SkuVault is happy to officially announce the launch of our Lots, FIFO, and FEFO features. Each feature is beneficial to the following industries:
- Food
- Beverage
- Supplement
- Cosmetics
- Battery
- Hard Chemical Goods
- Cell Phone
- Subscription Box
- 3rd Party Food Retailers
Lots, FIFO, and FEFO work well together, but can also be used independently of one another. If any of this sounds useful for your business model, continue reading.
LOTS
What it is: Lots is the process of sorting inventory based on expiration date or by when a product was received. By filtering lots by expiration date, you’ll be making sure your products are being picked based on what expires first.
How it works: When a purchase order is received, assign a Lot number to it to track when an order came in and what happened with items in a lot, including who, what, and why of its journey.
- Manually assign a batch of goods a Lot number
- System assigns cost to Lot based off of raw material
- User assigns expiration date
- Finished goods labeled and added to inventory
*Important note: A SKU can have many Lots, but Lots can only have one SKU.
Who it’s for: Retailers, vendors, and anyone selling goods that can exprire. For manufacturers that already have MRP, we can track finished good Lots and do warehousing for you.
FIFO- FIRST IN, FIRST OUT
What it is: The product that has been on hand will be picked and sold first. This method is useful to keep product rotating in the order it was received.
How it works: FIFO helps you pick Lotted goods based on expiration dates.
- Products are picked in order by expiration date.
- SkuVault uses the barcode ID to verify which product to send based on FIFO rules.
- SkuVault will direct you to pick the soonest expiring Lot.
Who it’s for: FIFO picking is typically used for perishable goods or to make lot tracking easier. FIFO is perfect for food, beverage, supplement, and cosmetic retailers that need to sell goods before an expiration date.
[FIFO can be seen on the Lots management page in SkuVault. Reference your expiration date and quantity to determine the appropriate time to discard items.]
FEFO- FIRST EXPIRED, FIRST OUT
What it is: FEFO stands for first expired, first out, which means the product that reaches expiration first will be sold first. Expiration dates are important because companies use them to eliminate the possibility of selling expired goods to consumers. This makes their business more profitable. FEFO, FIFO and expiration dates work hand-in-hand.
How it works: Let’s look at this application more in-depth:
- Users will pick the expiration date closest to the expiration at the time of sale. SkuVault will direct you to NOT pick any expired lots.
- You can track stock with our Lots filters, where you can filter by expiration date. While we don’t have notifications that say a Lot is about to expire, you can see what’s about to expire by filtering your Lots by date.
Who it’s for: This method is useful for companies working with perishable goods to maximize inventory. Third party food retailers are also included.
By utilizing FEFO, you’ll be able to keep product fresh and safe for consumers and you’ll also be able to minimize shrink by moving through products in the correct order. Eliminating the opportunity of having expired product will help you stay profitable. You’ll also save on labor costs because your team will not have to perform constant inventory checks to monitor expiration dates.
*Important note: Most systems don’t use expiration dates, but we do!
In case you missed it, we've launched our new automated picking feature, Hyper Picking! Click here to learn more about how it can reduce your operations costs.