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Glossary

Canonical definitions for the terms used across Yessort. Where a page uses one of these terms, this is what it means.

Site​

A physical warehouse, shop, or virtual holder of stock — the building, not a spot inside it. Sites come in three types: warehouse, shop, and virtual. A Shopify "Location" always maps to a Yessort site, never to a location.

Location​

An addressable stock spot inside a site: a bin, shelf, pallet space, or slot. Yessort calls this a "location", not a "bin", because the real spot is often broader than a bin.

On-hand​

Stock physically present. On-hand partitions into eight buckets — see the stock quantities reference.

Committed​

Stock allocated to an order but not yet picked.

Available to promise​

On-hand minus committed — what you can still sell.

Reserved​

Stock held for an order so it can't be sold twice.

Lot​

Also called a batch — a traceable production or receipt batch of a variant, rotated first-expiry-first-out (FEFO). Optional: a variant has lots only if lots were created for its stock, and a lot cannot be edited once created. See lots and traceability.

Stock movement​

A recorded change to how much stock exists somewhere. Every physical change writes one, with a movement type saying what kind of change it was. Movements cannot be edited — a mistake is corrected by recording another. See the stock movement record.

Movement type​

What kind of change a stock movement was — receive, pick, ship, adjust, move, transfer, count gain or loss, write off. It also selects which journal the accounting integration posts, so the choice matters beyond the warehouse. Several types come in pairs, so one action often writes two rows.

Adjustment reason​

Why a manual stock adjustment was made, chosen from a list your organisation manages under its settings. Five are seeded: Correction, Cycle count, Damage, Found and Return. A reason carries a direction, and retired reasons are deactivated rather than deleted so past adjustments keep their explanation.

Returns location​

The location at a site where returned goods land when a return is restocked. Its stock is only sellable if the location is pickable; where it is not, the goods must be moved to a pickable location before they can be sold or picked again. See the returns location.

Held-back stock​

Units a sales channel told Yessort not to restock, moved into the site's NO-RESTOCK location. Still on-hand and still on the books at cost, but out of available — and not written off until somebody adjusts them out. See held-back stock.

Dispatch​

Stock leaving the warehouse to a customer. Yessort says "dispatch", never "ship".

Goods receipt​

The record of stock physically arriving at a site. Posting one is what puts the stock on hand and sets what it cost. A receipt does not need a purchase order — it can cover several purchase orders and inbound transfers at once, or none at all. Receipts are numbered GRN-1000 onwards by default.

Putaway​

Moving stock that has just arrived out of a site's receiving location and into the locations it will be stored in. On a site using advanced locations, posting a goods receipt raises one putaway task for that receipt, and receiving a transfer raises one the same way, staging the arriving stock in the receiving location first; each task carries a line for each received line, and the tasks are worked from Inventory → Putaway. Lines received onto a licence plate are excluded — that stock is moved later as a whole plate instead — and damaged quantity is never put away; it goes to quarantine at receipt. Sites using simple locations have no putaway step: received stock lands in the variant's home location, or, if it has none, the site's flagged default location, or, if no location is flagged as default, whichever active location at the site sorts first by sequence — with no check that the location can actually receive stock.

Location mode​

Whether a site uses simple or advanced locations. On simple locations, each variant has one home location and goods-in posts straight there, with no putaway step. Advanced locations add multi-location placement and unlock putaway, pick face and reserve location roles, replenishment and licence plates. A shop is single-location: it's created with one MAIN location and holds its stock there, so the setting makes no difference to it. A virtual site holds stock at site level and has no locations at all.

Receiving location​

The location a site using advanced locations lands goods receipts in before putaway. It's created automatically the first time a site needs it, accepts stock but isn't pickable, so stock sitting there is on hand but not yet sellable.

Reserve location​

A location marked as bulk storage on a site using advanced locations — where putaway prefers to place stock, and where replenishment draws it from to top up a pick face.

Pick face​

A location marked as the forward-pick spot for a variant, on a site using advanced locations — the location a picker is actually sent to. Topped up from a reserve location by replenishment.

Replenishment​

Moving stock already at a site from a reserve location into a pick face, so a picker never finds one empty. This is different from a reorder rule, which brings new stock into a site by purchase order or transfer — replenishment never brings stock in from outside. It runs on sites using advanced locations, driven by a replenishment policy for each variant and pick face.

Replenishment policy​

The minimum, maximum and increment set for one variant at one pick face, on a site using advanced locations. When the pick face's available stock falls below the minimum, a replenishment task tops it back up towards the maximum, in whole multiples of the increment.

Transfer​

The record of stock moving between two of your own sites. A transfer holds stock at the source, dispatches it into the source site's in transit location, and only puts it on hand at the destination once it's received.

In transit​

One of the non-sellable on-hand buckets — stock a transfer has dispatched but that hasn't yet been received at the destination. It sits at the source site's in-transit location for the whole journey, so organisation-wide on-hand is unaffected by a transfer; only the per-site figures move. See stock quantities.

Licence plate​

A scannable container — pallet, carton or gaylord — that holds stock and moves as one unit, worked from Inventory → Licence plates. A goods receipt line assigned to a licence plate is excluded from putaway and moved later as a whole plate with scan-to-move. Stock on a licence plate is picked, counted, replenished and transferred like any other stock at its location: when more is needed than the location holds loose, Yessort takes the difference off the plate automatically, so a plate empties as its stock is used.

Count task​

A count of one location, or, when scoped to a single variant, just that one line at it. Raised by the overnight coverage schedule, by a person directly, by a low- or empty-location prompt at pick time, by an automatic short-pick signal, or by a recount. A variance posts automatically only within the count tolerance; otherwise it waits for review.

Count session​

A named batch of count tasks, kept only for tracking progress — how many of its tasks are done and how many are left. It can't be opened, completed or cancelled from the app; once created, it just sits as a running tally.

Count tolerance​

How far a count's variance may differ from the expected quantity before it posts automatically rather than waiting for review. Two tolerances must both pass: a plain unit-quantity tolerance, and a value tolerance measured against the variant's weighted average cost. A variant with no cost on file always queues for review; a variant whose average cost is genuinely zero passes the value tolerance outright.

Blind count​

A count where the person counting doesn't see the expected quantity while entering what's physically there. It's on by default, and changes only what the counter sees — a blind count is still measured against the same count tolerance once it's submitted.

Fulfilment group​

The per-site unit of fulfilment on an order. An order dispatched from two sites has two fulfilment groups, which can be picked, packed and dispatched at different times.

Allocation​

A quantity of a specific variant earmarked from a specific location to satisfy one order line. Picking works on allocations, which is why two pick runs can serve one order.

Consignment​

The goods going out together as one delivery — the unit that picking, packing and shipment work is organised around. A consignment can cover more than one order.

Pick queue​

A configured stream of work that picking is classified into, carrying the pick method and how many orders a run may hold. Work is classified per consignment, so one order's groups can sit in different queues.

Pick run​

The unit of work one picker executes: a claimed batch of work, or a single consignment.

Pick method​

How a run is organised: single order, pile, cluster, or two-stage. See the pick methods reference.

Short pick​

A pick confirmed for less than the allocated quantity. The shortfall is released back to the queue; the quantity actually picked stands, because it is a real stock movement.

Parcel​

One physical box in a consignment. A consignment can hold several parcels, each with its own weight, dimensions and tracking number.

Shipment​

One label-purchase attempt against a carrier for the goods going out in one consignment. Only one attempt is live at a time; a cancelled or failed attempt is kept, and you can buy again.

Packing slip​

The document listing what is going out in one consignment. It renders on demand — from the order's documents card or via the API — and is reprintable at any time; nothing is persisted. A consignment can cover more than one order.

Order revision​

An entry in the order's history. Yessort appends one every time something meaningful happens to an order — an edit, a confirmation, a payment, an allocation, a dispatch — rather than overwriting what was there before.

Exchange order​

A replacement order created as a child of the original, rather than extra lines added to it.

Purchase order​

The instruction you send a supplier telling them what you want to buy, at what price, and where to deliver it. Numbered PO-1000 onwards by default.

Supplier​

A business you buy stock from. The supplier record holds contact details, payment terms, the currency you buy in, and the tolerances Yessort uses when checking their invoices.

Supplier price list​

What a supplier charges you per variant. Purchase order lines take their unit cost from here. This is the supplier's quoted price, not the value your stock is held at — changing a supplier price list never moves the weighted average cost. Distinct from a sales price list, which is what you charge.

Weighted average cost​

What a unit of stock is currently worth in your books, averaged across everything you have received. Receiving stock moves it; a supplier invoice that disagrees with the receipt cost moves it again. Selling at the average does not move it.

Goods received, not invoiced​

Stock you have received but not yet been invoiced for — an amount you know you owe but have no invoice against. Yessort accrues it when you post a receipt and clears it when you post the matching supplier invoice. Shortened to GRNI.

Goods returned, not credited​

Stock you have sent back to a supplier but not yet been credited for. Raised when you post a supplier return and cleared when you record the supplier's credit note. Shortened to GRNC.

Three-way match​

The check Yessort runs before a supplier invoice can post: the invoice against the purchase order it was ordered on, and against the goods receipt that recorded what actually turned up. An invoice that passes is matched; one that fails is held for someone to approve.

Match tolerance​

How far a supplier invoice may differ from the agreed price, or from the quantity received, before Yessort holds it. Set per supplier. Left blank it is zero, which means any difference at all holds the invoice.

Landed cost​

Freight, duty, handling or similar charges added onto the value of stock you have received, so the stock carries what it truly cost to get to you rather than just its purchase price.

Supplier return​

Stock sent back to a supplier — a goods receipt in reverse. Posting one takes the stock off hand and records that you are owed a credit; the return closes when you record the credit note the supplier sends.

Prepayment​

Money paid to a supplier before there is an invoice to settle — a deposit. It is allocated against invoices as they arrive, and any remainder can be refunded.

Reorder rule​

A minimum and maximum stock level for one variant at one site, with an ordered list of where to get more from. When the net position falls to or below the minimum, the variant appears on the reordering worklist.

Net position​

What you will have once everything already in motion arrives: stock on hand, minus what is allocated to orders, plus what is on order — both open purchase orders and inbound transfers. Reordering compares this against the minimum, not the on-hand figure.

Close short​

Abandoning the outstanding quantity on a purchase order line because the rest is not coming. The order's own progress treats the line as done, so the order can finish without it. The abandoned quantity stops counting towards on order immediately — it does not wait for the order itself to reach Received or Closed, so closing a line short can put the variant back on the reordering worklist straight away.

Delivery note​

The supplier's own paperwork that comes with a delivery. Yessort records its number against the goods receipt, and asks for it before you can start receiving.

Product​

The catalogue record for an item you sell. Carries the name, description, brand and classification. Not the unit of sale: a product holds one or more variants, and it is the variant that is stocked, priced and ordered.

Variant​

The unit of sale. Every order line, stock movement, sales price and channel reference points at a variant. A product that comes in one form still has exactly one variant.

SKU​

Your own code for a variant. Unique across the organisation among variants that have not been deleted.

Option​

A way a product varies, such as Size or Colour. Options carry values, and combinations of values produce the variants.

Unit of measure​

A sellable or scannable pack size for a variant, such as Each or Case of 12. Sales prices and barcodes hang off the unit of measure. Purchase order quantities do not use it.

Barcode​

A scannable code recorded against a unit of measure, not directly against a variant. The six GS1 trade-item types (EAN-13, EAN-8, UPC-A, UPC-E, GTIN-14, ITF-14) are stored normalised to 14 digits; other types (Code 128, Internal, Custom, and more) are kept exactly as entered.

Sales price list​

A named set of selling prices for variants. Distinct from a supplier price list, which is what you pay.

Bundle​

A variant defined as a recipe of other variants. Ordering the bundle adds its components to the order behind the scenes.

Brand​

The manufacturer or label a product belongs to. Assigned on the product record.

Taxonomy category​

The classification of what a product is, used for grouping and reporting.

Tax category​

The rate a variant is taxed at when it is taxed. Separate from whether it is taxable at all.

Accounting category​

The mapping that decides which account a variant's revenue and cost post to.

Product type​

Whether a product is physical, digital, made to order, a gift card or a service. Fixed once the product is created.

Catalogue status​

The lifecycle stage of a product or a variant: Draft, Active, Archived or Discontinued. A product and its variants carry their own statuses independently.

Facility operator​

The organisation that runs a shared warehouse: the only organisation that can lay out its locations, and the only one that can run a commingled count there. Visibility still follows membership, not this role — see who sees what.

Brand tenant​

An organisation holding its own stock at a shared warehouse run by another organisation's facility operator. Its stock stays on its own books throughout, tracked separately from every other organisation's.

Shared warehouse​

A site with one facility operator and stock owned by more than one organisation. Check a site's Members card to see whether it's shared. See how shared warehouses work.

Anchor​

Also called a shared anchor — one physical product line, identified by a 14-digit GS1 barcode (GTIN), that several organisations each stock under their own SKU. Everything cross-organisation — commingled counting, supply links, ownership flips — resolves "the same product, someone else's stock" by matching on the anchor, never on SKU, name or barcode alone. See anchors.

Commingled stock​

Several organisations' stock of the same anchor sitting in the same location at a shared warehouse. Commingling is physical, not financial — each organisation's stock stays on its own books throughout. See commingled stock.

Trading relationship​

An agreement between two organisations to trade, set up when they're onboarded rather than from within Yessort. It's symmetric — one relationship covers both directions — and it gates every cross-organisation feature between that pair: supply links and ownership flips among them. See trading relationships.

Counterpart​

The other organisation in a trading relationship — Yessort's term for a trading partner in a supply context. The same organisation is called a partner in a settlement context instead — see intercompany settlement.

What lets one organisation's stock become sellable by a counterpart, once the two have an active trading relationship and a shared anchor. The publisher sets a reserve on Supply to counterparts; whatever isn't held back publishes automatically as published availability. See how supply links work.

Published availability​

The quantity a publisher has made available to one counterpart, shown on Available to relist — already net of the publisher's reserve. It's a commercial cap only: Yessort also checks the publisher's actual pickable stock before a cross-organisation trade can draw on it. See what "Available" means, where.

Ownership flip​

A change of owner recorded against units that don't physically move — the stock stays where it is; what changes is whose books it sits on. A transfer flip happens when a cross-organisation transfer draws on a counterpart's stock; a sale flip happens when a customer order draws on a counterpart's published supply with no transfer involved. See how ownership flips work.

Intercompany settlement​

A live, running balance between two trading organisations, netting every ownership flip between them and posting real invoices, bills or credit notes to Xero. Not to be confused with a settlement period, the facility operator's own record, which never reaches Xero. See intercompany settlement.

Auto-settle cadence​

How often a trading relationship settles automatically — daily, weekly or monthly, monthly by default. Settle now settles a pair ahead of its cadence; it isn't what causes intercompany settlement to happen. See settle with a trading partner.

Settlement period​

A facility operator's own date-range record of what commingled-count rounding cost each brand tenant, moving through draft, finalised and paid. It records money but never posts any — brand tenants can't see it, and nothing about it ever reaches Xero. Not to be confused with intercompany settlement. See operator settlement periods.

Shrinkage-rounding line​

The one kind of line a settlement period ever writes — the Kind column prints the raw value shrinkage_rounding, underscore and all. It trues up, in money, the fraction of a commingled count's variance that whole-unit rounding left one organisation ahead of or behind its exact share, valued at that organisation's own weighted average cost. See operator settlement periods.

Attributed units​

The facility operator's per-organisation adjustment to how a commingled count's variance is split, entered before Recompute split. Attributed units go to the named organisation outright; only the unexplained remainder is still shared out proportionally. An allocation built this way is not always a whole number — a fractional attribution carries its fraction straight through to that organisation's share. See count a commingled bin.

Channel​

A place your organisation sells. Every order belongs to one, which is why each new organisation is created with a channel called Manual. Two kinds exist: a manual channel, with no store behind it and nothing to synchronise, and a Shopify channel, created by connecting a store. See how channels work.

Connection​

The record holding the credentials Yessort uses to reach an external store. Deliberately separate from the channel: the connection holds how to reach the store, the channel holds what selling there means. Two Shopify stores are two connections and two channels. A manual channel has no connection.

Channel reference​

The link between one Yessort variant and its listing on one channel. It records the channel's identifiers for the product and variant, and the unit of measure that channel sells in — which is how the same variant can be sold per-each on one channel and per-case on another. See how catalogue linking works.

Publish mode​

A channel's default for newly created variants: auto publishes every one, manual publishes only those you choose. Every channel starts on manual. A choice made for a single variant always outranks it — unlisting a variant from an auto channel keeps it unlisted.

Staged product​

A product pulled from a store into a holding area, awaiting a decision, having reached neither your catalogue nor your stock. Staged rows are kept for 30 days. Each staged variant takes one decision: create, link to existing, or skip. See how the review queue works.

Catalogue sync run​

One read of a store's whole catalogue into staging. A sync re-discovers and refreshes without discarding anything; a reset clears the channel's staging first and is confirmed before it runs. Only one run per channel at a time. See channel sync statuses.

Reconcile review​

A record of a difference between a store's reported on-hand figure and Yessort's total for that site, written when Yessort first gains a link to a listing. A review row is not always a task — some record a difference that was booked automatically. See keeping stock in step.

Availability drift​

A routine comparison of what a channel is displaying against what Yessort holds. Drift passes report; they change nothing. A sample pass runs nightly over a subset, a full pass weekly over everything. A pass recorded as skipped is a normal outcome, not a failure.

Location mapping​

The link between one of a store's locations and a Yessort site. A Shopify "Location" is a building, so it always maps to a site, never to a Yessort location. A mapping left unset means ignore. One mapping is the channel's default, used for order lines that do not say where they came from.

Payment gateway​

How a customer paid, as the store names it. Gateways are discovered rather than configured in advance: the first time an unfamiliar one appears it is recorded as unmapped and shown to you, and mapping it also applies to the transactions that were waiting on it.

Routing engine​

What decides which site fulfils each order line. It narrows rather than scores: sites without stock are removed by a hard gate, then each enabled rule filters the survivors in priority order, and evaluation stops as soon as one site remains. Off until an organisation enables it — while off, orders go to the channel's default site. See how routing works.

Rule set​

An organisation's routing configuration: an ordered list of rules, a fallback site and the single-source preference. One is active at a time. Every edit creates a new version, and an order records the version that routed it, so editing rules never re-routes work already in flight.

Hard gate​

A filter the routing engine applies before any of your rules, removing sites that do not have enough stock for the line. It is not a rule you add, and it cannot be reordered or disabled.

Fallback site​

The site a line goes to when the hard gate leaves no candidates — no eligible site has stock for it. Not a general default for orders the rules find ambiguous. A rule set cannot be activated without one.

Single-source preference​

A pass after per-line routing that prefers shipping a whole order from one site where a single site could fulfil every line, rather than splitting it. On by default. It never delays an order waiting for one site to be able to take it all.

Routing exception​

A record that a channel supplied a location hint, the channel is set to honour hints, and the routing engine would have chosen differently. The hint is honoured and the order proceeds — the exception exists so rules can be tuned. See when a channel disagrees.

Accounting post​

A record of what Yessort successfully sent to an accounting system: what was posted, as which document, and against which order or receipt. Composition is held per account and tax code pair, not just as a total, which is what lets a later edit spanning two rates book faithfully. See how posting works.

Outbox​

The queue built accounting entries wait in before being sent. An entry moves through pending, in flight, then success or failed. It exists so a provider being slow or unavailable neither loses entries nor blocks the warehouse. See post statuses.

Post hold​

An accounting entry that could not be built — no connection, or an unmapped account — kept with everything it needed and replayed verbatim once the configuration appears. Distinct from a failed post, which was sent and rejected. Supplying the missing configuration releases every entry waiting on it. See hold, don't drop.

Accounting category​

The join between a kind of Yessort activity and an account in your accounting system, mapped per provider. Sales posting currently uses the organisation's default revenue account, so a variant's category does not yet split its sales revenue.

Tax category​

Yessort's description of how something is taxed, mapped per provider to that system's tax code. A rate alone is not enough — zero-rated and out of scope are both zero percent and belong on different lines of a return. An unmapped category does not hold the entry; the line lands at the account's own default.

Invoicing strategy​

Whether orders get an invoice each or a day's orders are combined into one. An order paid by more than one payment method always gets its own invoice; otherwise the customer account's override wins, then the channel's default, then the payment method's own posting behaviour. See invoicing strategies.

Gateway payout​

A lump a payment processor pays into your bank covering many payments at once. Always net of fees and covering the processor's period, so it never matches a day's sales — the lines inside it are what make it reconcilable. See gateway payouts.

Reconciliation exception​

A document Yessort posted successfully whose totals no longer agree with the accounting provider's. Nothing failed; the two sides have diverged, usually because the document was edited at the provider. Provider total drift is the figure showing the provider's copy has moved since posting.

Credit note​

A document that reverses value on an existing invoice rather than editing it — the original stands and the reversal is posted alongside it. On a sales order, a credit note is raised when a return line is restocked or scrapped, and when a refund raised at a sales channel is mirrored in. On a purchase, it is what a supplier sends back to settle a return. Yessort says "credit note", never "credit memo".

Customer​

The buyer on an order. A customer belongs to one organisation — the same person buying from two of your organisations is two unconnected records — and email is deliberately not unique, because guest checkouts repeat one freely. See how customers work.

Customer account​

A business you trade with, distinct from the individuals who order for it. A customer linked to an account is a B2B buyer; one with no link is B2C — there is no separate flag. The commercial arrangement lives on the account, so several buyers from one business share it.

Customer group​

A label collecting customers together, with a name, a code, a description and members. Nothing reads a group today — prices do not change and no rule keys off membership. A price list can be scoped to a group in the data model, but no screen can set that scope. See customer groups.

Credit limit​

A figure recorded on a customer account. It is not enforced. Nothing checks it against an order, and no order is blocked, held or flagged for exceeding it. Useful as a record of your arrangement; not a safeguard.

Payment terms​

How many days a customer has to pay. Resolved from the customer's own terms first, then their customer account's, then the payment method's, then a 30-day fallback. Note this runs the opposite way to invoicing strategy, where the account overrides.

Fulfilment policy​

A setting on a customer account recording whether part of a line may be sent when the whole cannot — strict, or partial allowed. Nothing reads it; picking and allocation behave the same either way.

Role​

What a person can do in an organisation. Five fixed roles — owner, admin, member, warehouse and read-only — but what each grants is editable per organisation, except owner. Yessort never checks a role by name; every decision resolves through the permission matrix, so re-pointing a role changes behaviour with no release.

Permission​

One entry in the matrix: an action on a resource, such as update on inventory. Roles are bundles of these. Three behave unusually — goods_receipt has only accept and no read, billing:manage is owner-only regardless of what you grant, and role:update is guarded against self-lockout.

Site scope​

Where a person can act, as distinct from what they can do. It narrows the sites a member sees and grants no capability. No sites listed means unrestricted — every site in the organisation, not none — and owners and admins are never site-limited whatever is listed. See site scope.

Member​

Someone with access to an organisation. Membership is per organisation: one account can hold several, with a different role in each. Which organisations a person can see follows from their memberships alone.

Invitation​

How someone is asked to join an organisation. It carries the role they will hold. It does not carry site scope — a new member arrives unrestricted, so a scope has to be set separately if they should be limited.

Team​

A named grouping of members within an organisation. Teams affect no access decision — nothing in permission resolution consults team membership. A record for people to read, not a control.

A small application running on a computer at your site — a Mac menubar or Windows tray app — that collects print jobs for that site and sends them to your printers. Nothing prints until an agent is running. See the print agent and devices.

A computer running the print agent. Paired to exactly one site, so visibility follows site access rather than organisation — in a shared warehouse every organisation there sees the same devices. Its token is shown once at registration and never again.

Printer​

A physical printer the print agent can reach. Printers are discovered, not added by hand. A printer records the label stock loaded in it, so a mismatch with what a job needs can be flagged.

One print request. Moves through queued, sent, printing and done, or ends in error. A job with no printer resolvable parks rather than failing — it waits until a printer can be resolved. See print job statuses.

Label template​

A label you lay out yourself: a canvas with text, barcodes, images, boxes and lines. Organisation-wide, for one subject — product, location or licence plate. Rendered fresh from live data every print, so there is no version history: editing one changes future labels and cannot change labels already printed.

Label batch​

A set of labels queued to print together, built from a goods receipt, a purchase order, a transfer, another batch, or by hand. A draft while you build it, printed once produced.