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Using pick and pack processing can save your warehouse staff a great deal of time and effort. After all, why should you put all of the new merchandise in storage just to bring it out, package it, affix a shipping label and send it out the door again?
That’s an awful lot of work for something that will be shipped within the next few hours. Pick and pack eliminates the extra work involved in shipping products that are going to come in and go out at the same time.
When a company begins looking toward setting up procedures for pick and pack the first thing they want to incorporate is how to handle the inventory management involved. In order to maintain efficient and accurate inventory control, you always want to record incoming inventory before you record outgoing shipments.
It doesn’t matter whether you are handling regular orders or pick and pack shipments–the only thing that should change is the length of time it takes to process a customer’s order for shipment. Since you are taking something right off the truck or pallet of an incoming shipment when you use pick and pack, it will take less time. There is no need to go into the warehouse to find out how much stock there is; you have the products right in front of you.
On the other hand, even though you may be sending a shipment right out the door on another truck–or maybe even the same one–you still need to take the time to record the incoming shipment. It doesn’t matter whether you are reshipping the entire incoming merchandise or only part of it–you still need to record an incoming shipment before you process the pick and pack shipment. The best audit trail you will have is to record everything even if it means one will offset the other. If you are working with a fulfillment company you will need to have a record of every stage of the fulfillment process in case there is a problem with an order.
It may seem like extra work to do, but it really is essential to record every single incoming and outgoing transaction. Pick and pack is such an easy and smooth process, it can be easy to forget to record the new stock or deduct what you are shipping. If you get into the habit of recording incoming stock before you process any pick and pack orders it will come as second nature to your employees and thus your inventory management will be remain efficient and accurate at all times.
