Local Shipments

What this guide covers

Building a Local Shipment to move stock between warehouse locations or to an internal staging area. Local Shipments are the inter-warehouse / intra-org analogue to Sales Shipments — same picking + dispatch mechanics, but the destination is an internal location, not a customer.

For customer-facing dispatch see Sales Shipments. For external service providers see External Service Shipments.

Where to find it

Open Operations → Shipments → Local Shipments. The page lists every local shipment, filterable by status (Parked, Placed, Dispatched, Deleted).

Who can do what

• Warehouse staff — view, create, edit (while Parked / Placed), collect, dispatch. The page has no explicit AppPermission gate; access is by JSF page-level permission.
• The first user to start collecting locks the shipment to their warehouse location — only they (or another user at the same location) can finish dispatching it.
• Site admin (ADMIN) — full access, no location lock.

Creating a shipment

1. Click New Local Shipment.
2. Fill in Category (required) and Item Reference (required) — these are the metadata fields the picking dialog uses to filter earmarked stock.
3. Add product lines via the search box: pick the product, enter the qty.
4. Click Save. The shipment lands in Parked status, ready to be edited or sent to picking.

For legacy shipments missing Category / Item Reference, use the Metadata Fix dialog to backfill before dispatch.

Picking and dispatching

1. From the list, open the shipment with Process.
2. The picking dialog opens. For each line:
   • Pick the source bin from the suggested list (the system shows bins with the right Item Reference and qty).
   • Enter how much you're collecting from that bin. Multiple bins can fulfil one line (the page tracks remaining qty).
   • Click Collect. The system moves stock from the bin into your personal staging location (SHIP_COLLECT).
3. Repeat until every line is fully collected.
4. Click Dispatch. The system consumes the staged stock, posts the destination move, and advances any linked Work Order step.

Common errors and fixes

• "Category is required." — UI validation. Pick a category before saving.
• "Item Reference is required." — same, for the item-ref field. The picking dialog uses this to find earmarked stock.
• "Please select a valid product and enter a quantity > 0." — Add Item clicked without product or qty. Pick a product, enter qty.
• "Please add at least one product line." — saving an empty draft. Add at least one line.
• "Collect qty must be positive." — typed zero or negative qty in the picking dialog. Enter a positive number.
• "Not enough stock at location [location]." — the bin has less than what you're trying to collect. Reduce qty or pick from a different bin.
• "Cannot collect more than planned qty for [product]." — you've already collected the full line qty across other bins. Move on to the next line.
• "This shipment is already being collected by [location]." — a second user tried to start collecting after a first user already staged a line. Wait for the first user to dispatch, or ask them to back out.
• "This shipment was collected by [location] and must be dispatched from the same location." — you're trying to dispatch from a different physical location than where collection happened. Either go to that location, or have the original collector dispatch.
• "This shipment has already been dispatched." — the shipment is already in Dispatched status; nothing to do.
• "No staged stock found for [product]. Ensure all items are collected before dispatching." — clicked Dispatch before everything was collected. Finish collecting first.
• "Cannot dispatch shipment: product [code] still has [qty] outstanding units." — same as above with a specific product. Collect the missing qty.
• "Shipment has no lines to dispatch." — empty shipment. Either add lines or cancel.
• "Negative quantities are not allowed on shipment line [code]." — qty < 0 entered. Use a positive number.
• "Serialized product [code] must use whole-number quantities." — fractional qty entered for serial product. Round to integer.
• "Blank serial number found for serialized product [code]." — completion blocked because a serial input is empty. Fill it in.

Tips and gotchas

• Location-locking is by design. Once anyone collects a single line, the shipment is "owned" by that physical location until dispatch. Multi-person collection workflows aren't supported on a single shipment — split into multiple shipments if you need parallel collection.
• Category + Item Reference are mandatory before dispatch. Old shipments missing these can't be dispatched until you backfill via the Metadata Fix dialog.
• Serialised products use whole-unit qtys. Fractional collection is rejected.
• Stock must be 100% collected before dispatch. Partial dispatch isn't allowed; the Dispatch button refuses if any line is still outstanding.
• The destination for the dispatch move is set on the shipment line — typically a customer-bound staging bin or another warehouse's receiving bay. There's no destination picker on the dispatch step itself.