How do I set up Locations and Sublocations?

Overview

The Facility tab found under the Applications Settings is where you create the hierarchy for how your business, warehouses and storage locations are organized for managing your inventory.

IMPORTANT Stock storage location TERMINOLOGY

Finale Inventory uses "Dynamic Product Storage Locations" functionality called "Sublocations". There is a difference between Standard Bin IDs and Sublocations.

• Std Bin ID is a simple attribute of the Product ID that can be used to assist in locating where a Product ID is located with the organization, building or warehouse
• Stock levels for products in Finale are not stored in Std Bins, they are stored in Sublocations (think of Std Bin ID as an Index but not a location)
• Std Bin IDs are useful if your products are always stored in the exact same location and do not get moved or transferred from bin to bin
• Small parts such as screws, nails, fasteners, or electrical components are normally stored in Bins
• Sublocation is an independent storage location where any product can be stored
• Sublocations belong to and are associated to a single Location
• Sublocations and Locations must be unique in how they are named (i.e. a Sublocation and Location cannot share the same exact name)

You cannot use the Stock Transfer function to move or consolidate products from one Std Bin to another, since it is not truly a storage location. The Stock Transfer function can be leveraged to move product inventory between Sublocations.

• A Product ID can be in MANY Sublocations at any given time

Define your Locations

Locations in Finale Inventory are representative of a physical location (normally with a street address) or a virtual location to represent a separate business segment or operation, such as Drop Shipping or External Order fulfillment like Amazon FBA. Stock levels are stored in Sublocations associated to the Locations in Finale Inventory. The Location name in Finale Inventory organizes and groups these sublocations together.

• Create your location name with Upper and Lower case letters
• These locations become an organizational unit that inventory storage sublocations are grouped under
• Locations are leveraged as the Destination point for Purchase Orders for creating and receiving inventory replenishments from your Suppliers

Define your Sublocations

Sublocation in Finale Inventory are representative of a stock storage location. The can be synonymous to a bin number, shelf number, rack, pallet location, closet, sub area of a warehouse, truck, retail location, tent, or virtual business operation like RMA or RETURNS or DAMAGE. A Sublocation is a storage location that may represent the entire building or a smaller area of the building or business process.

• Sublocations must be associated to a Location.
• It is recommended that your Sublocation names be in all CAPS and be kept as short in length as possible.
• Sublocation names must be unique across all of your locations. Location and Sublocations cannot have the exact same name.
• Sublocation names should have leading zeros for numbering schemes that use more than one digit. A01 is better than A1 if you are using numbers above more than two digits like 10. See Sublocation naming best practices below, the bins are synonymous with shelves on racks or pallet locations in warehouses:

Please feel free to check out the following tutorial videos to learn how to create sublocations and locations.

Creating Sublocations / Locations Using Finale's Bulk Import Tool

Creating Sublocations / Locations within Finale's Application Settings