E-commerce back-office system： manage the back-office inventory management (location, allocation, inventory).

2025年9月10日 | admin | A1

Inventory is an unavoidable problem for e-commerce companies, and it is also the life door for e-commerce companies. Problems in supply chain management are often reflected in inventory, either too much inventory leads to slow sales or too little inventory leads to out of stock.

Inventory management, as its name implies, is to manage the quantity of goods. In general, we can divide it into sales inventory and warehouse inventory.

Sales inventory can also be called foreground inventory, which is the inventory quantity facing the user’s latitude.

Warehouse inventory, which can also be called background inventory, is the inventory quantity oriented to warehouse latitude.

Sales inventory and warehouse inventory, the specific details of which we will introduce in later articles.

The most important behaviors that affect warehouse inventory are warehousing and warehousing.

Warehousing refers to how many commodities have been added, such as purchase warehousing, return warehousing, transfer warehousing, production warehousing, inventory warehousing and other warehousing.

Issue refers to how many commodities have been reduced. Common issues include sales issue, purchase return issue, transfer issue, inventory loss issue and other issues.

In order to better explain the contents of goods in and out of the warehouse (inventory management), according to the process, we will first introduce the basic business in the warehouse, including location introduction, allocation business and inventory business.

In order to better manage the goods, warehouses are generally divided into one cargo space. In this way, every time the goods are put into storage, they will be associated with a location, and when the goods are put out of storage, the location of the goods will be associated with the sorting list, so that the warehouse staff can find the location of the goods quickly and efficiently when distributing the goods.

Here is a way to allocate the cargo space, which also provides an idea:

The above picture is a simple plan of the distribution area, which can be divided into several rows. Each row is named A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H, and each row has many shelves. Combined with the naming of each row, we name each shelf A01, A02, A03, A04, A05 and A06.

The above picture shows a simple shelf. This shelf is named A01, which can be divided into four floors. Each floor is named A01-1, A01-2, A01-3 and A01-4. For each cargo space, we name it A01-1-01, A01-1-02 and A01-1-03.

(1) List of cargo positions

The prototype is relatively simple, so I don’t need to describe it too much here. It is just a configuration page and a display list page, which contains the most basic information such as warehouse, location and status.

Transfer is mainly used to adjust the inventory quantity in the warehouse. Putting the right goods in the right warehouse/location can be divided into intra-warehouse transfer and inter-warehouse transfer.

Intra-warehouse transfer: it can also be called location inventory transfer, which is generally the adjustment of the internal inventory of the warehouse. For example, the goods are transferred from the goods with sufficient inventory to the goods with insufficient inventory, which is convenient for picking goods and managing the inventory of the goods.

Inter-warehouse transfer: it can also be called warehouse inventory transfer, which is generally the adjustment of inventory between warehouses. For example, goods are transferred from Hangzhou warehouse to Shanghai warehouse.

The flow of transfer business mainly revolves around the transfer of transfer documents, involving business personnel, transfer-out warehouse and transfer-in warehouse, from the creation of transfer documents by business personnel to the creation of transfer issue documents by transfer information transfer to transfer-out warehouse, and then to the creation of transfer receipt documents by transfer information transfer to transfer-in warehouse.

(1) business personnel, according to the actual demand to create a transfer form, and submit it for approval.

(2) Relevant personnel review the transfer form. If the review fails, they need to re-edit and submit it.

(3) Transfer out the warehouse, and create a transfer issue document according to the approved transfer document. Of course, the transfer issue document can also select one or several commodities in the transfer document according to the actual situation, and fill in the actual issue quantity.

(4) Transfer to the warehouse, create a transfer receipt document according to the transfer document and the issue document, and do the warehousing operation according to the actual situation.

(5) Expenses incurred in the process of financial settlement and allocation

(1) Transfer billing

Transfer billing is the first step of transfer business in the system. First, you need to select the most basic transfer-out warehouse and transfer-in warehouse, and then select the goods that need to be transferred, and the goods will reach sku latitude. The system will calculate the quantity of goods that can be transferred according to the rules (the specific calculation method of the quantity that can be transferred will be introduced later when we introduce the inventory details), maintain the actual quantity of goods transferred this time, and select the transfer-in location (the transfer-in location will read the location information of the corresponding warehouse according to the basic information).

(2) Transfer Sheet Management

All transfer documents are displayed here. Transfer documents need to be approved here before subsequent transfer-out and transfer-in operations can be carried out.

Status of transfer document:

  • Being Edited: equivalent to the draft status, the transfer document can be modified and then submitted for approval.
  • Canceled: the document is cancelled, which means the document has been voided.
  • Pending approval: the transfer application has been submitted, but it has not been approved.
  • Approved: the transfer application has passed, and you can issue it.
  • Pending issue: the transfer issue document has been generated, but it has not been approved.
  • Partial issue: some goods in the transfer document have been issued.
  • Issued: all goods in the transfer document have been issued.
  • Pending receipt: the transfer receipt document has been generated, but it has not been approved.
  • Partial receipt: some goods in the transfer document have been received.
  • Completed: all the goods in the transfer document have been received.

Inventory refers to the total or partial inventory of the physical inventory in the warehouse, so as to truly grasp the goods status during the period, and thus improve and strengthen management.

General invoicing systems provide strict warehousing management, so theoretically, the inventory quantity of the system is consistent with the actual inventory quantity of the warehouse. However, in actual operation, it is inevitable that there will be mistakes and omissions in delivery, or that the process will not be followed. At this time, there will be a mismatch between the theoretical inventory and the actual inventory in the warehouse.

After counting, if the actual inventory data is inconsistent with the theoretical inventory data, an inventory gain receipt document and an inventory loss issue document will be automatically generated to adjust the inventory quantity. Regular inventory not only ensures the accuracy of inventory data, avoids oversold and other phenomena, but also can grasp the problems in inventory operation in time.

Regular inventory not only ensures the accuracy of inventory data, but also can grasp the problems in inventory operation in time and avoid oversold. After counting, if the inventory data are inconsistent, an inventory profit and loss sheet will be generated. The seller can check the inventory changes in the inventory management interface or check the inventory ledger to check what links caused the inventory inaccuracy.

The business mainly focuses on the circulation of inventory sheets, starting from the creation of inventory sheets by business parties, entering inventory, and automatically generating inventory gain receipt documents and inventory loss issue documents to correct the inventory after the inventory is completed.

(1) business personnel, according to the actual demand to create inventory list, and submit it for review.

(2) Relevant personnel shall review the inventory list. If the review fails, it needs to be re-edited and submitted.

(3) the warehouse personnel, according to the inventory list for inventory entry of goods, enter the actual inventory quantity.

(4) According to the comparison between the counting quantity and the inventory quantity, an inventory gain receipt document and an inventory loss issue document are generated.

(5) Relevant personnel review the inventory gain receipt document and inventory loss issue document (if the inventory document personnel are the reviewers, they can be directly approved by default), so as to correct the inventory.

(1) Inventory billing

Inventory billing is the first step of inventory operation, and our inventory process starts here. Inventory billing is mainly used to select inventory warehouse, inventory goods and other information. After clicking Save/Submit for approval, inventory sheets can be generated, and the generated inventory documents can be displayed in the inventory sheet management interface.

(2) Inventory sheet management

It is mainly used to query and manage the inventory list, where we can review the inventory list, enter the inventory and other operations.

Inventory sheet status:

  • Being Edited: equivalent to the draft status, the inventory list can be modified and then submitted for approval.
  • Canceled: the document is cancelled, which means the document has been voided.
  • Pending approval: the inventory application has been submitted, but it has not been approved.
  • To be counted: the counting application has been approved, but it has not been entered yet. You can enter the counting sheet.
  • Completed: the inventory entry is completed and the inventory is finished.

(3) Inventory entry

This is mainly used to enter the real quantity of goods in the inventory list. After the inventory is completed, the business personnel fill in the actual inventory quantity. After saving, the inventory entry process is completed, and the system will follow the new and original inventory data. If the input quantity is inconsistent with the inventory quantity, the system will automatically generate an inventory gain receipt document and an inventory loss issue document.

This paper mainly introduces the basic business in the warehouse, including location introduction, transfer business and inventory counting business. The following articles will introduce the warehousing management and warehousing management that directly affect inventory data. Finally, the details of sales inventory for user latitude and warehouse inventory for warehouse latitude will be introduced as a whole. Welcome all interested parties to communicate together.

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E-commerce back-office system: management of back-office procurement management (executive layer)

　

Author: Nonsense, WeChat WeChat official account: dianshanghoutai.

This article was originally published by @ nonsense. Everyone is a product manager. Reprinting is prohibited without permission.