Discuss your projectStock counts that agree across every site, and one queue for every sales channel, from portal and EDI to email and phone. Allocation, pick lists, and labels come from the same record, and the invoice posts on shipment.
Illustration of an inventory and order integration built by Baybloom: the ERP, the warehouse, and the web store sharing live stock, with mismatches waiting for review.
Operations and finance leaders at distributors, manufacturers, and multi-site businesses where stock counts disagree, orders arrive through several channels, and the ERP’s inventory module fits half the business. Often the other half runs in spreadsheets and email.
The workflow
The steps we see most often in this kind of operation.
Features
Supports receiving, putaway, picking, and counting with handheld scanners or phones, so every stock movement is recorded where it happens.
Records lot numbers, serial numbers, and expiration dates through receiving and shipment, so recalls and warranty questions are answered from the record.
Proposes purchase orders and transfers from reorder points, demand, and supplier lead times, for a buyer to review and approve.
Applies each customer’s contract prices, discounts, and payment terms at order entry, so invoices match exactly what was agreed.
Authorizes returns, records the condition on receipt, restocks or scraps the item, and raises the credit in accounting from the same record.
Moves inventory between warehouses with in-transit visibility, so allocation knows what is on the shelf, on the truck, and on order.
Your first release
How the work runs
We start with the people doing the work and the systems around it, then write down the first release: what it includes, what it leaves for later, the integration decisions, and the acceptance criteria. Nothing is built until that scope is agreed.
We build in releases you can review as the work takes shape, using realistic data. Every release carries tests, a security review, and documentation. Integrations are tested against real records, with exceptions visible.
Your team receives the documentation, the runbooks, and the training to run the system, and we stay on for continued engineering when you want it.
Scope and price
Every project is priced from a written scope. These are the factors that move it most.
Each channel, from ecommerce and EDI to email and phone, needs its own capture, validation, and mapping into the shared order queue.
More sites, bins, and in-transit states make allocation rules, stock views, and transfers more involved, and require testing at each location.
Lot, serial, and expiration tracking adds data capture at every movement, scanner workflows, and reporting that simple quantity tracking does not need.
Duplicate items, inconsistent units of measure, and missing barcodes must be cleaned before stock counts and allocation can be trusted.
Building products distributor
Building products distributors tend to take orders by portal, EDI, email, and phone, with staff keying each one into the ERP and calling the other warehouse to check stock. A first release captures every channel as a structured order in a single queue and allocates it against live stock by site, with backorders in plain view. Pick lists and labels come from the order, and the invoice posts to accounting on shipment. The calls between warehouses fade out. Purchase orders raised from demand and lead times fit well in a later phase.
Questions
What buyers ask before a project like this starts.
No. The ERP or warehouse system usually stays the owner of stock and ledgers. The application sits around it: intake, allocation, fulfillment, and the views the ERP cannot give you.
Yes. EDI and customer order feeds are captured into the same queue as portal and email orders, validated before they become orders.
One system owns each count, every movement is a record, and exceptions are visible. Cycle counting from the phone comes in a later release.
Stock is held by site from the first release, with allocation rules for which site fulfills which order.
Often not. Many workflows run on current phones or the scanners already in the warehouse, and label printers are reused where they support standard formats. Where new hardware helps, the recommendation comes from testing in your aisles with your labels.
A full or cycle count establishes the starting balance, which is loaded and checked against the owning system before go-live. Open orders and backorders are brought across in the same exercise, so the new system starts from numbers everyone has agreed.
Yes. Ecommerce orders arrive through the platform’s API into the same queue as trade orders, with their own pricing and fulfillment rules. Stock is allocated across both channels from one set of counts, which keeps the website from selling what the warehouse has already promised.