Multi-box products: look up and return a box

Some products arrive, are stored and ship in several boxes: one unit of a wardrobe, for example, can be three boxes. LogisticsWMS follows each of those boxes on its own, and each box is a volume with its own code. On the Multi-box products screen you scan a box to see which product it belongs to, where it is and what happened to it, and you register a return when a shipped box comes back from a customer.

Not the same as Volumes (containers)

Here, a volume is one box of a product. The containers you store and ship goods in are under Volumes and have their own history: see Volume history. If you scan a container code on this screen, it tells you so and shows Open it in Volumes → to open it in the right list.

How a product is followed box by box

Go to Products, under Entities in the side menu, and open the product.
In the Identification section, set Volumes per unit to the number of boxes in one unit. With 1, the default, the product is not followed box by box.
When the product is received, each box is recorded as a volume, with its code.

The Multi-box products screen appears in the side menu, for every staff user, as soon as the first product with more than one volume per unit is received. Client portal users cannot open it.

Looking up a box

Go to Inventory → Multi-box products, in the side menu.

Scan the box into the code field; the Register a return button opens the return flow.
Scan the box's code, or type it in the Scan or enter a volume code field, and press Search. The field is emptied straight away, ready for the next scan.
Check the result:
- the product, its SKU and the box's code, with the box's status (for example Stored or Shipped);
- which box of the unit it is, for example Volume 2 of 3, when the system knows it;
- Where: the location and the container the box is in, or Not in the warehouse;
- Lot and Order, when the box has a lot or left on an order.
If the box belongs to a known unit, Other volumes of this unit lists the unit's other boxes, with each one's code and status.
Scroll to Movement history to see everything that happened to the box: When, Movement, the status From and To, and a Note, which shows a return's reason.
Scan the next code to look up another box, or select Clear to clear the result.

This screen only looks things up: it changes no box and no stock.

Registering a return

Only a box whose status is Shipped can be registered as returned.

Open the return in one of two ways:
- on the result of a shipped box, select Register a return →: the box is already scanned;
- at the top of the screen, select Register a return → and scan the box in the Scan the volume that came back field.
If the box is still in the warehouse, or is already registered as returned, the screen tells you and waits for another box.
Check this is the box in your hands: the screen shows the product, which box of the unit it is and Shipped on order …. Select Yes, this one, or scan the same box again.
Under Why did it come back?, choose Damaged, Wrong item, Refused by the customer or Other.
If you chose Other, say what happened (required). For the other reasons, the description is optional. You have up to 200 characters.
Select Register return. The box becomes Returned and does not count as stock until it is put away again.
To put it away now, select Put it away now, take the box to a location in this warehouse and scan the location. The box becomes Stored and counts as stock again.
Select Scan the next volume to register a return for another box.

At any step, scanning another box starts the return over with that box.

Later does not come back to this screen

If you choose Later instead of Put it away now, the box stays Returned. If you scan it again in this flow, the screen only says it is already registered as returned: it does not let you put it away from here. Whenever you can, put it away straight away.

Important notes

A box put away after a return comes into stock as its share of one unit: for a product with 3 volumes per unit, each box counts as a third.
If the order's return was imported from Shopify, Put it away now is refused: that return's reception receives the box. Put it away from that reception.