We manufacture spice and oil kits and some related products. Every item has a lot number, including the ones that are made up from other items (for example, a spice mix that contains four other spices). At this point, we could go back to any sale from the last four years and determine the original vendor's lot number for each item in the sale, whether it was a single component item or an assembly of other items. This kind of supply-chain verification is required for some large businesses and is likely to become a requirement for smaller ones as well.
As our volume of orders increases, this is getting increasingly difficult. I've been using the serial number field for the lot number, and just watching inventory levels like a hawk. The instant one lot is sold out, I change the serial number on that item to the new lot that we already have on the shelves and reset the inventory amount to what we actually have on hand. But as our volume picks up, there have been multiple occasions when I didn't realize we were sold out of something until a day or more after that occurred. Yes, I get low inventory notifications, but I can't manage the business 24 hours a day. So we probably lost some sales because people thought the item wasn't available, even though we might have had 100 units ready to be shipped.
If anyone else has solved this problem, I'd sure like to hear from you. The only workaround I've found at this point is to allow the inventory levels to drop below zero, so people can continue to order even when a particular batch is sold out. Then I go into the order record for each order beyond the zero point and replace the lot number in the order with the correct new one. That works, but it's a lot of work, and will become less feasible as our orders pick up. Moreover, it isn't something I can allow anyone else in the company to do.
I'm working on inventory management software that will interface with Zencart and allow the lot number to be picked up automatically from its inventory records. In other words, when the current quantity drops to zero for any given product, Zencart would pick up the lot number from the next available lot for that specific product and refresh the inventory quantities showing in the product description for that item. But that takes time that I don't have right now. So I'm looking for a workaround that will not only be easier than what I'm doing now, but that could be safe for someone else to do (not require mucking about with raw data files, in other words).
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