Assigning batch numbers to sales items ensures accurate inventory tracking and order fulfillment. You can manually select batches for sales items from existing stock or let Katana auto-assign batches based on FIFO (first in first out) for e-commerce orders.
If you're selling products that have batch tracking enabled, a batch must be assigned to the sales items on the sales order (SO). You can only select batches from stock at the "Ship from" Location of the SO.
Depending on whether you are Making to Order or taking sales items from existing stock (Make to Stock or Purchasing products), you'll be asked to select items from specific batches or assign batches automatically.
For SOs that are imported from e-commerce (e.g. Shopify, WooCommerce) and fulfilled from the e-commerce side (in case you enabled sales order fulfillment status sync), Katana automatically assigns a batch number to sales items using the FIFO method.
Selecting items from batches when Making to Stock or purchasing products
When taking items from existing stock (not Making to Order), you must manually select sales items from batches.
You can select batches for sales order line items when you mark the SO delivery status as "Packed" or "Delivered". Batches for line items on a SO can't be selected if the order is Not delivered.
The same workflow applies when bulk changing the Delivery status for sales orders directly from the Sell screen.
Selecting batches for sales items
Change the SO delivery status to Pack some..., Pack all, Deliver some..., or Deliver all.
Select batches for all items that have batch tracking enabled.
For each item, select a batch and the quantity to be taken. You must select batches for the total quantity of the item. You can only choose batches from the Ship from Location of the SO.
Quantity to assign column shows the quantity of items that doesn't have a batch selected. You cannot complete the SO before this column is zero for all items on the list.
In the Batch # column, you can select items from existing batches with a positive stock quantity.
You can select items from the "Unbatched" batch if there are positive or negative quantities for the item in "Unbatched" batch.
The Quantity to track column is the number of items you're taking from the batch selected in the Batch # column. By default, the quantity to track is filled with the maximum quantity of items available in the selected batch or with the total quantity required to assign in the respective column.
If you don't select the entire quantity from a single batch, an additional row will be added to the table to allow you to choose the remaining quantity from another batch.
If batches have been selected for all items, you can click the confirm button (Pack selected, Pack all, Deliver selected, Deliver all).
You can edit batches for both Packed and Done Sales orders.
Assigning batch numbers when Making to Order
If you are making sales items to order (using the Make to order button to create an MO for the item), the batch number will automatically be assigned to sales Items.
As Make-to-Order products are directly related to an underlying SO, the SO always takes items from the related MO (Make-to-Order).
If the related Make-to-Order MO hasn't been completed (sales Items are still in an Expected status), you can define the batch number for the batch directly from the SO. This will automatically complete the related MO.
If you're also tracking batches for ingredients used on the related MO, note that ingredients will be automatically taken from the "unbatched" batch. You should go to the related MO (Make screen > Schedule tab > Done table) and select batches for the ingredients. As you can edit batch info for ingredients on a completed MO, you don't need to revert the MO.
Auto-assigning batch numbers when order fulfillment is initiated from the e-commerce side
Katana auto-assigns batches to batch trackable items on SOs when fulfillment is initiated from the e-commerce side (e.g. Shopify, WooCommerce).
Batches are automatically assigned to the sales items on your SO using the FIFO (first in first out) method.
This is how assigning works:
First, any quantities from the "Unbatched" batch are used (until there is 0 quantity in "Unbatched").
Batches are then assigned based on the Expiry date (the oldest first). Expired Batches are not used for auto-assigning.
If there are no batches with Expiry dates (or none left), batches are assigned based on the Created date (the oldest first).
If there isn't enough stock left in any existing batches, Katana will start assigning items from the "Unbatched" batch as a fallback, which will result in negative stock. To avoid this situation, we recommend always keeping sales items in stock (that aren't expired).
Similar auto-assigning rules are used for batch trackable materials and sub-assemblies when your SO is linked to a Make-To-Order (MTO) MO. In this case, the MTO is marked Done automatically when the SO is fulfilled, and batches to ingredients are assigned automatically.
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