, a temperature range and a minimum remaining shelf life; the item carries its hazard class and storage temperature. Every receipt, check-in, transfer and return into the bin is checked, and stock that does not fit is refused with where it should go instead. The whole of the bin’s range must sit inside the item’s, so a bin that can reach 8 °C is wrong for an item kept below 5 °C. A bin with no rules accepts anything, and capacity remains a warning rather than a refusal.

In practice: a pharmaceutical distributor marks its cold room as 2 to 8 °C and its flammables cage as class 3 only, and sets a 90-day minimum shelf life on its dispatch bay. A vaccine receipt into the ambient store, declared as 15 to 25 °C, is refused, a batch with 40 days left is refused at the dispatch bay and goes to quarantine instead, and a scanner phone bolted to the Mombasa receiving desk cannot post a receipt to Nairobi. Deleting a closed warehouse later moves its stock to the default bin only if every line fits that bin’s rules, with held stock keeping its status.