Quick Context
When you add create a customer/ storage job to Chariot's storage module, you need to specify where the customers' items are going within your storage space.
To make this work:
In Storage settings, you'll need set up Warehouse(s) and Zones within your Warehouse(s)
Then, when adding a new Storage job into Chariot, you'll specify each Storage Location -- a combination of Warehouse, Zone, and the specific spot (e.g., Vault ABC or Rack 1.2.3) the items are located within the Zone.
Once set up, from the storage job tables, you can search by Customer or Storage Locations to quickly find items/ customers in Storage.
More Details
Warehouse(s)
The “Warehouse” is the biggest organizing unit of your moving company’s storage. Often a warehouse is going to represent a separate building, with potential a separate address
For movers that work with self-storage facilities to store items for their customers, each self-storage facility could be a warehouse
You also might decide to have 2 “warehouses” in the same building. For example, if you have a residential and commercial side to your warehouse, you could create a “Residential” and “Commercial” warehouse, so that you can more easily see what’s in storage at each, residential vs. commercial occupancy, revenue, etc.
Zones
Each warehouse can have a set of “zones”. Your use of zones can be flexible, but we generally encourage you to think about a zone as a discrete area within your warehouse. For example:
If you have racks in your warehouse with a specific organization, a zone might be “Rack area ABC”
If you have a grid of Vaults, you might have a zone called “Vault Area Row 1, Column 2”
If you have sections of floor space used for certain purposes, you might have zones like “Commercial floor space” or “Designer floor space”
Since sometimes you may not know where something is going in storage, we suggest including a zone in your warehouse like “General / Unassigned” to use as a default
If you don’t organize your warehouse by zones/ areas, this could be your only zone! Go as detailed or as high-level as you want.
Storage Locations
When you set up a move, you can add Storage Locations to them. Think of Storage Locations as the most detailed indicator of where something is located in storage.
A storage location encompasses
A warehouse (e.g., Main Warehouse)
A zone (e.g., “Northwest Vaults”)
A location name – the specific label for that location (e.g, “Vault 2024-123”) -- note: you simply write this in!
A location type – what kind of storage this is (e.g., “Vault”)
Location notes – any notes to describe the location (e.g., “Back corner of warehouse, next to the repairs area”)
Note: we know some moving companies have complex warehouses with detailed organization – others are simpler – we want this framework to work for both types of companies/ warehouses!
Adding and editing Storage Locations for a job
When adding a new storage job/ customer, you can add any number of Storage Locations to the job.
First, you'll pick a Zone (tied to a Warehouse)
Next, type the Location name
Optionally: type in capacity (volume; capacity tracking coming soon!), the type of location (for tracking), and any notes to describe the location.
Once the job is published, if you need to edit the storage locations (for example, you move items from one rack to another, simply go back to the job, and edit the Storage Locations section.
