Separate customer stock cleanly
Each client's inventory lives in its own zones or bins with its own labels and rules. Cross-client mistakes drop sharply.
Industry · Logistics providers
3PL inventory software
Client calls. Why am I being billed for these moves on the 14th? The answer takes a day to assemble from the WMS, an Excel sheet, and the operations supervisor's memory. 3PL inventory software tracks customer-owned inventory, bin locations, handling events, and exceptions across warehouse workflows. With Order3, every customer's stock, every bin, and every handling event live in one system. The client question gets answered from a query, not a phone call to the floor.
Jobs to be done
What 3pl teams use Order3 for
Audit handling events for billing and exceptions
Receive, putaway, pick, pack, and transfer events log to a clean activity history. Billing and exception conversations start from data.
Track bins and zones across the warehouse
Bin-level location tracking gives the floor and the office the same picture. Misplaced inventory becomes findable instead of lost.
Report customer inventory cleanly
Each client gets reports tuned to their needs. Quarterly or monthly client check-ins get backed by data instead of memory.
Find exceptions and damage quickly
Damaged, returned, or quarantined stock has its own location and disposition flow. Aging exceptions surface in reports before they become disputes.
Operator outcome
One inventory record across yards, trucks, jobsites, and stockrooms. Less guessing, fewer counter runs, cleaner records.
Walk through your workflowThe problem
Why inventory breaks for 3PLs
Same warehouse failure modes as everyone else, plus a multi-tenant overlay. Customer stock gets mixed because labels are on the bins and the spreadsheet wasn't updated. Handling-event records live in three places: the WMS, an Excel sheet, the operations supervisor's memory. Customer billing for handling, storage, and exceptions becomes a monthly reconciliation exercise. When a client calls and asks 'why am I being billed for these moves on the 14th?', the answer takes a day to assemble. The cost is real: client trust eaten by reconciliation, plus operational time spent reconstructing records that should have been captured at the moment of work.
A typical workflow in Order3
3PL workflow from count to approval
- Step 01
Receive customer inbound
Inbound shipments scan against the ASN or PO with the customer attached. Discrepancies route to a supervisor.
- Step 02
Putaway to client zones or bins
Stock putaway preserves customer ownership and lot context. Each move keeps a clean audit trail.
- Step 03
Pick, pack, and ship per client
Order picks scan from bins. Packing and shipping events log to the client's history.
- Step 04
Reconcile and report
Cycle counts run on a schedule per client. Reports show on-hand, movement, and exceptions for each customer.
Order3 for 3pl
How Order3 helps 3PL teams
Each customer's inventory lives in its own zones, bins, or labels with its own rules. Scanning captures every receive, putaway, pick, pack, and transfer with the customer, lot, and serial context. Multi-location tracking shows the full picture or a single client's view depending on the role. Activity history gives clean answers to 'what happened to this client's stock?' Reports per client pull from operational records, not from a manual export. Low-stock alerts and the Purchasing Agent help with shop-side replenishment of packaging and supplies. Full WMS-style wave planning, slotting, and complex billing automation are not part of v1. For SMB 3PL operations, Order3 covers the operational inventory side cleanly. For enterprise 3PLs running thousands of orders a day with deep billing logic, plan a conversation about fit.
Feature
Barcode scanning
Scan an item, confirm a quantity, and update the record from the floor. Order3 reads UPC, EAN, Code 128, Code 39, QR, and GS1 DataMatrix from an iOS or Android camera, plus Bluetooth handheld scanners that act as keyboards.
Feature
Multi-location tracking
Multi-location tracking means you can answer 'where is it' without calling someone. One workspace holds stock across warehouses, retail shops, trucks, jobsites, stockrooms, zones, and bins. Each keeps its own balance. Transfers between locations are first-class events, not adjustments hidden inside a global total.
Feature
Real-time reports
A stocker confirms a receipt at 9:47am. By 9:47am, the inventory value report reflects it. Reports in Order3 are queries against the live ledger. Every scan, transfer, count, and approval feeds the same data the leadership team reads. No nightly batch. No reconciliation lag. The number on the floor matches the number in the office.
Feature
AI approvals and activity history
Who approved that reorder? When? What did the agent's original draft look like before it was edited? The activity log answers all three from a single search. Every draft, edit, approval, scan, transfer, and integration sync writes to one read-only stream. The entries can never be modified, only added.
Onboarding reality
What to expect when you switch
Start with one client. Prove the workflow before extending to the full book. A week to import the customer's items, set up zones and bin labels, and walk the warehouse with the app. Week one through month one: operations lead, receiver, picker, client liaison. Plan a parallel-run with existing systems before the cutover. Reorder points on shop-side supplies (packaging, labels) sharpen after a few weeks. Today, for clients with strict EDI, ASN, or labeling requirements, talk to us about specific connector readiness before assuming live integration.
Inventory use cases for 3pl
The workflows this team actually runs
Use case
Inventory Management
Two people just bought the same case of widgets because the spreadsheet hadn't been touched since Thursday. Order3 keeps the item list, shelf count, location, reorder rule, PO draft, and approval history together.
Use case
Barcode Inventory
Code 128 on the bin. UPC on the box. Scan, scan, done. Barcode inventory software replaces handwritten counts with a clean record at the moment the action happened. Order3 turns a phone into the scanner: receive, count, transfer, and pick all run from the mobile app.
Use case
Serialized Inventory
Ten laptops are not '10 laptops'. They are SN-001 through SN-010, each with its own assignment, condition, hours-on-meter, and history. Serialized inventory software treats each unit as a record, not a quantity. Order3 keeps serial-level detail on items that need it without forcing it on items that don't.
Use case
Kit & Bundle Tracking
The gift bundle on the website says 'In Stock'. The ribbon ran out yesterday. So did the candle. The bundle is not actually in stock. Kit and bundle tracking software is the bookkeeping that prevents that. Order3 holds bundles with their component lists, runs pack and unpack from a phone, and rolls component availability up to the bundle.
Guides for 3pl operators
Read before you switch
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Guide
The multi-location inventory playbook
Multi-location inventory has three layers: bin, location, region. Track stock at every physical place it rests, with separate quantities, separate reorder rules, and a clear record of every movement between locations. Get the location hierarchy and transfer accountability right and the rest of the system follows. Get them wrong and every report lies.
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Guide
Cycle counting vs. physical inventory: which one to run, and how often
Cycle counting is a recurring partial count of inventory that keeps records accurate without halting operations. A physical inventory is a full count of everything, usually done annually. Most small and mid-sized teams should rely on weekly cycle counts for 90% of accuracy work and run a full physical once a year for finance.
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Guide
Barcode inventory basics: a practical primer for operators
Barcode inventory is the practice of identifying items, locations, and movements with machine-readable codes instead of typed entries. The point is not speed. It's removing the manual typing step from the moments where attention is lowest: receiving, counting, transferring, picking. Done well, barcoding is the cheapest accuracy investment a small business can make.
3PL inventory FAQ
Is Order3 a full WMS for 3PLs?
Not yet. Order3 covers core 3PL inventory workflows (multi-tenant inventory, scanning, multi-location, reporting) but doesn't include wave planning, slotting optimization, advanced labor management, complex billing automation, or carrier-specific integrations. For SMB 3PLs running straightforward operations, it's usually enough. For larger 3PLs running thousands of orders a day with deep billing logic and EDI requirements, it isn't a fit yet. We'd rather scope that honestly than oversell.
How is customer-owned stock kept separate?
Each client's inventory lives in its own zones, bins, or labels with its own rules. Permissions and reporting can scope to a single client. Pick, pack, and transfer workflows preserve customer context, so stock from one client doesn't accidentally fulfill another client's order. For physical warehouse separation, configure zones to match your real layout.
Can clients see their own inventory?
Customer-facing portals are roadmap, not GA. Today's pattern: export client-specific reports on a defined cadence or share a scoped view through structured exports. As approved client-portal features roll out, customers will see their own inventory directly. If client portal access is a hard requirement, talk to us about timing before adopting.
What about EDI and ASN handling?
Direct EDI and ASN integrations with specific trading partners are not part of v1. Today's pattern: use Order3 as the operational inventory record alongside whatever EDI broker or ASN tool you already run, with export-based or webhook sync between them. For 3PLs whose primary value is EDI orchestration, plan a conversation about fit before assuming Order3 covers it.
How do we bill clients for handling events?
Activity history captures every handling event (receive, putaway, pick, pack, transfer) with the customer attached. That data exports for billing, but Order3 doesn't include native multi-tenant billing automation in v1. Most SMB 3PLs export the data into a spreadsheet or billing tool to generate invoices. If automated billing is a primary driver, Order3 isn't a complete answer yet.
Can we run cycle counts per client?
Yes. Counts can be scoped to a client, a zone, an item class, or an ABC velocity band. Counts run on the mobile app and variances surface immediately. Per-client cycle counts give your operations supervisor a real handle on accuracy and your client liaison a real number to share at quarterly check-ins. Most 3PLs that adopt this workflow see record accuracy improve within the first quarter.
Adjacent industries
Start with your 3pl inventory loop.
Create the first workspace around a real shortage, reorder question, or location mismatch. Use expert help when the rollout spans teams, systems, or approvals.