Batches, serials and warranties

Batches and serials

Where

Stock → Tracking & Analytics → Stock Batches

Plan

Professional and above

Permission

Inventory → Stock

Whether an item is tracked by batch or by serial number is decided on the product record, not here. Turn on Batch Tracked or Serialized on the product and the tracking begins.

Nothing in the app can create a batch or a serial, so these screens stay empty

There is no “add batch” or “add serial” button, and no screen anywhere else creates one either.

It is natural to assume batches are created as stock comes in, because the goods receipt form asks for a batch number, serial number, manufacturing date and expiry date. Those boxes save what you type onto the receipt line only. Receiving goods does not create a batch record or a serial record.

The only way to put a row on these screens is through the API. In an ordinary installation both screens will be empty permanently, and no expiry alert will ever fire.

If rows are ever present, here is what you are looking at.

Stock Batches shows the item, the batch number, the quantity, the manufacturing date and the expiry date. Expiry dates are colour-coded: red once past, amber while inside your warning window, which defaults to fourteen days.

Stock Serials shows the item, the serial number, its status — in stock, sold, returned, damaged or in transit — and the warranty start and end dates.

Expiry handling

A job runs nightly and moves expired stock out of the sellable pool, after any grace period you have configured. It does not delete anything — the stock is still there, just blocked from sale, and it shows up as a damaged-condition movement.

That job reads batch records. With no batch records it has nothing to act on, so in practice expiry is not being managed for you. The Stock Batches screen itself does nothing about expired stock beyond colouring the date. See Conditions and reservations.

At the till

When an item that has batch or serial records is added to a sale, a picker appears listing the available batches with their expiry dates and quantities, or the available serials. Choosing a serial fixes the quantity at one. The cashier can change the choice afterwards on the line.

Because nothing in the app creates those records, this picker will not normally appear. An untracked item never prompts.

Warranty claims

Where

Stock → Tracking & Analytics → Warranty Claims

Plan

Growth and above

Permission

Inventory → Warranty

A warranty claim is a service ticket for a faulty item: the customer, the item, what is wrong with it, and whether it was within warranty. As it is worked you record the resolution — repaired, replaced, refunded, rejected or no fault found — along with the service cost and the technician’s notes.

It moves through received → under review → approved or rejected → serviced or replaced → closed, with status changed from its own dialog rather than the edit form.

The serial number on a claim is only text

A claim asks for a serial or batch number, but what you type is not linked to the actual serial record, and the claim is not linked to the original sale either.

Nothing cross-checks it. Two claims naming the same serial are not connected to each other, and you cannot trace from a claim back to the sale that created the warranty. There is no supplier on a claim at all.

Warranty claims work offline. One created without a connection appears in the list straight away and syncs later.

Related

• The product record — where batch and serial tracking is switched on
• Conditions and reservations