How to choose the right inventory flow to handle delivery orders?

Depending on factors such as the type of items you sell, the size of your warehouse, the number of orders you register everyday… the way you handle deliveries to your customers can vary a lot.

Odoo allows you to handle shipping from your warehouse in 3 different ways:

One step (shipping): Ship directly from stock
Two steps (pick + ship): Bring goods to output location before shipping
Three steps (pick + pack + ship): Make packages into a dedicated location, then bring them to the output location for shipping

For companies having a rather small warehouse and that do not require high stock of items or don’t sell perishable items, a one step shipping is the simplest solution, as it does not require a lot of configuration and allows to handle orders very quickly.

Using inventory methods such as FIFO, LIFO and FEFO require to have at least two steps to handle a shipment. The picking method will be determined by the removal strategy, and the items removed will then be shipped to the customer. This method is also interesting if you hold larger stocks and especially when the items you stock are big in size.

The three steps system becomes useful in more specific situations, the main one being for handling very large stocks. The items are transferred to a packing area, where they will be assembled by area of destination, and then set to outbound trucks for final delivery to the customers.

Configuration

Configuration

One step flow

Two steps flow

Three steps flow