Adding a Warehouse

What a Second Site Lets You Do

A second site is how you hold stock closer to the people buying it. You decide what each site keeps, so you can despatch from whichever site is nearest the customer, hold the fast sellers at both, take on an overflow unit for a busy season, or give a new region its own base.

Each site runs as its own Helm. It has its own settings, its own users, its own products, its own stock and its own locations, with you as its owner, and you move between them from the account menu behind your name, top right, using Switch Company. Neither site sees the other's stock or orders, so the team at each one works from a Helm that shows only their own site's work.

Helm links the two sites for you as part of adding the second one, using a transfer destination rather than a shared stock list. That link is what lets stock move between them: you raise a transfer order at the site holding the stock, pick and despatch it there, and it arrives as a delivery to book in at the other end. Every site you add is a company of its own that you switch into, which is why the account menu gains a company list as soon as you have more than one.

Example scenario: Riverside Supplies despatches everything from its Bristol site and is opening a small unit in Warrington. An owner adds the unit as a warehouse, typing Riverside North as the company name along with the unit's address and phone number. Helm creates Riverside North as its own company, with them as its owner, and puts it in Bristol's Transfer Destinations list straight away. The owner switches into Riverside North to name its warehouse, settle its mode and build its locations, then switches back to Bristol and sends the unit its opening stock as a transfer order.

Before You Start

• An owner or an administrator adds it. The permission is titled Create Warehouse and is held by those two roles, and Helm checks the role again when you submit, so Accounts, Supervisor and every other role need an owner or an administrator for this step.

• Have the site's delivery address and a phone number to hand. Company name, Phone number, Address line 1, City, Postcode and Country are all required, and that address becomes the default delivery address for transfers sent to this warehouse.

• Settle what the site is called first. The name you type becomes the company name and the name of the transfer destination, and the destination name is all anyone sees when addressing a transfer order. Use the name your team already says out loud.

• Check the mode of the site that will send the stock. Raising and receiving transfer orders works in either mode. Picking and despatching one needs Warehouse Mode set to Full on the warehouse doing the sending, so move your existing warehouse to Full first if it runs in Basic.

• Nothing else needs setting up in advance. You do not need a transfer destination or any locations beforehand. Adding the warehouse is the first step, not the last.

• The new site starts empty. Adding a warehouse moves no stock. Its stock arrives when you send it a transfer order, or when somebody adds it inside that company.

How to Add a Warehouse

One dialog creates a warehouse, Add New Warehouse, and there are two ways in. From a standing start, open Settings and follow the steps below. If you are already on the Transfer Destinations list, choose Create New Destination, then Add Destination from the menu it opens, then Add Warehouse at the foot of the dialog. That link lands you on the same dialog in Settings, so type the site's details there: anything typed into the destination dialog is discarded on the way.

This is the route for a site that is not in Helm yet. If the site already runs Helm as its own company, use Link a Warehouse, which becomes available as soon as there is a company to link; if it is a third party that does not run Helm at all, use Add Destination. The Setting Up Transfer Destinations article covers both.

1. Go to Settings and find the Company Settings group.

2. Choose Add Warehouse, in that group's heading rather than among the tiles below it.

3. Enter the site's name in Company name. This names the new company and its transfer destination.

4. Enter a Phone number for the site. Helm keeps it as the destination's contact number and normally copies it onto the new warehouse too.

5. Start typing in Address line 1 and choose the address from the suggestions, or type it out in full.

6. Check Address line 2, City, County, Postcode and Country. Only Address line 2 and County are optional.

7. Choose Add.

Helm confirms with Added New Warehouse and tells you the warehouse has been added as a new company. Close takes you to Transfer Destinations, under Settings > System Settings, where it is already waiting as a Linked Helm row with the address you typed.

What Is Ready Straight Away

Two things are finished by the time the dialog closes. Everything else the new company owns is built in the background.

So you can address a transfer order to the new warehouse straight away, provided the warehouse sending the stock is already in Full mode. Give the new company a few minutes before you switch in, and check its address once you are there: Helm fills those warehouse settings in only where they are still empty.

Choosing the Warehouse Mode

Every new warehouse arrives in Basic, whatever mode the company you added it from runs in. The mode decides how much of Helm's warehousing that site gets, which makes it the one setting worth settling early.

It lives on the warehouse record inside the new company: switch in, go to Settings, open the tile named after its warehouse in the Company Settings group, and use the pencil beside Warehouse Mode. That change is an owner's or an administrator's to make. For what each mode gives you, read Understanding Warehousing Modes in Helm, which compares the two in full.

Transfers sit slightly outside that comparison. Transfer Orders sits under Processing in either mode, so a warehouse in Basic can raise transfer orders and receive them. Transfer Picks under Processing and Transfer Shipments under Shipping appear once the mode reads Full. So a site that will pick and despatch transfers itself, rather than only booking them in, needs Full, and that holds at both ends of the route.

Setting Up the New Site

Everything below happens inside the new company, so switch to it first: open the account menu behind your name, choose Switch Company, then choose the new company.

1. Check the address. Go to Settings, open the tile named after the warehouse, and look at the Address card. If Warehouse Address is empty, use the pencil on that card to fill it in.

2. Add a contact person. The contact fields sit above the address fields in the same dialog. A warehouse created this way normally arrives with the phone number you typed and nothing else, and this contact is what prints as the recipient on a transfer sent here.

3. Give it a proper name. Every new warehouse starts as My Warehouse, and Warehouse Information on the same page is where you change that, worth doing while you can still remember which site is which. Renaming the warehouse does not rename the company, so the transfer destination on your other site keeps the name you typed at creation.

4. Set its Warehouse Mode, as the section above describes. Every new warehouse arrives in Basic.

5. Build its locations, once it is in Full mode. It starts with one zone called Default Zone and one location called Default, which is enough to receive a delivery and not yet enough to pick efficiently. The Warehouse Locations card appears on this same page once the mode reads Full, with Go To Location List on it, and Mastering Stock Locations in Helm covers the rest.

6. Invite the people who work there. The new company has exactly one user, you, and Users in Company Settings is where the others are added.

For what every remaining setting on that page does, read Warehouse Settings.

Sending the Site Its First Stock

With the new site named and its mode settled, the last step is stock. Switch back to the company that holds it and raise a transfer order against the new destination: the Transfer Orders article covers raising one, addressing it and booking it in at the other end.

After that the rhythm is the same every time: the site holding the stock raises the transfer order, picks it and despatches it, and the receiving site books the delivery in. Products and stock belong to each company and both catch up on their own, so a transfer arriving at a site creates any product that company does not hold yet: there is no catalogue to seed by hand before the first delivery.

Getting the Most Out of Two Sites

Name the Site the Way Your Team Says It

A transfer destination takes the name of the company it points at, and the picker on a transfer order shows nothing but that name. So name a warehouse company the way your team refers to the site, not the way it appears on a letterhead.

Give the Background Setup a Few Minutes

A warehouse added and then switched into straight away can look half finished, because its own warehouse record, locations and templates are still being created. Come back in a few minutes and it will be complete.

FAQ

How Do I Add a Third Site?

The same way, and from the site it will trade stock with, because Helm links each new warehouse to the company you add it from. Every site you add is a company of its own, so they all appear under Switch Company and stock moves between them as transfer orders. The Setting Up Transfer Destinations article covers linking sites that already exist.

Who Can Add a Warehouse?

An owner or an administrator of the company you are adding it from. The permission is titled Create Warehouse, and Helm re-checks the role when you submit, so it stays with those two roles whatever a custom permission group says.

Is the Transfer Link Set Up for Me?

Yes. Helm creates this company's destination as part of adding the warehouse, with the address you typed, and adds the matching one inside the new company a few minutes later. Use the Transfer Destinations screen when you want to check, deactivate or tidy a row.

How Does the New Site Send Stock Back to This One?

Through its own destination pointing back at this company, which is created a few minutes after the warehouse itself. Switch to the new company and check its Transfer Destinations list: if this company is listed there, it can raise and address transfer orders in that direction. Picking and despatching them needs its Warehouse Mode set to Full as well.

How Do I Close a Site I No Longer Need?

Switch to that company, go to Settings, open the Company Settings tile and use Close Company. You type the company name to confirm, all of its data is removed and it cannot be undone. Afterwards, switch back and tidy the destination row it left behind on this company, either by setting it to Inactive or by deleting it.

If a warehouse you added has not appeared under Switch Company, or if its Transfer Destinations list is still missing the row pointing back at this company half an hour later, contact support with both company names rather than adding it a second time.