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Style inventory across unlimited named locations on one item master: your own warehouse, a 3PL, a retail store, a showroom, or a virtual warehouse holding stock back. Per warehouse picking, receiving, transfers, counting and reporting.
Your own building, a 3PL, a retail store, a showroom, and a virtual warehouse holding stock you do not want anyone selling yet. Multi-warehouse lets AIMS360 hold all of them separately while the item master, the order book and the financials underneath stay single. Turning it on changes what your team sees on almost every screen, which is worth understanding before you flip the switch.
It is the feature that lets style inventory live in more than one named location while everything above it stays single. One item master, one order book, one set of financials, one style, color and size record, with stock held per warehouse underneath.
Without it, AIMS360 assumes everything is in one place: a single shipping warehouse set in company settings, and no reference to a warehouse anywhere on styles, orders, pick tickets or WIP. With it, the warehouse becomes a visible dimension on all of them.
That second sentence is the part worth reading twice. Multi-warehouse is not a module you bolt on beside your existing screens. It changes the screens.
Five areas start asking which warehouse you mean. Everyone who touches them needs to know.
The style master defaults to all warehouses combined for both stock and open to sell. To see one location, you select it. Most confusion in the first month comes from someone reading a combined figure and thinking it was a single warehouse.
Order entry shows all warehouses combined for stock and open to sell by default, with the shipping warehouse defaulting from the customer record. It can be confirmed or changed on the order, and changed per line item where an order genuinely ships from two places.
Production planning and receiving both become warehouse aware, so a cut ticket or a purchase order lands its goods somewhere specific rather than into a general pool. See WIP and transfer tracking.
Pick tickets and invoicing both operate against the selected warehouse, which is what stops a picker being sent after units that are two states away.
| Location | Why it is a warehouse |
|---|---|
| Your own building | The obvious one. Goods you receive, hold, pick and ship yourself, usually with bin locations underneath. |
| A 3PL | Stock you do not touch, held by somebody else and reported back. See 3PL integrations for how the documents flow. |
| A retail store | Store stock that has to be visible and sellable without being confused with wholesale availability. |
| A showroom | Samples and stock held for selling appointments, kept out of the number your ecommerce channel publishes. |
| A virtual warehouse | No building at all. A named location used to hold stock apart from general availability: goods promised to a program, quarantined units, or anything you do not want the order book selling yet. |
The virtual warehouse is the one brands underuse. It is the cleanest way to reserve a block of units without inventing a fake customer order or trusting everyone to remember.
The customer record sets the default. Add a style to an order and the shipping warehouse comes from the customer master, so an account that always ships from your east coast building does, without anyone choosing.
The warehouse is visible on the order and can be changed there where your permissions allow it, which is the checkpoint before anything gets picked.
Where an order genuinely ships from two locations, the warehouse can be set per line item. Reports run across all warehouses will then separate the lines rather than pretending the order shipped from one place.
Preferred warehouse can be batch updated rather than edited customer by customer, which matters the week you open a second building and half your accounts need to move.
A warehouse is activated when you start using it and closed when you stop, so a location you no longer ship from stops appearing as an option without erasing its history.
Stock moves. The point of recording it is that the number in each location stays true while it does.
Move stock from one warehouse to another as a recorded transaction, so both locations reflect the move rather than one being adjusted down and the other adjusted up by two different people on two different days.
With mobile scanning, scan a UPC or select the style, color and size and transfer it to another bin or another warehouse from where the goods physically are.
Where bin locations are in use, transfers work at bin level as well as between warehouses, which is what makes directed putaway and a single shelf count possible.
Moving stock to a third party location is handled as a warehouse transfer with the documents that partner expects, so goods sitting at a 3PL are still your inventory in your system.
Physical inventory runs per warehouse, so you can count one building without freezing the others, or run counts in several locations at once. For a brand with a store and a warehouse, this alone is worth the switch.
When counts are keyed manually into AIMS360, one user updates inventory at a time. That is a change from the single warehouse behavior, where several people could enter transactions at once, and it catches teams out on count night.
Using the Excel import, several people can count on separate spreadsheets and upload them, and AIMS360 totals the combined counts. That is the practical answer for a big count, and it is worth setting up before the night rather than during it.
Cycle counting on a handheld against bin locations catches drift while it is small and never closes the building. See mobile device scanning.
It holds finished goods by style, color and size across locations. It is not a multi location system for raw materials.
If you need fabric, trim and other materials tracked across more than one place, that is the bins and locations feature, which handles materials down to lots, rolls and locations. Plenty of brands need both, and they work together, but they are two different things and the difference is worth knowing before you plan an implementation around the wrong one.
Multi-warehouse is a licensed feature that gets activated on your database rather than something switched on in a settings screen. Because it changes what your team sees on styles, orders, production and picking, the sensible sequence is a conversation first and activation second.
It is the feature that lets style inventory be held in more than one named location while the item master, the order book and the financials stay single. Without it AIMS360 assumes everything sits in one shipping warehouse and no screen mentions a warehouse at all.
There is no practical limit on the number you add. What matters more is what each one represents, because a 3PL, a retail store, a showroom and a virtual holding location all behave as warehouses and all draw from the same item master.
A named location with no building behind it, used to separate stock from general availability. It is the clean way to hold units back for a program, quarantine goods or park inventory you do not want the order book selling, without inventing a fake customer order to do it.
The warehouse becomes a visible dimension on styles, orders, pick tickets, production and WIP, and reports gain by warehouse options. The style master and order entry both default to showing all warehouses combined for stock and open to sell, so anyone reading those figures needs to know they are looking at a total rather than one location.
It defaults from the customer record. The warehouse can then be confirmed or changed on the order, and where an order genuinely ships from two places it can be set per line item. Preferred warehouse can also be batch updated across customers rather than edited one at a time.
Yes. The warehouse is set per line item, so an order can draw part of its lines from one location and part from another. Reports run across all warehouses separate those lines rather than presenting the order as though it shipped from one place.
As a recorded inventory transfer rather than an adjustment down in one place and up in another. Transfers can be done on the desktop, on a handheld by scanning the UPC where the goods physically are, at bin level where bin locations are in use, or to an outside warehouse with the documents that partner expects.
Yes, and this is one of the bigger practical gains. Physical inventory runs per warehouse, so you can count a single location or run counts in several at the same time rather than stopping the whole business for a weekend.
Not when entering transactions manually: with multi-warehouse active, one user updates inventory at a time. That is a change from the single warehouse behavior. The way around it is the Excel import, where several people count on separate spreadsheets and AIMS360 totals the combined counts on upload.
No, and this is the limit worth knowing before you plan around it. Multi-warehouse is for style inventory, meaning finished goods by style, color and size. Fabric, trim and other materials across multiple locations are handled by the bins and locations feature, which tracks materials down to lots, rolls and locations. Many brands run both.
Yes. Warehouses are activated when you start using them and closed when you stop, so a location drops out of the list of options without erasing the history attached to it.
It is a licensed feature activated on your database rather than a checkbox in settings. Because turning it on changes what your team sees across styles, orders, production and picking, the right order is a conversation with us first and activation second.
Tell us what the second location actually is: a building, a 3PL, a store, or stock you want held back. We will show you how it behaves on styles, orders, production and picking before you commit to it, rather than after.
