Warehouse work, directed rather than remembered.
Warehouse features start on the Growth plan. Where something needs Scale, we say so.
- Addressable bins and directed putaway — every rack, shelf and pallet position gets a code, and Cobalt tells the operator which bin to put stock into (Growth plan and above).
- Pick and pack stations — scan-to-verify picking and packing, with wave picking when you want to release a set of dispatches together (Growth and above). Cluster picking gathers many orders in one walk, put-to-tote (Scale plan).
- Scan-to-receive and carton packing — receive against the purchase order by scanning, capturing batch, expiry and serial numbers as you go; pack cartons with weight and dimensions, a suggested box type and catch-weight (Scale plan).
- Counts that stand up — blind bin counts with a unit tolerance and approve-or-recount, plus ABC cycle-count programmes that classify your SKUs automatically (Growth and above).
- Quality gates — typed QC inspection plans covering pass/fail, measurements with a min and max, and text or COA capture; rejecting a line on a QC hold reverses only that line's stock and GRNI (Scale plan).
- Recall and blocked stock — FEFO advice on lots and expiry dates, and blocked stock as a held lot, quarantine or write-off with a costed journal and a clean reversal (Growth and above). Recall trace by lot or serial shows what came from where and went to whom, with one click to place it all on hold (Scale plan).
Most small warehouses run on memory.
That works until the person who knows the racking takes a holiday. Codes, scans and counts travel better than memory does.
Scan-to-verify on picking, packing, putaway and receiving catches the wrong bin or the wrong SKU at the station, rather than at the customer.
The onboarding wizard takes a rack pattern, batch-prints the bin labels and loads opening balances from a CSV. No consultant, no discovery phase.
On Scale, inventory-accuracy analytics report accuracy, variance value and hit rate by ABC class, location and counter, name your worst SKUs and bins, and show operator throughput over 7, 30 and 90 days.
A separate screen for the floor, and a ledger it cannot disturb.
Two design decisions that shape how Cobalt behaves in a warehouse.
The first is warehouse floor mode, which lives at its own address as a scanner-first kiosk shell outside the normal admin UI. It is seven big tiles — Receive, Pick, Cluster pick, Pack, Put away, Count and My tasks — each badged with its live open-work count, above a slim bar reading “N jobs waiting · N done today”. Which tiles an operator sees depends on their plan and permissions: the shell needs Growth, and the Receive and Cluster pick tiles need Scale. Floor staff never open the office UI, so there are no reports to get lost in and no settings to nudge by accident. It is a browser page, not something to install.
The second is that bins hold quantities, not values. Picking, packing and putting away are deliberately GL-neutral: none of them writes a journal. Stock value moves in exactly two places — at goods receipt, and at dispatch as cost of sales. The bin health check that reconciles the per-bin cache against on-hand is GL-neutral too.
The practical effect is that a confused afternoon in the racking stays a warehouse problem. It cannot quietly distort your stock valuation or the numbers you hand to your accountant. Blocked stock is the exception, and an explicit one: holding, quarantining or writing off a lot posts a costed journal, and reversing it posts the reversal.
Frequently asked questions.
What is warehouse management software?
Warehouse management software, or a WMS, directs the physical work in your warehouse: where to put stock away, which bin to pick from, how to pack it and how to count it. Cobalt's warehouse features sit in the same system as your sales orders and purchasing, so the floor and the office work from one set of numbers.
Is a WMS worth it for a small team?
It is once you have racking and more than one person picking. Cobalt is built for that size of team: an onboarding wizard sets up your bin structure from a rack pattern, batch-prints the labels and loads opening balances from a CSV, so you can be running in days rather than months.
What is the difference between bins and locations?
A location is a whole warehouse or site. A bin is an addressable position inside it, such as a rack, shelf or pallet space with its own code. Bins are quantity-only by design, which keeps picking and putaway fast and keeps stock value out of the racking. Addressable bins are on the Growth plan and above.
Can Cobalt track batch numbers, serial numbers and expiry dates?
Yes. Lot and expiry tracking with FEFO advice is on Growth and above. On Scale you can capture batch, expiry and serial details as you scan goods in against the purchase order, and run a recall trace by lot or serial that shows what came from where and went to whom, with one click to place all of it on hold.
Do warehouse staff need training to use it?
Very little. Floor staff work in a separate floor mode at its own address: a scanner-first screen of big tiles for receiving, picking, cluster picking, packing, putaway, counting and their own task queue, each showing its live open-work count. They never see the office UI, and it runs in a browser, so there is nothing to install.
Which plan do I need for warehouse features?
Growth adds addressable bins with directed putaway, pick and pack stations with scan-to-verify, wave picking, bin counts, ABC cycle counting, blocked stock and floor mode itself. Scale adds cluster picking, scan-to-receive, carton packing, QC inspection plans and holds, recall trace, replenishment, inter-warehouse transfer orders and inventory-accuracy analytics. Premier adds SSCC pallet labels with nesting.
Related pages.
Give the racking an address.
Bins, directed putaway, scan-to-verify picking and a floor mode your team can pick up in a shift.
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