# Using warehouses for service vehicle stock

#### Overview

Do you operate a service-based mobile business that allows technicians to travel in company vehicles with company inventory? One of the problems with this sort of business is stock inventory control. Because you allow for inventory to leave your place of business, you're reliant on the technician to use and record only what they need to get the job done. When the vehicle is returned to the business, all inventory used for the job should be allocated to the customer and charged, and only those items removed from your stock levels.

The three main reasons why you would want to set this up are:

- Tracks all of your stock so it can't easily go missing
- Allows you to assign stock to a vehicle owner giving you more accountability
- Breaks up costs on your balance sheet

When each vehicle is assigned as a warehouse in Accentis Enterprise, you keep track of which items are used for each job that need to be allocated to a customer. When a customer calls for a particular part, you can see which vehicle (warehouse) the part is in, and send the appropriate technician to the job.

Putting it simply, a warehouse is a physical location where you keep stock that can be used for the customer, mobile or not.

#### How do you configure the warehouses?

There are, depending on how you structure your business, any number of ways to do this. You might have single stationary warehouse that distributes to all the vehicles (a), or maybe you have two stationary warehouses where one is a main warehouse and the other is a pool where vehicle stock is drawn from a pool (b).

###### (a)

###### (b)

It's totally up to you and what works best for your business. Ideally, you want something that is consistent, easy to manage, and that works for your business.

##### Configure the warehouses

Configuring the Warehouse in Accentis Enterprise is pretty easy. Warehouses don't have any hierarchy system, and are simply entered into the system using an alpha-numeric code that you decide upon. You may decide to create your own system of identifying warehouses and vehicles as separate within the code itself.

For example: “MAIN”, “PROD”, “SERVICE”, “WH1”, “WH2”, “TR1”, etc

To add new warehouses, go to Inventory > Setup > Warehouses > New.

Configure the Inventory G/L account management for each warehouse as you add them. Read more about it by reading Should I use new account codes for each warehouse?

Add all remaining warehouses that you need to keep track of.

##### Registering inventory against a service vehicle’s warehouse

Before you can use the inventory in each warehouse, you need to allow the stock to use it in that location. Highlight the warehouse you want to add the stock to and go to Special > Add items to warehouse. Only select the items that the technicians need to carry in their vehicles.

##### Adding inventory to a service vehicle

Go to Inventory > Stock Transfer to transfer all the items you want to select to the technician's vehicle.

#### FAQ's

##### Can I add more vehicles/warehouses if my business grows?

Yes! Accentis Enterprise has no limit to the number of warehouses you can add to your database.

##### What issues can I expect from making every vehicle a warehouse?

If you have a large number of warehouses and a process to manage them, there should be minimal issues.

- Once a warehouse has been used, you can't remove it from the warehouse list
- Before implementing, think of a good naming convention to easily access a vehicle with a keystroke or two
- Every User who sees a warehouse list will see these vehicles in their list

##### How do I balance the stock in each vehicle?

You will need to perform a stocktake to check what is in the vehicle. Each time you fill the vehicle with parts, they must be transferred from the main or pool warehouse to the vehicle.

For stocktake purposes, it will be more efficient for the technician to keep any stock they have in the vehicle, rather than returning it to the main or pool warehouse to be counted.

##### Who's responsible for the stock in the vehicle warehouse?

The technician who took the vehicle to the job is responsible for checking that the stock they have on board is accounted for, and is allocated to the job if used. If there are variances in the stocktake when the vehicle is returned, that will show where stock is going missing.

##### How often should we perform a stocktake?

This depends on a lot of factors and is different for each business. It might be important for you to perform a stocktake on each vehicle warehouse at the end of each day, or after each job on-site. You may only need to stocktake the service pool warehouse weekly, or the very least, monthly.

The longer you leave it to do a stocktake, the harder it may be to track down where items have gone missing.

##### Should I use new account codes for each warehouse?

It's not required. However, you could create two stock on hand accounts:

1. Service Warehouse Pool stock
2. Vehicle stock

By doing this, you can easily see what is in your vehicles and what in your warehouse on your balance sheet. The sales and COGS account should be based on the product you are selling, not necessarily the source location it is coming from. This setup will depend on what you want to see on the financials.

If you are not an expert at setting up G/L account, call for help to make sure they are set correctly because incorrect accounts can cause reporting issues down the track.

Last edit 15/10/19