Outbound Warehouse Activities Overview

GoldFinch Outbound Warehouse Management helps organizations control how they pick, stage, pack, and ship inventory to customers or other locations.

By connecting sales orders, warehouse shipments, pick tickets, pallets, shipping documents, inventory, and customer records on Salesforce, GoldFinch provides visibility from order release through shipment completion.

The Outbound Warehouse Process

A typical outbound warehouse process includes the following stages:

1. Review demand
   Warehouse teams identify sales orders, transfer orders, or other requests that are ready for fulfillment.
2. Create warehouse shipments
   Eligible order lines are assigned to warehouse shipments based on factors such as warehouse, requested shipment date, customer, delivery destination, and shipping requirements.
3. Plan and release picks
   Pick tickets direct employees to the appropriate warehouse locations. Depending on the operation, employees may pick orders individually, by zone, in waves, or as part of a batch.
4. Pick and stage inventory
   Employees retrieve products from warehouse bins and move them to designated staging, packing, or shipping areas.
5. Pack and verify shipments
   Employees check picked products against the order, organize them into packages or pallets, and prepare them for shipment.
6. Print shipping documents and labels
   Generate packing slips, pallet documents, and applicable shipping labels to accompany the shipment.
7. Complete the shipment
   Shipment processing updates the related inventory, warehouse, order, and fulfillment records in GoldFinch.

The precise workflow depends on the organization’s warehouse design, order volume, inventory controls, and shipping requirements.

Warehouse Shipments

Warehouse shipments provide a controlled way to organize and process outbound inventory.

GoldFinch can support shipments involving:

• Sales orders
• Transfer orders
• Multiple warehouses and bins
• Partial or multiple shipments
• Multiple units of measure
• Lot- and serial-controlled items
• Palletized products
• Different ship-to locations
• EDI fulfillment requirements
• Customer-specific shipping instructions

Multiple eligible orders may also be combined into warehouse shipments when operationally appropriate.

Picking Management

GoldFinch pick tickets help warehouse employees identify the products, quantities, and locations required for fulfillment.

Depending on the warehouse’s configuration and operating model, GoldFinch can support:

• Order-by-order picking
• Zone picking
• Wave picking
• Batch picking
• Bin-directed picking
• Lot- or serial-specific picking
• Pallet-based picking
• Mobile barcode scanning

These options let organizations choose picking methods that fit their warehouse layout, product characteristics, and order volume.

Staging, Packing, and Pallet Management

After picking, items may move to a staging or shipping area for verification and packing.

GoldFinch can support:

• Shipment staging
• Product verification
• Shipment pallets
• Pallet labels
• Pallet packing slips
• Shipment packing slips
• Lot and serial traceability
• Package or pallet organization

A structured packing and staging process helps ensure that the correct products and quantities are prepared for each destination.

Shipping Documents and Labels

GoldFinch can generate documents and labels used during outbound fulfillment, including:

• Pick tickets
• Shipment packing slips
• Pallet packing slips
• Pallet labels
• Supported carrier or shipping labels
• Other customer- or shipment-related documents

Available documents and label formats depend on the customer’s configuration and connected shipping solutions.

EDI-Supported Fulfillment

For organizations using electronic data interchange, GoldFinch can support outbound warehouse processes involving documents such as:

• EDI 940 Warehouse Shipping Order—communicates fulfillment instructions to a warehouse or logistics provider.
• EDI 945 Warehouse Shipping Advice—communicates completed shipment information back from the warehouse or logistics provider.

You may use EDI capabilities with third-party warehouses, logistics providers, trading partners, or other connected systems. Requirements vary by partner and implementation.

Exception Management

Outbound fulfillment may involve exceptions requiring review, such as:

• Insufficient or unavailable inventory
• Incorrect bin quantities
• Lot or serial discrepancies
• Partial shipments
• Substituted or short-shipped items
• Missing shipping information
• Label-printing issues
• EDI validation or processing errors
• Differences between picked and requested quantities

GoldFinch helps authorized users identify and address exceptions while maintaining connections to related order and warehouse records.

Connected Information on Salesforce

Because GoldFinch is Salesforce-native, outbound warehouse activities connect with sales, purchasing, inventory, manufacturing, shipping, and customer information on the Salesforce platform.

Authorized users can gain visibility into:

• Orders awaiting fulfillment
• Open and completed picks
• Inventory allocated to orders
• Shipments in progress
• Inventory by warehouse and bin
• Lot and serial activity
• Shipment pallets
• Shipping and warehouse documents
• Completed shipment history
• Related customers, orders, items, and delivery locations

This shared information helps customer service, sales, warehouse, and operations teams coordinate fulfillment using connected records.

Business Benefits

GoldFinch Outbound Warehouse Management can help organizations:

• Improve picking and shipping accuracy
• Reduce manual entry and fulfillment errors
• Increase visibility into order status
• Support efficient wave, batch, and zone picking
• Strengthen lot, serial, bin, and pallet traceability
• Standardize warehouse fulfillment procedures
• Process higher order volumes more efficiently
• Improve coordination between warehouse and customer-facing teams
• Maintain a connected history from the sales order through shipment

Flexible for Different Fulfillment Operations

GoldFinch can support fulfillment environments ranging from a simple warehouse with basic picking and shipping to more advanced operations involving multiple bins, mobile scanning, wave picking, palletization, EDI, and third-party logistics providers.

Available processes depend on the customer’s licensed GoldFinch modules, configuration, integrations, and warehouse requirements.

GoldFinch customers can sign in to Clientcare for detailed instructions on creating warehouse shipments, processing pick tickets, managing wave or zone picks, printing shipment documents, working with pallets, and processing EDI transactions.