If a pickwave keeps sending your warehouse to Unspecified Location for a product, or a pickwave won’t generate at all, even though you can see stock sitting in the correct pickbin — the most likely cause is a picking exception on that stock location. This guide explains what a picking exception is, why StoreFeeder creates them, and how to clear one.
What is a picking exception?
A picking exception is a warning flag placed on a specific product/pickbin combination when the system detects a stock problem there — most commonly, a picker reported not being able to find the full quantity expected in that location while picking a pickwave.
Once a pickbin is flagged, StoreFeeder will no longer allocate new pickwaves to that location, even if the on-screen stock count still shows units available there. This is intentional: it stops pickers being sent back to a location that has already caused a problem, while it's waiting to be checked.
How do I know a location has a picking exception?
On the product’s Additional Information tab, under Current Stock Locations, a flagged pickbin is shown with a small warning icon (a red triangle) next to it.
If you don’t spot the icon and instead notice that:
- a product with stock in a real pickbin is repeatedly being picked from (or a pickwave defaults to) Unspecified Location, or
- a pickwave fails to generate for an order, even though the product shows stock in a location
…check that location for the warning icon before assuming the stock figures themselves are wrong.
This looks the same as, but is different from, stock genuinely sitting in “Stock in Unknown Locations” (for example, after an order is deleted or cancelled with stock left allocated). If the product has never been assigned to a real pickbin at all, that’s a separate situation and isn’t resolved by a stock take — see Adjusting Stock in Your Stock Locations instead. A picking exception specifically means stock is assigned to a real location, but that location has been flagged.
Why does this happen?
Before this behaviour was introduced, pickers could be sent to the same problem location repeatedly across multiple pickwaves, even when stock was available elsewhere. Locations with an open stock problem are now excluded from pickwave allocation until they’ve been checked, so pickers aren’t sent somewhere that’s already known to be wrong.
How do I clear a picking exception?
- Physically check the stock in the flagged pickbin and perform a stock take on that product/location.
- Go to the Stock Take Approvals screen and either approve or reject the result.
- Once the stock take has been approved or rejected, the warning is removed and the location returns to being used normally — including its usual position in pickwave location order.
If you check the location and stock takes keep clearing without finding an actual discrepancy, or the same location keeps re-flagging, contact StoreFeeder support with the product SKU and pickbin so we can check what’s triggering it.
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