Depending on which subscription level you are on, there are some great alternatives to manage items with multiple Batch, Expiry or Lot Codes with a view to making product recall easy.

If you are on one of our starter or basic plans, you can incorporate the lot code into the SKU / Stock Item Code or Stock Item Description to help keep track of which Lot Code has been sent to which customers.

However if you are on one of our Standard or Premium subscriptions you have a few more choices to help match your needs.

If you are not concerned with keeping track of which Lot Codes you have in inventory but still want to record which lots are sent to which customers, from the sales order, choose the “Pick for Despatch” options on the Despatch button, then when sending out your items, simply record the actual Lot Code you send for each item on the despatch line item.

If you are also concerned about the stock levels of each batch, then you may want to copy the existing stock item for each new lot that you buy or produce and incorporate the lot code into the SKU of each new batch/lot:

e.g:

“Traditional Apple Cider (500ml bottle) L2017-004”
“Traditional Apple Cider (500ml bottle) L2017-023” …

However if you sell these different SKUs with different lot codes in them, your sales reporting could be more verbose than you otherwise want, so a great way to do this would be to set up an SKU to sell and many SKUs to deliver.

e.g: Your sales people sell: “Traditional Apple Cider (500ml bottle)” but this SKU has no inventory and your warehouse and logistics people can deliver Lot specific SKUs that you do have inventory of eg:
“Traditional Apple Cider (500ml bottle) L2017-004”
“Traditional Apple Cider (500ml bottle) L2017-023” …

This is easy to setup, gives detailed traceability for product recall, and simplified sales reporting under the parent SKU.  You can find instructions on how to do this at StockItems/#lotcodes