Inventory Platform
WMS Intelligence
A warehouse management system for mid-sized distributors and manufacturers running Acumatica. Workers follow guided steps on handheld scanners, managers see the floor in real time, and every transaction posts back to the ERP on its own.
- Timeline
- Nine months
Overview
Midnight Mice built WMS Intelligence (WMSi), a standalone warehouse system that connects to Acumatica in both directions. It sits beside the ERP rather than inside it. Receiving, putaway, picking, packing, cycle counts, returns, kitting and manufacturing all run on Zebra scanners through a browser, with no app to install. Each customer gets their own server, so one company’s data never shares a database with another’s. Managers run the warehouse from a web portal with live dashboards, settings and an AI assistant that answers questions from the warehouse’s own data.
The challenge
Mid-sized warehouses on Acumatica are caught between two bad options. The built-in tools are thin for real floor work, and the established WMS products cost well into six figures in the first year before a single pallet moves. Many teams end up with paper pick lists, spreadsheets and staff keying receipts into the ERP by hand. Errors pile up, inventory drifts from the system and nobody trusts the numbers. Food and regulated distributors carry extra risk: allergen separation, lot traceability and recalls handled from memory.
Goals
- Give warehouse workers guided, scan-driven workflows that are hard to get wrong. - Keep Acumatica accurate without anyone retyping a transaction. - Enforce safety and compliance rules in the system, not on a laminated sheet. - Give every customer their own server, so their data stays theirs. - Let managers see the floor live and ask questions in plain language. - Price it so a 10 to 40 person warehouse can actually afford it.
The approach
Foundation. A Django and PostgreSQL platform with background workers for anything slow. Each customer runs on a dedicated server built by an installer script, so a new site comes up the same way every time. Integration that holds up. Acumatica sends changes through webhooks and WMSi posts back through the REST API. Posts go through a queue that keeps them in order, background jobs wait until data is saved before they fire, and a sync errors page shows anything the ERP refused. PO reconciliation finds gaps between the two systems automatically, and multi-branch companies are supported. Scanner first. Every workflow is built for a Zebra scanner in Chrome. Screens behave the same across modules, sessions pause and resume when a worker gets pulled away, and scanners sign in by token from approved networks only. Guardrails in the system. Directional allergen stacking rules block unsafe putaway locations. Quality holds stop inventory from being picked. Lots and serials are tracked from receipt to shipment, and a recall investigation traces where an affected lot went. Roles, permissions and audit trails support SOX controls. Intelligence on top. A warehouse intelligence engine computes metrics like vendor reliability, dead stock and worker productivity. An AI assistant in the manager portal and sales board answers questions with 59 tools that query the customer’s own database. Customers bring their own model key, and the data stays on their server. A fleet monitor watches every customer installation from one place.
What was delivered
- Receiving with automatic posting to Acumatica, including lot and serial capture - License plates for palletized inventory, with multi-product support and configurable numbering - Putaway with a per-product strategy chain (fixed home, ABC velocity, zone, next available), pallet and hand cart routing, and drag-and-drop sequence priorities - Order fulfillment: wave picking, packing, short-pick handling and carrier labels through EasyPost - Replenishment, cycle counting, inventory moves and adjustments - Customer returns, quality holds and recall investigation - Kitting and manufacturing with production order sync - Label module with automatic printer selection and public QR links for plates, locations and products - Salesboard for reps with available-to-promise that accounts for allocations, holds and promises - Manager portal with KPI widgets, inventory drill-downs, reporting and notifications - AI assistant for managers and sales reps, using the customer’s own model key - Roles, permissions, scanner IP allow-lists and SOX-ready audit logging - Installer, implementer guide and fleet monitoring for every customer server
Results
- Receipts post to Acumatica in under ten seconds with no manual entry. - Multiple workers operate the same warehouse at once without stepping on each other’s transactions. - Allergen and quality rules are enforced at the scanner, so a mistake is blocked before it reaches a shelf. - Managers answer questions like “what’s on hold” or “which vendor is late” by asking, instead of running reports. - Each customer runs on their own server, monitored centrally, at a fraction of the first-year cost of a traditional WMS. - The first customer server is live and reporting to the fleet monitor.
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