Glossary
Received on dock
Received on dock is stock that has been counted in but not yet put away. It is in the building and it is not sellable, and a system that cannot tell the two apart will promise it to a customer before a forklift has touched it.
What it is
Received on dock is a state, not a place. Goods have been received against a purchase order, counted, maybe palletized, and they are waiting for putaway. They exist. They are not on a shelf. Until a putaway confirms a location, no picker can be sent for them.
Why it matters
The dock is where two truths overlap: the goods are here, and the goods cannot be sold. A system with one on-hand number collapses the two and starts promising pallets that are still shrink-wrapped by the door. Keeping a dock bucket lets the receipt be honest, the available number stay honest, and the putaway backlog be visible.
A worked example
A container is unloaded at 9 a.m.: 40 pallets received, counted, labeled. At 9:15 the on-hand total went up by 40 pallets’ worth, but available did not move. By 3 p.m. putaway has placed 32; those are now sellable. The eight still on the dock show in the putaway queue, and a sales order that needs one of them waits until it is placed, instead of sending a picker to the door.
How DockingWare does it
DockingWare posts received goods to a received-on-dock bucket that never counts as available, and moves them to pick face or bulk only when a putaway task is confirmed against a real location. The receipt, the pallet and the putaway are three documents on one ledger, and the movement from dock to shelf is a row that names all three.
Questions
- Why not make received goods sellable immediately?
- Because nobody can pick them yet. They are on a pallet at the door, possibly still being checked. Promising them means an order can be allocated to stock no picker can reach.
- How long should goods stay on the dock?
- As short as the putaway queue allows. A dock full of received pallets is a sign that putaway is behind, and the system should show that queue rather than hide it in a total.
- Is dock stock counted in inventory value?
- It is owned and in the building, so for accounting it usually is. For selling it is not. That is exactly why it needs its own bucket.