What Is Putaway in a Warehouse?

Putaway is the step that takes goods off the receiving dock and into a storage location, after the shipment has been received and checked against the order it fills.

The checking decides how much handling a shipment needs. X12's supply chain guidance says that if a supplier is new to the 856 Ship Notice/Manifest, the receiver will want to verify the shipment against the transaction, which means most, if not every, container or item is checked against the order. Once the delivered order and the incoming 856 are known to match based on prior shipment history, the physical order can be matched to the electronic order and marked complete by the system. When the shipment arrives, it can be put away in the warehouse or a stock location without any further handling.

Some products cannot go straight to an open shelf. For drug manufacturers, FDA's current good manufacturing practice rules set out what receiving and storage must include:

• Inspection on receipt: upon receipt and before acceptance, each container or grouping of containers of components, drug product containers and closures is examined visually for appropriate labeling, container damage or broken seals, and contamination.
• Quarantine: those items are stored under quarantine until they have been tested or examined and released. Finished drug products are quarantined before release by the quality control unit.
• Storage conditions: bagged or boxed components are stored off the floor and suitably spaced to permit cleaning and inspection. Drug products are stored under appropriate conditions of temperature, humidity and light.
• Status by lot: each lot of components in each shipment received gets a distinctive code and is identified as quarantined, approved or rejected.

This is general information, not legal or regulatory advice.

A distributor expects 40 cases of filters, listed on the supplier's ship notice.

• Receive: 40 cases arrive. First, the receiver accepts 38 and rejects 2 with crushed corners: 38 + 2 = 40.
• Put away: 30 of the accepted cases go to reserve racking and 8 go to the pick location that feeds orders: 30 + 8 = 38.
• Record: the system now shows 38 cases on hand, split across two locations, and the 2 rejected cases stay on the receiving record.

Shopify tracks received stock through inventory states. Incoming inventory is on its way to your location from transfers, purchase orders or apps, and it isn't available to sell until it's been received at the location. After you receive incoming inventory from purchase orders or transfers, the state automatically changes to Available. Apps might use other states: an app might put received inventory into Unavailable as safety stock.

When you receive a transfer, you record how much of the inventory to accept, reject or cancel:

• Accept: the inventory becomes available at the destination location, unless the product isn't stocked there.
• Reject: the inventory is recorded on the transfer, but doesn't change inventory quantities at any location.
• Cancel: for items that were never shipped from the origin location.

You can also receive items for a transfer with a barcode scanner. Unavailable inventory, such as units held for quality control, is stocked at your location but isn't available to sell.

Uncap's Sage 100 vs. Sage Intacct guide puts warehouse execution in its own layer: alongside Sage Intacct, you add a warehouse or order management layer for advanced warehouse execution, and if your distribution center runs on scanners and directed putaway today, that layer exists already. The question is which system the storefront asks for availability.

• Warehouse management system (WMS)
• EDI 856 (advance ship notice)
• Cycle counting
• Lot number
• Cross-docking
• ABC analysis

• X12: Supply chain flow
• 21 CFR 211.82: Receipt and storage of untested components (LII)
• Shopify Help Center: Understanding inventory states