Question about product bundle and serial no's

I have a product bundle which consists of one stock item and one service item. The stock item has serial numbers.

When i create the Delivery Note for the submitted Sales Order, i realised that the system does not automatically bring me the first available serial no. for the stock item. I need to navigate to the serial no section under Stock and choose one available serial no. (This may cause human error when selecting the first available serial no.) Normally, ErpNext brings me the serial no. automatically when i sell the item separately, not in a bundle. Why the process is different when i sell in bundle? Is this a mistake or designed on purpose?

One question about the print of bundle transactions. I am not able to see the rows (items) of the bundle on the invoice. I’ve checked the discussions about this but still no luck. Any ideas?

Please check the link

Thank you for the reply Pawan. I know how the “product bundle” works, i’ve read the manual. The question is why ErpNext does not deliver the first available serial number automatically while creating a delivery note for a product bundle? Can you please check the screenshots and tell me if i’m missing something or it is the way it is?

here is the Serial No section when i deliver a product: (serial no filled automatically)

here is the same section when i deliver a product sold in a bundle:

I am not sure what are you referring to here, are you referring to the product bundle (parent item) not having a serial no? If so, the intended functionality of Product Bundle is to be a non stock item and hence it does not have a serial number. The Child Items however can be serial controlled and hence have serial number.

if i understand the manual entry correctly …

If child item is the serialized item, you will be able to specify its Serial No. in packing List table itself

… it looks as if it is on purpose designed for manually selecting the Serial No. of child items (@Pawan right? )

I tend to agree with @SecA that this might not be the ideal design for that feature.

@Pawan , i know the Product Bundle does not have a serial no. That makes sense.

@vrms got the problem correctly. I am focusing on the child item’s serial no. But selecting these serial numbers manually is not the best way. The process should be done automatically like it is done when i sell the item individually (not in a bundle).

question is whether this is a bug or a feature. I think it should auto-populate the child item serial number with the next free available, and (if anyone wnated to choose a different one, be able to change that.
@SecA do you know how to post an issue on github? I could imagine that would be the next logical step to further get this into the pipepline (@Pawan agreed?)

Product Bundle is generally used on the Sales side, during that time you may not necessarily be aware of the serial number, if you are you have the option of keying in the serial number too. Again, the question is what logic do you suggest for the system to pull the first serial number or more than one serial number in case of multiple items? Serial Numbers are not always numbered one after the other if you have Items bought from a manufacturer and you bundle them together. So the question is what is your suggested method of choosing serial no. automatically?

hm, if you don’t pick any what happens on the Stock side of this? I mean which one of the (serialized items is reduced)?[quote=“Pawan, post:8, topic:16564”]
what is your suggested method of choosing serial no. automatically?
[/quote]

maybe any is as good as the other? Or at least better as not picking any serialized item at all. I’d go for FIFO as a default (you can always handpick a different one if that does work in any situation)?

Writing all this … I may be the last to really have a profound opinion on this not having worked with serial # at all so far.

@SecA, any suggestion from your side?

One solution doesn’t fit all, what you are looking for might apply to you but as @Pawan mentioned product bundle is entered from the sales side. Sales team may not know the serial no of the child item. What if you enter the sale but you have to order the stock in. You wouldn’t know the serial no. Same with made to order production, serial no wouldn’t be know at the sales order stage.
The option to entered it manually is good enough from ERPNext functionality side, if you are spending too much time on this process then suggestion would be to get some custom work done based on your requirements be it FIFO or serial no order.

you got a point here

As per the User Manual, the intended use of Product Bundle is on the sales side, if you need any changes you can raise a GitHub Issue for the same.

in such a case (not item available (and therefore neither a serial number)) the serial number could be blank.

But again … I am not really the right person to discuss this as I have not much insight in the matter.

@SecA if you need help to open an issue on github, let me know. …

But I think you need to be prepared that you’d need to convince people your request is bringing ERPNext forward as a whole and not just scratching a personal itch. Or ideally if you have the technical capabilities accompany the issue with a PR that implements the feature you want to suggest.

In my opinion this matter could be solved as you wish without bringing disadvantage to others. Could imagine there could even be a possibility to setup somewher whether the serial # should be auto-populated or not. then everybody could be as happy as can be …

Thank you @Pawan for re-opening the topic. I don’t know how to open an issue on github, but if that is a necessity, i will check and do it.

But before doing so, i would like to make myself clear about my request. The subject i am talking about is 100% related to the Stock side. I agree with everything you said so far. The “Product Bundle” is for sales side, for sure. Sales BoM’s are created for sales responsibles to be able to create order for multiple items which are sold together. And sales responsible does not care about the serial number of the item which he/she sells unless it is a special process of their company.

After the sales person sells the item, my problem starts on ErpNext. I tried to explain this in my earlier posts but i need to repeat that again.

  • I create a Delivery Note based on a Sales Order. If only one item is sold on that order, ErpNext brings me automatically the first produced serial number of that item because we use FIFO (Please see the screenshots i posted earlier).

  • What i want when we sell a Product Bundle is the very same thing. I create a Delivery Note based on a Sales Order which includes the Product Bundle and a Packing List of that bundle. And i would like ErpNext to assign the first available serial number to the serialized item in that packing list.

Actually, i am not requesting anything which is not already included in ErpNext. I don’t think this is a custom work for my company.

This is a nice solution for sure. But as i explained earlier ErpNext brings me automatically the first serial number according to FIFO when i deliver a single item. That is something i already have set up in settings.

  1. you need an account on github which is at not costs
  2. you go to the ‘issues’ section of the ERPNExt repository and click New Issue

an Issue on github is either a bug you report or a feature you request for the project. There is no guarantee it will be heard or solved though in general (even if most reasonable issue are actually handled in one way or the other). It’s you participating in the development process (even if you don’t code).

If you can code you can develop a solution, then post your issue and add a PR at the same time. If it’s done right that would be the fastest way to have it implemented in the main code I’d say.

So naturally there is no charge for you. It’s more seen as participation in an Open Source project.
Of course it’s vital to present your case in a convincing manner. Especially if it’s a feature request like yours that maybe does not affect many others and does not disturb the general functioning of ERPNext. I think putting a link to your topic on the forum is workable, but if I where you I would make a good structured request of what you suggest to implement in the issue directly. Some people might just not follow up on links. I guess one needs to be aware that Issues are also a competition for attention in some way.

You can try to push your matter by either putting a so called ‘bounty’ on bountysource (can be directly linked to you github issue). Here an example https://www.bountysource.com/issues/1319544-feature-request-sub-warehouses

Or post a freelance job on the ERPNext website. I’d say depending on how much funds you are able to put on this matter or how many others you can find that may co-finance the development this might accelerate a solution. My opinion the more you can make clear that the matter you want to be solved is benefit to everybody rather then a just for your own usecase the more likely it is that someone will pick up on that

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Hello all,

I am writing to update you about the topic because it has been open for a long time. The problem seems to be fixed.

@Pawan you can close the topic but before doing so, i have one more question.

My original problem was: The system was not fetching the first available serial number for the serialized product in the product bundle while creating delivery note.

At the moment everything works perfect if i deliver the serialized product from “Finished Goods” while creating the delivery note. This is the warehouse which i store the manufactured products.

Somehow the predefined warehouse is not “Finished Goods” but “Stores” which i store raw materials. How can i correct this, any ideas? I have defined the default warehouse as Finished Goods on the *inventory section of the item. but still no luck. Here are screenshots of the test i have made to explain better:

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Does it still work in v13 beta13
?

I get the error about not selecting serial number on a product with serial # in the product bundle but cannot set the serial # in the packing list nor in the Items list. SecA is showing in the last post is not an option in v13.

Is there something i am not seeing?
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