You import and distribute
Two depots, one container and no excuses in December
Companies that buy abroad and resell at home have three problems the average system ignores: goods in transit, an inbound load that does not match the order, and a lot number you have to be able to find again two years later. CargoNode treats all three as movements, not as footnotes.
The warehouse is a column on every movement from day one, even when there is just one: opening another means raising a number.
They have left the origin and not yet arrived: a shortfall on the way shows up straight away, not at month end.
The inbound pack and its factor stay written on the line: the ledger holds units, and the document still reads correctly in three years.
From a customer complaint you trace back to the lot, the supplier who sold it and the receipt that brought it in.
A distributor does not live on screens: it lives on the fact that what was bought turns up where it is needed, with the right cost attached and a readable history of where it has been. Here the warehouse is the product — a second depot is not a project, lots are not an add-on, and the year-end stock ledger is valued using the very same cost layers that produced the cost of goods sold. On top of that you add Accounting if you keep the books in house, and Sales if you sell yourself rather than through someone else’s agents.
The second depot is not a project
The warehouse is a column on every movement and every document from day one, even for a company with only one: the selector simply stays hidden until it is needed. Opening the new depot means raising a number on your account — no export, no reload, no weekend of downtime — and the goods you had yesterday already carry where they were. Every depot has its own delivery-note numbering, gapless, per warehouse and per year; its own locations, docks and pick path; and when you sell online you decide which depots that channel may actually sell, so a transit depot does not inflate the storefront.
- The warehouse is a column on every movement, even when there is only one
- Opening a depot moves no data and needs no downtime
- Delivery-note numbering per warehouse and per year, with no gaps
- Locations, docks and pick path belong to each depot
- Which depots serve the online store is a choice, not a side effect
- YOUR ACCOUNTwarehouses: from 1 to 2a number, not a project
- MOVEMENTSnone touchedthe warehouse column was already there
- DOCUMENTSthe new depot’s own seriesno gaps, per warehouse and per year
- SHOP WINDOWyou decide whether that depot serves ita transit depot does not inflate the store
No export, no history to reload, no weekend of downtime: the stock you had yesterday already says where it was.
Goods on the road are still yours, and it shows
Between two depots, goods do not teleport. A transfer moves through declared states — draft, ready, in preparation, shipped, arrived, completed — and while travelling the goods sit in a transit location with a real balance: no longer at the origin, not yet at the destination. That is the only way a shortfall in transit can be seen while it happens instead of dissolving into a stock discrepancy discovered in March. A transfer can end up in a problem state and come back, because that is warehouse life; preparation lines come out sorted by shelf position; and the outbound and inbound legs stay paired on both depots’ ledgers.
- Declared transfer states, with a way back out of the problem state
- Transit location with a real balance: goods on the road are counted
- A shortfall in transit is a line to close, not a period-end difference
- Preparation lines sorted by shelf position
- Outbound and inbound legs paired across the two warehouses’ ledgers
- A transfer can be cancelled or edited until it has left
- OUT−40 cartons off the shelfMAG-01 · A-12-3
- IN TRANSIT40 cartons, with their cost layerstransit location · real balance
- IN+40 cartonsMAG-02 · receiving
Until the transfer is received the goods are on no shelf at either end: they are counted in transit, with their value. On arrival the put-away job is already queued.
Receiving a load that does not match the order
The container arrives when it arrives, and almost never with exactly what the purchase order said. You receive against a purchase order or blind, and the receipt records what actually turned up: where the quantity differs from what was ordered, the line stays flagged as over or short instead of being quietly squared off. Cost is captured line by line, and a zero cost is refused — except for the reason codes that genuinely allow it, such as samples and free goods — because stock brought in at zero poisons the cost of goods sold for months. A cost wildly out of line with history, on the other hand, does not stop the dock: it warns and asks for confirmation, which is the right reaction when there is a truck to unload.
- Receive against a purchase order or blind
- Over-receipts and shortfalls flagged on the order line, not quietly squared off
- Cost captured line by line; a zero cost is refused
- An out-of-range cost is flagged for confirmation without stopping the unload
- Supplier price list with cost, lead time and preferred supplier
- Real weight alongside units, for goods bought by weight
- Quality control as quarantine and release, never as a stock correction
| Item | Ordered | Off the truck | How it stays written |
|---|---|---|---|
| SKU-4471 | 120 cartons | 118 cartons | line short by 2 |
| SKU-8890 | 40 cartons | 40 cartons | line closed |
| SKU-3320 | not ordered | 6 cartons | over-receipt: goes into stock anyway |
You buy by the carton and sell by the unit
The pack you buy in is almost never the pack you sell in, and most systems solve that by asking you to divide by hand. Here the conversion is a rule: you receive in your buying unit and the ledger keeps units, with the factor used frozen onto the receipt line — so the document still reads correctly even if the supplier later changes how many units go in a carton. A pack can also be broken down into single units through a tracked operation, and the breakdown carries the cost with it: the units that come out of a carton are worth what the carton was worth, not an invented average. The same applies to display units opened at the counter: the split runs the way a carton actually gets opened — the direction you need when you buy by the carton and sell by the unit — and it carries that carton’s lot, expiry date and cost with it.
- Buying unit, selling unit and stocking unit are allowed to differ
- The conversion factor stays written on the receipt line
- Pack breakdown into single units, with cost following the goods
- Display units opened at the counter become sellable pieces, without leaving the ledger
- The pieces coming out of a carton inherit its lot, in the same transaction
- DOCUMENT40 cartonspurchase unit
- FACTOR× 12 units per cartonfrozen on this line
- LEDGER480 unitsbase unit
Two years later the supplier moves to cartons of ten: this line still says twelve, because twelve is what it was. The document from back then still reads exactly as it did.
Lots, expiry dates and the number your supplier gave you
A lot carries your own code and the supplier’s reference, the hard expiry date — which blocks selling and picking — and the best-before date, which warns without blocking, because they are two different things and treating them alike either freezes good stock or ships expired stock. Allocation picks the nearest expiry on its own, from the availability figure all the way to the pick in the aisle. Where an item is declared as lot-tracked or serial-tracked, receiving it without one is not possible: it is not a screen to fill in carefully, it is a refusal — because goods that get in without their identifier escape traceability for good, and lot traceability is Italian compliance, never an extra.
- A lot carries your code and the reference of the supplier who sold it
- A blocking expiry date and a warning best-before date: two separate fields
- Nearest expiry allocated first, right through to the pick
- Serial numbers on the products that need them, one by one
- Receiving without a lot or a serial, where one is required, is refused
- From a movement back to the document, and from the document back to the receipt
- YOUR CODEL-2609to work with in house
- SUPPLIER REF.2024/AB-771the number he looks up
- EXPIRY30 Juneblocks sale and picking
- BEST BEFORE30 Aprilwarns, does not block
- ALLOCATIONshortest shelf life firstfrom the availability figure to the pick
Where an item is declared lot-tracked, receiving it without a lot is refused: goods that come in without their identifier escape traceability for good.
What the goods in your building are actually worth
Cost enters stock at receipt, in layers, on the real landed cost of each receipt; when goods leave, the cost of goods sold consumes those layers in the order they came in. It is not an average tidied up at year end: it is the same chain of layers that, on 31 December, produces the valued stock ledger the Italian tax authority expects. With the Accounting module on, receipts and shipments also post to double entry — stock in on arrival, cost of goods sold on departure — so the warehouse value and the inventory account face each other all year instead of once. Companies whose books are kept outside leave the module off: the warehouse is still valued, and that is what their accountant asks for.
- Layered cost on real landed costs, consumed in the order they arrived
- Cost of goods sold computed at shipment, not at period end
- Year-end fiscal stock ledger valued from the same layers
- Stock at any date is rebuilt from the ledger; the year-end figure is frozen for the tax books
- With Accounting: stock and cost of goods sold posted in double entry
- Per-item cost history, so you can see how it moved over time
| Cost layer | Came in | Consumed | Left in the building |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st load, the oldest | 100 units | 100 | nothing: exhausted |
| 2nd load | 80 units | 50 | 30 units |
| 3rd load, the newest | 60 units | nothing | 60 units |
Not everyone buys from you at the same price
A distributor serves customers on different terms, and rewriting thousands of price-list lines for each of them is how prices go wrong. Here a discount goes on the price list header — one line instead of three thousand — and exceptions are written only where the price genuinely differs. On repeat deliveries, the delivery note is the document of the delivery with its own lines, and at month end several deliveries to the same customer become a single deferred invoice, carrying the quantities actually shipped rather than the ones ordered. VAT rate and the nature of the transaction sit on the line, so a supply without tax goes out with its own nature code, both on the document and in the file you transmit.
- A discount on the price list header, with exceptions only where they are needed
- Different price lists for different customers, without duplicating the catalogue
- The delivery note carries the lines actually shipped
- A deferred invoice aggregating several deliveries to the same customer
- VAT rate and transaction nature on the line, not on the document header
- Three collections in a monthEach produces its own delivery note with what actually left, not with what had been ordered.
- On the first of the following monthThe three documents become a single deferred invoice, with nobody adding up three notes by hand.
- On the invoiceThe quantities actually shipped, with the rate and the nature of the transaction on the line: a zero-rated supply goes out with its own code in the electronic file too.
Frequently asked questions
We have two depots and constant traffic between them. Is that a module?
No. The warehouse is the product, and transfers are part of the physical cycle just like picking. What relates to depots is a number on your account — how many you may have — not a feature to buy. The Third-party logistics module is for something else: holding goods that are not yours, kept apart from everybody else’s.
Do you handle customs paperwork and Intrastat?
The perimeter is the warehouse and the delivery and sales paperwork, and the tax data there is exact: VAT rate and transaction nature sit on the line, so a zero-rated supply is invoiced with its own nature code and carries that code into the electronic file too. Customs declarations and EU trade statistics returns stay with your customs agent and your accountant — the normal division of labour in far bigger companies than yours; what they need comes out of here ready, because movements, documents and values export by period.
We buy in foreign currency. How is that handled?
You convert at the moment you record the receipt, which is also the moment you hold the rate your bank actually applied — the real one, not one taken off a table the next morning. From there the cost enters the layers in the currency your books are kept in, and the cost of goods sold comes out of those layers: the margin you read on those goods is what you actually paid to have them. If one day you need the original amount kept alongside, that is a field, not an architecture to redo.
Year-end stocktaking shuts us down for three days. Can that be avoided?
Largely yes, and not by a trick. Every fifteen minutes a reconciliation recomputes stock from the movement ledger and compares it with the projection, reporting any drift; and cycle counts, spread by zone, by location or by turnover class, bring the differences out one slice at a time without stopping the aisles: every counted line is compared with the expected figure snapshotted when the session opened, and the variance becomes an adjustment to approve. Companies that work this way reach 31 December on a warehouse already brought back into line slice by slice, and the full count confirms rather than discovers.
Our supplier numbers lots their own way. Do we have to renumber them?
No. The lot carries your code and, next to it, the supplier’s reference exactly as given. You need both: yours to work with in house, theirs for the claim, because when you write to the supplier they look up the number they know. Neither numbering has to bend to the other.
A container is four weeks late. Does the system notice?
The purchase order stays open with what is missing, and the unreceived lines show for what they are: expected goods that are not here. Sales orders waiting on those goods stay waiting instead of promising a date you cannot keep, and on receipt they are allocated automatically, in the order they joined the queue. The supplier price list also holds the declared lead time, which after a few late shipments becomes a genuinely useful figure.
Let’s walk through a real load of yours
Take the last container that arrived with something not adding up and let’s follow it together from the purchase order to the stock figure: it is the quickest way to tell whether this software speaks your language.
Talk to us