Inbound Announcements (Expected Deliveries)

An inbound announcement tells a warehouse what is on its way before it arrives. That can be your own warehouse in QrX, or the warehouse of your fulfilment partner. You enter the supplier, the expected date, the carrier and tracking code, the number of cartons and the items with their quantities (plus the lot and expiry date for items that use batches). The warehouse sees the delivery as Expected, scans a carton label when it arrives and receives against your announcement. Afterwards you see exactly what arrived: short, over, unexpected and damaged, per line.

Who It Is For

Merchants with their own warehouse who want deliveries from suppliers ready in QrX before the truck arrives.
Merchants who use a fulfilment partner on QrX and want to tell the partner what they are sending.
Fulfilment partners who receive deliveries for their merchants and want a clean list of what to expect.
Developers who want to create announcements from their own system through the QrX Public API.

Inbound announcements are part of warehouse stock (QrX WMS). Your account needs the Warehouse (WMS) module; Settings > Billing > Plans shows whether it is included.

Announce a Delivery to Your Own Warehouse

Go to Warehouse > Inbound and click New receipt.
Turn on Announce (expected). This means the delivery is not here yet; receiving starts when it arrives.
Choose the warehouse and fill in the reference (for example your purchase order number), supplier and expected date.
Optionally add the Carrier (for example DHL or own truck), the Tracking code and the number of Cartons (1 to 99).
Add the items with the expected quantity, and the lot and expiry date where the item uses them.
Click Announce. The receipt appears in the inbound list with the status Expected.

You need the permission Receive stock. You can still change the header and the lines while the delivery is Expected or being received.

Announce a Delivery to Your Fulfilment Partner

Go to Settings > Business > Inbound announcements (the card next to Partner access and Stock at partners) and click New announcement.
Choose the Partner warehouse. Only partners with an active fulfilment link to your account are listed.
Fill in the delivery details: reference, supplier, expected date, carrier, tracking code, cartons and an optional note (for example "pallet on the left, fragile").
Add the items. Search the items your partner already holds for you, or add a New item with its SKU and name (and EAN if you have one). A new item is created for you at your partner when you send the announcement.
Click Send announcement. Your partner sees it in their inbound list as Expected and gets a notification.

You can change or cancel an announcement only while it is Expected. As soon as your partner starts receiving, it can no longer be changed. Viewing announcements needs the permission Manage Partner Access or View stock; creating, changing and cancelling needs Manage Partner Access.

Import an Announcement From a CSV File

For long deliveries you can upload a CSV file instead of typing every line. One file becomes one announcement (or one receipt).

Own warehouse: in Warehouse > Inbound, use the import icon next to New receipt.
Fulfilment partner: use the import option on the Inbound announcements screen.

The file needs a header row with the columns sku,qty,lot,expiry. lot and expiry are optional; write the expiry date as YYYY-MM-DD. When you announce to a partner you can also add the columns name and ean: a row with a SKU your partner does not have yet and a name creates that item for you. Items are found by SKU first, then by EAN.

QrX first shows a preview with every row and any error, such as an unknown SKU, a quantity that is not a whole number above 0, an expiry date without a lot, or the same SKU and lot twice. Nothing is created until you check the preview and confirm. A file can have at most 200 rows and be at most 1 MB.

Carton Labels

Print one label per carton with the Carton labels action on the announcement and stick one on every carton before it ships. Choose the label size: Dymo 11352 (54 x 25 mm) or Label 100 x 50 mm. Each label has a barcode with the receipt number and carton number (for example RC-1234-2), the text "Carton 2 / 5", the owner, the warehouse and your reference.

When the delivery arrives, the warehouse scans any carton label in the Scan RC or carton label field on Warehouse > Inbound and the right delivery opens straight away.

Receiving an Announced Delivery

Announced deliveries show in Warehouse > Inbound with the status Expected. The default filter Expected and open shows them together with receipts that are being received.
Opening an Expected delivery shows the banner "Expected, not started". Click Start receiving, or simply scan a carton label or receive the first line: that starts it too.
Receive each line as usual: it is booked into stock right away, on a suggested bin you can change.
Units that arrive damaged are booked with the Damaged quantity on the line (Book as damaged (quarantine)). They go to the quarantine of that warehouse, not to sellable stock, and they count as received.
Items that were not on the announcement can still be added and received; they are marked Unexpected.
Complete the receipt when everything is in. An Expected delivery is never completed automatically by the idle-receipt setting; that only applies once receiving has started.

The Result: Short, Over, Unexpected and Damaged

When the receipt is completed, the result page compares what was received with what was announced, per line:

Short: fewer units arrived than announced.
Over: more units arrived than announced.
Unexpected: an item that was not on the announcement.
Damaged: units booked into quarantine.

If you announced to a fulfilment partner, you see the same result under "Received against announced" on your announcement in Settings > Business > Inbound announcements.

Notifications and Webhooks

When a merchant sends an announcement to a fulfilment partner, the partner gets a notification in the bell: "New inbound announcement".
When a merchant sends a purchase order to a partner warehouse, QrX creates the same kind of announced delivery. The partner's inbound list shows it as a purchase order from that merchant, and the bell rings. There is no separate email. The merchant's prices are not on the receipt.
When an announced delivery is received, the owner of the stock gets a notification in the bell with the received, short, over, unexpected and damaged totals. Click it to open the result.
Two webhook events are available in the Inbound group of Settings > Advanced > Webhooks: inbound/announced (an announcement was created) and inbound/received (an announced delivery was completed, with every line and the totals). They go to the owner of the stock.

Public API for Developers

You can create and read announcements from your own system through the QrX Public API on https://api.qr-x.net. Full reference: qrx.eu/api.

GET api/v1/inbound/warehouses: your own warehouses and the partner warehouses you can announce to.
POST api/v1/inbound: create an announcement with the warehouse, reference, supplier, expected date, carrier, tracking code, cartons, note and lines (sku, expected quantity, and optionally name, EAN, lot and expiry date). The Idempotency-Key header is required, so a retry never creates a second announcement.
GET api/v1/inbound: list your announcements, with a state filter and cursor paging.
GET api/v1/inbound/{id}: one announcement with its lines, received and damaged quantities and, once received, the totals.

The API uses the scopes inbound.read and inbound.write. An API key without any scopes has full access; once a key has scopes, it can only use the scopes it lists.

For Fulfilment Partners: Activity Report

In Warehouse > Partner activity, the report per merchant now also shows Announcements (announcements created by that merchant per day) and Received lines (announcement lines you received for that merchant). The CSV export has the columns announcements and received_lines at the end.

Not Available Yet

Creating an announcement straight from a purchase order ("Supplier shipped") comes with purchasing in QrX.
Receiving announcements in the QrX app comes later. Until then, receive them in PortalX on Warehouse > Inbound, with a barcode scanner if you have one.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I change an announcement after I sent it to my partner?
Yes, while it is Expected. Once your partner starts receiving you see "Receiving already started on this delivery, so it can no longer be changed." Contact your partner for any change after that.

Does an announcement add stock?
No. Stock only changes when units are received. An announcement tells the warehouse what to expect.

Why do I see "No fulfilment partner with inbound is linked to your account yet"?
Announcing to a partner needs an active fulfilment link with a partner whose warehouse uses inbound in QrX. Check Settings > Business > Partner access.

The warehouse scanned a carton and nothing opened.
The scan field only finds deliveries of the warehouse that scans. Check that the label belongs to a delivery for that warehouse and that the barcode starts with RC.

What happens to damaged units?
They are booked into the quarantine of the warehouse and shown in the Damaged column of the result. The warehouse handles them from there in Warehouse > Inbound > Quarantine.

When to Contact Our Support Team

Contact QrX support when you want warehouse stock or inbound announcements turned on for your account, when a fulfilment partner does not appear in the partner warehouse list although the link is active, or when a received result does not match what the warehouse counted.