Understanding the difference between pickable and non-pickable locations is key to managing your warehouse workflow in Warehance. This article explains what the pickable setting does, how it affects order fulfillment, and when to use each type.
What Is a Pickable Location?
When a location is marked as Pickable, inventory stored there is eligible to be picked during pick sessions. When your team starts a pick session, Warehance only pulls from pickable locations.
When a location is not pickable, inventory stored there still exists and is tracked — but it will not be used when creating pick sessions.
How Pickable Affects Order Fulfillment
Warehance treats allocation, picking, and shipping differently when it comes to pickable locations:
- Allocation uses all sellable inventory across your warehouse, regardless of whether the location is pickable or not. Orders can be allocated even if the inventory is in a non-pickable location.
- Pick sessions only use inventory in pickable locations. When a pick session is created, Warehance filters to only include orders that have enough inventory in pickable locations. Among those pickable locations, the system picks from locations with a higher priority first.
- Batch shipping and single order shipping do not require inventory to be in pickable locations. Orders will appear in batch shipping and single order shipping regardless of their pickable status.
What Happens If All Inventory Is in Non-Pickable Locations?
If all of a product's inventory is stored in non-pickable locations:
- The order will still be allocated — Warehance recognizes the inventory exists.
- The order will be marked as non-pickable — the Pickable status on the order will show as No.
- A reason will appear on the order details, such as: "order item [Product Name] is out of stock in pickable locations."
- The order will not appear in pick sessions until enough inventory is moved to a pickable location.
- The order will still appear in batch shipping and single order shipping — these workflows do not require pickable inventory.
The order is not cancelled or rejected. For pick session workflows, it simply waits until pickable inventory becomes available — for example, after a replenishment move from a bulk storage location to a pickable shelf.
Common Use Cases for Non-Pickable Locations
Non-pickable locations are typically used for:
- Bulk or reserve storage — Overflow inventory that is not immediately needed for picking.
- Receiving / putaway staging — Locations where inbound shipments are temporarily stored before being moved to the warehouse floor.
- Damaged or quarantine areas — Locations holding items that should not be shipped.
By keeping these locations non-pickable, you ensure that only shelf-ready inventory is used during pick sessions.
How Location Priority Works with Pickable
The Priority field on a location controls the order in which pickable locations are used during picking. Locations with a higher priority value are picked from first.
Priority only affects the picking order among pickable locations — it does not change whether a location is pickable or not.
For example, if you have two pickable shelf locations with the same product, Warehance will pick from the one with the higher priority first.
How to Make a Location Pickable
Step 1: Navigate to Warehouses in the left sidebar and select Locations.
Step 2: Click on the location you want to edit, or click Create Location to make a new one.
Step 3: Toggle the Pickable attribute on or off.
Step 4: Click Save to apply your changes.
You can also update the pickable setting in bulk using the Bulk Edit Locations feature or through a location import.