When dealing with certain products (such as perishables) it may be necessary to specify the period of time for which an item is of the highest quality. This period is typically indicated by a "best if used by" or "sell by" date, and should not be confused with an expiration date, which specifies the date at which the item becomes unsafe for use. For example, a baked good consumed a day or so after its sell-by date is still safe to eat, although it may be of lesser quality. Once the item's expiration date passes, however, it is considered inedible and consumption may lead to negative effects.
You can instruct the program to calculate lot freshness information for lot-tracked items. Depending on the calculation method selected, the system may enter a lot freshness date on new lot number information records. When you set up lot preferences for customers, you can also specify preferences for lot freshness values.
Indicate the manner in which an item's lot freshness preferences are specified in the Freshness Calculation Method field on the Item Tracking FastTab on the item card. Regardless of the selected method, lot freshness is always calculated from the lot record's production date. How an item lot's production date is specified depends on the type of transaction through which the item entered inventory. If the item lot record was generated as the result of production output, the production date is automatically assigned from the related output journal line's posting date. For all other transaction types (such as purchases and positive journal entries) you must enter the production date manually.
There are two methods by which an item's lot freshness is calculated:
Days To Fresh: lot freshness is determined according to a days-to-fresh value specified in the Lot Freshness table, which records customer lot freshness preferences. Selecting this option indicates that lot freshness does not need to be recorded for item lots, but that the age of the lot must still be maintained to meet customer lot freshness preferences.
Best If Used By / Sell By: although these are presented as two separate calculation methods, both determine lot freshness according to a shelf life calculation formula defined for the item. This formula is applied to the item lot's production date to calculate the freshness date. For example, if an item has a shelf life calculation formula of 7D, the program interprets this as seven days. When a lot record for that item is created with a production date of July 15, the program calculates a best-if-used-by or sell-by date of July 22. While there is no difference in how they calculate lot freshness, Best If Used By and Sell By are presented as two separate options because a company may prefer one term over the other when describing an item lot's shelf life.