Balancing

The process of balancing helps evaluate the total inventory and the ITU inventory levels.

The total inventory in a warehouse can differ from the sum of the ITUs for the warehouse. In this scenario, you must balance the inventory with the inventory in ITUs.

You can use the Inventory Tracking Balancing Runs (tcitu4130m000) session to balance the difference in inventory. You can perform the ITU related balancing process multiple times to create or update the balancing orders that are linked to the balancing run.

Balancing order

The balancing order displays the imbalance of inventory in Warehousing and inventory in the inventory tracking units. In this scenario, an inventory tracking balancing order is generated using the Inventory Tracking Balancing Orders (tcitu4100m100) session.

To perform the balancing, complete these steps:

  • Create one or more inventory tracking receipts using the Receipts for Balancing (tcitu2110m600) session in case of positive balances, that is, when the actual inventory exceeds the sum of the ITUs.
  • Create one or more inventory tracking consumptions using the Consumptions for Balancing (tcitu3110m600) session in case of negative balances, that is, when the actual inventory is less than the sum of the ITUs.

Handling units

During the balancing process, LN checks if handling units from the Warehousing inventory are also present in the inventory tracking inventory, and takes these actions:

  1. If a handling unit is present, the handling unit information is retained.
  2. If a handling unit is present in the Warehousing inventory but missing in inventory tracking, and no related record without handling unit is present in inventory tracing, the handling unit is added to the inventory tracking inventory.
  3. If a handling unit is not present in inventory tracking but a related entry exists in the inventory tracking inventory without a handling unit, the handling unit is removed. This is to reflect changes that may have occurred in the inbound flow, such as repacking.

During the activation process, action 2 is performed for almost all inventory found, because no data exists yet in inventory tracking.

Some stock points with handling units may be present in inventory tracking, if the Update Open Orders process was run and inbound orders were processed afterwards.

For these stock points, action 1 is taken, that is, if no repacking occurred during the inbound process, or action 3 if the handling unit was changed during the inbound process.

Balancing for quarantine inventory

The balancing process for quarantine inventory is used to correct corrupted inventory tracking quarantine data.

When performing balancing for quarantine inventory, a balancing order is created for each quarantine ID for which the ITU quarantine inventory quantity differs from the Warehousing quarantine inventory.

The balancing order shows the quarantine ID and the disposition.

If the ITU quarantine inventory exceeds the Warehousing inventory, consumptions are created to issue the excess inventory. Conversely, if the ITU quarantine inventory is less than the Warehousing inventory, ITU receipts are created to increase the ITU quarantine inventory.

For easy reference, the receipts and the consumptions show the originating order of the quarantine ID and the ID of the balancing order for which they were created.

The quarantine balancing process

Quarantine IDs for which no inventory tracking receipt data is present are skipped by the quarantine balancing process. For these records, the inventory tracking data is created by running the Update Open Orders process during the activation. See Country of origin activation for details.

Differences between the disposition quantities in Warehousing and inventory tracking cannot always be automatically balanced.

In such cases, per quarantine ID, the sum of the total disposition quantities in inventory tracking is subtracted from the sum of the total disposition quantities in Warehousing.

The outcome of this sum is added to disposition Awaiting Disposition. If no disposition record of type Awaiting Disposition is present, this record is created.

An example of this process is illustrated in the following table.

Quarantine ID Disposition Quantity in Warehousing Quantity in inventory tracking Wh - Itu
QUA000001 Use as Is 10 5 5
QUA000001 No Fault Found 20 10 10

Wh – Itu is the difference between the total disposition quantity of the quarantine ID in Warehousing and the quantity in inventory tracking.

The differences for both dispositions are added up: 5 +10 = 15. Next, a disposition of type Awaiting Disposition with disposition quantity 15 is created.