Lot numbers and (manufacturing) batch numbers are used to track expirations, manufacturing mistakes or other issues enabling your company to perform recalls and otherwise attribute mistakes in manufacturing to specific manufacturing runs or suppliers.

In SKULabs, lot numbers are handled through the serial # system with a special feature flag to allow re-use rather than single-time use of the serials.

Step 1. Enable lot/batch tracking for an item. Simply edit the item and enable the Lot Tracking checkbox to allow re-using the lot/batch number.
​

Step 2. Add batch/lot numbers as serial numbers by using the Add serial numbers button found in the # Serial Numbers section of item details page. This will open up a window where you can enter lot/batch numbers.

Step 3. When picking the order, scan or enter the batch number and it will be automatically associated with the order for use in order recalls and verification of returns. Use any of the existing serial number reports to monitor the use of batch numbers across SKULabs.

As with serial numbers, batch numbers too must be unique per item or else fast-paced scanning would be required to stop your picker and verify which product the matching batch/serial number scan matched.
​
If you use the same batch number across multiple products and both of those products are on the same order, SKULabs will choose the first unverified product when scanning the batch number.

One way to correct for this is to change your batch numbers by adding your item SKU to them.
​

SKULabs does not track individual quantities of each lot number you have in stock. If you require your lots to be fulfilled FIFO, we recommend you put your inventory away in the back of the shelf / storage area so the freshest inventory is picked last. Keep your oldest inventory up front in the shelf.

Expiration dates can be used as batch numbers which can allow you to regularly review your batch number list to check for expired inventory. While at this time we do not track quantities of each batch number or track expiration dates for each batch, please reach out to our team if you are interested in this functionality because we are improving our ability to track additional details stored against serial/lot/batch numbers.