Transfer Picks

Gathering Stock for a Transfer

A transfer order says what should move between your sites. Somebody still has to walk the aisles, take the units off the shelves and stage them for the driver, and a transfer pick is how you ask for that work: assigned, timed and counted like any other pick. Before it existed you either raised a customer order against your own site to get a pick list, or moved the stock with an adjustment nobody could audit.

Transfer picking has its own screen at Processing > Transfer Picks and its own records, so nothing done here can reach your customer picks. The one thing the two share is the stock: both compete for the same units, and whichever reserves them first gets them.

Example scenario: your main warehouse is sending 24 units of a fast seller to your smaller site on transfer order TO-6A1F20C4. You choose Create Pick, and Helm reserves 18 units at one location and six at another. Your picker walks both, types 18 and six into Action Qty, and publishes the pair into the goods-out bay with one confirmation: the pick reads Picked, so does the transfer order, and it is ready to despatch.

What Makes a Pick Build Cleanly

• Full mode on the warehouse doing the picking. Processing > Transfer Picks and Shipping > Transfer Shipments appear once Warehouse Mode reads Full, which is also what puts Create Pick on a transfer order. The mode sits on the warehouse record, opened from the Settings page, behind Change Warehouse Mode. Processing > Transfer Orders is in the sidebar whatever mode you run.

• The transfer pick permissions on your group. Create Transfer Pick to raise one, View Transfer Picks to reach the list, Update Transfer Pick and Publish Transfer Pick to work it, and Delete Transfer Pick or Archive Transfer Pick to clear it away. Where one is missing, the action is greyed out with a permission tooltip.

• An order that is ready to be picked. It needs at least one line, no live despatch against it, no hold on it, and a status of Draft, New Order, Picking or Partially Picked. Where it is on hold, has no lines or is picked in full, Create Pick is greyed out and a tooltip titled Cannot be Picked says so; on one already despatched or cancelled it is not in the menu at all.

• Enough pickable stock for the whole order. Helm reserves a transfer all or nothing: where it cannot cover every outstanding unit it tells you so and builds no pick.

• Stock standing in ordinary pickable locations. Helm skips units already committed elsewhere: anything in the system locations named under Location Information on that same warehouse record, and anything in a location whose Storage Type is Non-Pickable, set on the location itself rather than the warehouse.

• Somewhere to publish into. Picked units are staged at a location whose Location Type is Goods-Out; nothing else is accepted. Helm offers your Default Picked Location first, so set that once and the picker never thinks about it.

How to Pick a Transfer Order in Helm

If your team already works picks, this screen will be familiar: progress, the assigned picker, the clock, tags, the line-by-line table and the same Publish button, all covered by the Pick Management article.

1. Create the pick from the transfer order, the only place a transfer pick starts.

   1. Go to Processing > Transfer Orders and open the order's Actions menu.

   2. Choose Create Pick. There is nothing to fill in: Helm reserves the stock and builds the pick in the background, one pick for that one transfer order.

   3. The tab you asked from opens the new pick; any other tab gets a notification with a Go to Pick Detail link instead. You can find it later under Processing > Transfer Picks, where picks are numbered from TP- and never appear under Processing > Pick Management.

2. Give the pick a picker. In the Assigned User card, use the pencil button to open Assign User and choose who is doing the work.

   1. Start the clock when they begin, using the play button beside the running duration on that same card. Time tracking is what feeds Pick Rate and EST Completion, and publishing stops it for you.

   2. Rename the pick in the Name field if a plainer name helps the floor: Helm names the first one Transfer Pick and numbers each one after that. The pick number heads its own page, with the build date beneath it and its own tag list.

3. Work the lines.

   1. The Pick Items table lists every line with its Product Name, the Location to go to, Picked Qty so far and the owning transfer order under Order ID, which links back to it.

   2. Type what was actually taken into Action Qty on each line. Each entry saves on the line as you type it, and nothing moves in your stock until you publish.

   3. If the units are not where Helm sent the picker, change the Location on the line and pick from there.

   4. Select several lines to use Fill Action Qty or Clear Action Qty, or Delete lines that cannot be picked at all. Select exactly one and Split Lines divides it so part comes from a second location.

   5. Filter the section by Location And Zones, Product Code or Picked Status to work a long pick in chunks.

   6. For paper, the transfer order has its own Download Order Cheatsheet: the printable pick list belongs to customer picking.

4. Publish what is on the trolley.

   1. Choose Publish, which becomes available as soon as one line carries an Action Qty.

   2. In Specify Item Location, confirm where the goods are being staged under Picked to: and choose Confirm Location.

   3. Helm moves those units to the staging location and writes them against the transfer order's lines. Lines with no action quantity are left for another pass.

   4. Leaving the page before you publish raises a Warning first. Your entries are kept and still on the lines when you come back; the warning only means they have not reached your inventory and stock yet.

5. Check the result. Complete Percentage shows how far the pick has got, and the transfer order moves in step: Picking, then Partially Picked once some units are staged, then Picked.

1. Close off a short pick.

   1. Where some units simply are not there, choose Mark As Complete, which appears once part of the pick is published.

   2. Helm cuts the pick down to what was picked and hands the rest back to the transfer order, ready to be picked again for the remainder.

2. Despatch it.

   1. A completed pick offers Despatch, which opens the transfer order's despatch screen with its lines on it. You can also despatch from the transfer order itself.

   2. If the button is greyed out, hover it: a tooltip titled Cannot be Despatched says why, usually that the order has already gone, is cancelled, is on hold or has no delivery address.

Pick Statuses & the Transfer Order

A transfer pick has three statuses of its own, and Helm keeps the transfer order in step with them rather than asking you to update anything.

The list can be filtered by Assigned User, Transfer Order ID, Pick Type, Status, Creation Date, Items and Lines, and the search box matches the pick number and name.

What Picking Does to Your Stock

• Creating the pick reserves the units where they stand. Helm holds the exact quantity at the exact location the picker will visit, so no other pick, transfer or customer, can take them. No figure on the product changes: the transfer order already came out of Available when its line was added.

• Publishing moves stock, it does not remove it. The units come off the shelf and on to the staging location, still reserved for this transfer. The product's Stock Locations shows the same total in a different place. One figure does move: Available to Pick counts only stock that could be picked from where it stands, so staging into a goods-out location whose Storage Type is Non-Pickable drops those units out of it.

• Batches follow the units. A batch-tracked line keeps its batch number and expiry date at the staging location, so traceability survives the move.

• Stock only leaves the warehouse at despatch. Until then everything the pick staged is still yours and still counted. The goods arrive at the far end as an ordinary delivery quoting the transfer order number, which the Deliveries article covers.

Holding, Deleting & Archiving a Pick

What you can do with a pick follows how much of it has been published.

• Pause a pick you are not working on. Choose Hold this Pick in the Pick Details card. A held pick shows a red banner and waits: publishing, completing and archiving all come back once you choose Click here on the banner to release it.

• Delete a live pick to call the work off. While a pick is Ready to Pick with nothing published, the bin button on its row removes it, and confirming Remove pick? takes the row off the list at once. The rest follows a few seconds later: Helm hands back the stock it reserved and the quantities it was holding on the transfer order, all of it, and the order goes back to the status it was in before the pick, Draft or New Order, ready to be picked again.

• Archive a pick once it is finished work. Archive on the row's Actions menu moves it out of the working list into Archived Transfer Picks, reached by the archived view toggle in the header, and releases anything it reserved but never picked. Archive one that has something picked on it: a pick with nothing picked at all is deleted rather than archived. From the archived view the one action offered is Delete, and the units the pick staged stay where the picker left them.

• Deleting lines releases just those lines. The stock they held goes back, and a pick left with no lines at all is removed for you.

• Work in bulk where it helps. Ticking rows on the working list offers Assign to a User and, under Tags, Add Tags and Remove Tags. You also get either Delete or Archive, never both: Delete while every ticked pick is Ready to Pick, and Archive otherwise.

Getting the Most Out of Transfer Picks

Publish in Passes as the Trolley Comes Back

An Action Qty is only an intention until the pick is published: the stock has not moved, the transfer order has not changed status, and the figures are not yet true. On a long pick, publish each pass as the trolley comes back rather than saving it all for the end.

Tag & File a Short Order to Come Back To

A build that cannot reserve everything says so, and its notification carries a See problems here link. That opens Pick Problem, listing the Affected Orders and the Reason, usually not enough pickable stock. Its Actions menu offers Tag as ‘Pick Failed’ and Move to ‘Pick Failed’ folder, which tag and file those transfer orders under the name Transfer Pick Failed. Both are ordinary order tags and order folders, and they show on the transfer order's own page in its tags and its Folder Info card, so the work can be picked up again when stock arrives.

Assign the Pick to Get the Numbers

Pick Rate, EST Completion and Pick Duration are all built from an assigned picker and a running clock. A pick worked by whoever is passing still moves the stock, but tells you nothing about how long transfers take you.

FAQ

What Do I Need Before I Can Pick a Transfer?

A warehouse in Full mode and View Transfer Picks on your permission group. Picking a transfer is full-mode only while Processing > Transfer Orders is not, which is why you can sometimes raise a transfer before you can pick it.

Which Pick Type Does a Transfer Use?

Order By Order, and Helm sets it for you, so there is no pick type to choose and no settings to fill in. The tote and bulk pick types group work across many customer orders, while a transfer pick serves the one transfer order it was raised from.

Can I Pick the Same Transfer Order Twice?

Yes. While an order reads Picking or Partially Picked you can choose Create Pick again, and the new pick claims only the units no existing pick has claimed, so two picks can be worked side by side. Wait for the notification that a build is ready before raising the next one, since Helm builds them one at a time.

How Do I Close a Pick That Has Already Moved Stock?

With Mark As Complete, then Archive. Once units have physically moved the counts have to stand, so a pick with anything published on it is closed off rather than deleted, and the unpicked remainder goes back to the transfer order.

When Do the Goods Actually Leave for the Other Site?

At despatch. Publishing stages them at your goods-out location; the stock leaves you, and the receiving site hears about it, only when the transfer order is despatched.

If a pick will not publish, check whether it is on hold and whether you are publishing into a Goods-Out location. If it still refuses, contact support with the pick and transfer order numbers.