Batch, Lot & Serial Traceability
Follow a specific batch or serial number from receipt through transfer, count, sale, adjustment, and expiry review — and trace forwards and backwards when something has to be recalled.
Traceability lives at Inventory → Traceability. Where the item pages answer "how much do we have", traceability answers "which stock exactly, where did it come from, and where did it go". You can trace by item, by batch or lot number, or by serial number.
Three Depths Of Tracking
Not every item deserves the same tracking burden, so you can match the control to the risk:
| Depth | Use it for | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Plain stock | Consumables, low-risk items. | Quantity history by location and movement. |
| Batch / lot | Food, chemicals, pharma, anything with an expiry. | Lot number, expiry, supplier, source purchase order, received date, quality and recall status, unit and landed cost. |
| Serial | Equipment, devices, high-value units. | A record per individual unit and its own movement history. |
What A Trace Shows
A trace is built from trace events raised by the modules that actually move stock — receipts and check-ins, warehouse transfers, counts, adjustments, POS sales, and scanner workflows. Because the events come from the work rather than being typed in afterwards, the history is not confined to one screen: a batch's page shows where it entered, every place it went, and what it was consumed by.
Expiry And Recall
Batches carry an expiry date and a quality and recall status. Two things follow from that:
- The Batch Expiry report (under Reports) lists what is expiring, so you can act before it becomes a write-off.
- When a supplier issues a recall, trace the batch to see every location holding it and every document that consumed it, then place the remaining stock on a quality hold so it cannot be picked or sold while you decide.
Getting Batch Data In
Batches are created as stock arrives — a batch number entered on a check-in or receipt creates the batch, and later movements attach to it. If a trace looks thin, it is almost always because the batch or serial was not captured at receipt. Make the field part of the receiving routine before you rely on the trace: see Receiving Stock.
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