Introduction
Companies assign serial/lot numbers to the items that they sell to customers so that they can track individual items for returns and service contracts.
Depending on the established internal policies and business relationships with customers, companies might have different processes for tracking sold items. Examples of these processes include:
Buying items from vendors without serial/lot numbers and then assigning the company's own numbers when selling the items.
Buying items from vendors with the serial/lot numbers already assigned and using the same numbers when selling the items.
In situations when a company chooses to assign their own serial and lot numbers, it is important to emphasize that the more consistently they set up their number series for serial and lot numbers, the more efficient the process will be.