Difference between Warehouses and Locations¶
The majority of activities in the Inventory app revolve around Warehouse and Location. Understanding the difference between these two definitions is the key to optimizing warehouse management.
In terms of physics¶
A warehouse is a building or a place that meets specific conditions, used for goods storage. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, traders, transporters, distributors, businesses, customs, government agencies, individuals, etc. Stored goods can include raw materials, packaging materials, components, finished goods related to agriculture, manufacturing, trade, etc.
A warehouse location is a specific space in a warehouse, such as shelves, racks, crates, floors, etc. The relationship between the warehouse and the warehouse location is a one-to-many relationship. This means users can configure multiple warehouse locations within the same warehouse.
The warehouse has a specific address and cannot be changed arbitrarily. For example, Hoa Hong Co., Ltd. has Hai Phong warehouse, located at Ha Ly 02, Hong Bang, Hai Phong, Vietnam. On the other hand, the warehouse location will be more flexible and can be set at any place inside the warehouse by users to suit their needs. For example, in Hai Phong warehouse, shelf 1 is located next to the entrance of the warehouse. Due to the need for long-term storage of the goods, this shelf is moved to the end of the warehouse.
In terms of functionality¶
The warehouse does not have a parent-child hierarchy when the storage location does. This feature helps you have an overview of the warehouse’s storage organization. Storage locations are divided into 3 main types:
Physical Locations: The actual locations in a warehouse, used to move or store the goods.
Partner Locations: The location of the customer or the vendor. This location works as a physical location, except that you are not the owner.
Virtual Locations: A place that does not exist in reality. This is a temporary place to register the products that are not stored or are on the way to be stored in the physical warehouse, such as lost, damaged products, or products in transit.
Warehouse and Location in Viindoo’s solution¶
Below is the list of warehouses created in the Viindoo Inventory app.
The software allows managing warehouse locations according to the parent-child hierarchy, helping to inherit the existing supply routes of the parent location and some specific rules are set up in the putaway rules.
Tip
Activate the Storage Locations feature in the Settings menu to create and manage multi-locations.
