Weekly 3PL warehouse reports your WMS should give you

Most 3PL owners buy warehouse software for what it does on the floor, then discover the second job: it has to tell you what happened. You are running several businesses inside one building. If the system cannot show you, by client, what came in, what went out and what is stuck, you will rebuild the answers in a spreadsheet every Friday.

This is a list of seven reports worth running every week, with the question each one answers and what to check before you believe it. It is written for the person who runs the building, not for an analyst. The features around reporting are summarised in the 3PL WMS feature checklist, where "reports you can export" appears as one line. This page expands it.

1. Open orders by client and age

Question: what has not shipped, for whom, and for how long?

This is the report you check first thing, every day, not only weekly. Group by client, sort by the oldest order, and show the status: waiting for stock, waiting to pick, picked but not packed, packed but not shipped. A plain count of open orders hides the one order that is three days late.

Check: can you filter by client's cut-off time? A client who promises same-day shipping on orders before noon has a different definition of late from one who ships within two days.

2. Receiving: dock to stock time and accuracy

Question: how long does a delivery take to become sellable stock, and did we receive what was expected?

Two numbers matter. The first is time from the truck arriving, or the delivery being logged, to the stock being put away and available. The second is how often the received quantity matched the expected one. Your clients feel the first number as "why is my stock not showing", and the second as "you said you received 40 and the ASN said 48."

Check: does the system store an arrival time and a put-away time against each delivery, or only the final date? You cannot work out dock to stock without both.

3. Shipped orders by day and client

Question: what was our actual volume, and who is it from?

Count orders, lines and units, not only orders. A client who sends one-line orders and a client who sends twelve-line orders create very different work for the same order count. This report is also the base of any conversation about pricing or capacity, because it shows the shape of the work rather than a guess.

Check: can you pick a date range and compare it to the previous one without exporting?

4. Stock adjustments with reasons

Question: where is inventory going wrong, and who is it happening with?

Every adjustment should show the item, the client, the quantity, the reason, the user and the time. Sorted by reason, you will see patterns: damages concentrated on one client's goods, "found" stock after a certain shift, miscounts in one aisle. Sorted by user, you will see who needs retraining, or who has been given too much access. Roles are covered in the roles and permissions checklist.

Check: are reason codes forced, or can a user type "fix"? Typed-in text makes this report useless.

5. Stock on hand by client and location

Question: what is actually in the building, where, and whose is it?

You need two views. One by client, so you can answer a client in a minute. One by location, so you can find empty space and see which pallets have not moved. Include the date of last movement. Slow stock is often the first sign that a client has changed their business, and storage is usually where you make or lose money on that client.

Check: can you run this as of a past date? Clients ask "what did you hold on the 30th" more often than you expect, usually around invoice disputes.

6. Unbilled activity

Question: what work did we do that has not gone onto an invoice?

This one pays for itself. Receiving, picks, packing, special handling and shipping that happened in the system but is not on any invoice or draft. If your WMS records these events and your billing step runs from them, this report should come close to empty before each invoice run. If it is long, either a rate is missing for a client or an event is not being captured.

Check: can the report be filtered by client and by charge type? Formulas and worked examples sit with the billing guides elsewhere; this page only asks whether the report exists.

7. Storage by client

Question: how much space is each client using, and is it changing?

Depending on your pricing this might be pallet positions, bins, square feet or cubic volume. What matters is that you can see it by client, for a date, and over time. A client who has doubled their footprint since the last review is a conversation you want to have before they notice their invoice.

Check: does the report use the same measure your rate card uses? If you charge by pallet position and the report shows cubic feet, you will end up converting by hand.

What to ask a vendor

Reports are easy to show and hard to trust, so do not stop at a screenshot. In a demo, ask:

• Run report 1 on our test data and filter it to one client.
• Show me where the numbers come from. Click through from a total to the orders behind it.
• Export it. Open the file. Is the client name there, and the date?
• Can a client user run a version of it for their own data only?
• How do I build a report that is not on this list, and who does it, me or you?

The last question matters most. Every 3PL has one client with a strange request. If a new report needs a support ticket and a fee, you will stop asking. More prompts of this kind are in questions to ask in a 3PL WMS demo.

A weekly routine

Keep it short. Monday morning: open orders, receiving, last week's shipped volume. Thursday: adjustments, stock on hand, storage. Before each invoice run: unbilled activity. Half an hour in total, once the reports exist. If it takes longer, the reports are not doing their job, and that is worth knowing before you choose a system.

Questions people ask

What reports does a 3PL need from its warehouse management system?

Stock by client and location, receiving times and accuracy, open and late orders, shipped orders by day, stock adjustments with reasons, unbilled activity and storage by client. Each answers one question you would otherwise ask in a meeting.

How often should a 3PL review warehouse reports?

Open orders and receiving daily, the rest weekly, and billing-related reports before every invoice run.

Should a 3PL export reports to a spreadsheet?

Yes, check that you can. Even good built-in reports will miss a question a client asks, and an export lets you answer it the same day.

What is dock to stock time?

The time from when a delivery arrives at the dock to when its items are put away and available to ship. Many 3PLs measure it in hours.