1. Purpose
Explain how to take an expiration date or a lot number off stock that is already in a bin, when it was entered by mistake, entered against the wrong item, or is simply no longer wanted. Covers where the field lives, the one non-obvious step needed to empty it, and how to find the records that are hidden by default.
2. Scope
Covers clearing expiry and lot on inventory that has already been received and put away. Entering expiry and lot correctly during receiving is part of the receiving flow and is not covered here. Reading the inventory screen generally is covered in SWI-004. Moving stock between bins is covered in SWI-002.
3. Roles & Responsibilities
Operations lead: decides whether the dates should come off and carries out the change.
Brand or client contact: confirms the stock is not expiry-controlled before anything is cleared.
Support: checks how many records carry a date, and whether anything will put the dates back.
4. When you need this
Dates were entered during receiving by someone who did not need to enter them.
A date was typed against the wrong SKU or the wrong bin.
A brand has decided it does not track expiry and wants the fields emptied.
Old dates are sitting on bins that were emptied long ago and are cluttering reports or exports.
5. Key concept: clearing a date is not an adjustment, and the calendar has no Clear button
What people assume | What actually happens |
|---|---|
An expiration date is removed with an inventory adjustment. | An adjustment changes quantity. The date sits beside the quantity on the same bin record and is edited in the same window, but clearing it needs no quantity change at all. |
The date picker has some way to clear the field. | It does not. The only way to empty it is to open the calendar and click the highlighted date a second time, which un-selects it. Nothing on screen says so. |
The date belongs to the product. | It belongs to the stock in one bin. The same SKU sitting in three bins can carry three different dates, and each one is cleared separately. |
Clearing the dates you can see clears them everywhere. | Bins picked down to zero keep their dates and are hidden from the list by default. They have to be shown before they can be cleared. |
An old date on an empty bin is harmless. | It stays on that record indefinitely. Receiving the same SKU into that bin again does not reuse or reset the record; a second one is created alongside it, and the old date remains. |
Expiry dates decide which stock gets picked first. | Only where the product is set to pick by expiry. Where it is not, the dates are recorded and displayed but change nothing about how stock is chosen or allocated. |
6. Procedure — clear a date or lot from a bin
Open Products, then Inventory, from the dashboard menu.
Choose the warehouse at the top of the page if more than one is set up.
Turn the Hide Empty switch off, so that bins picked down to zero are listed as well. Old dates are most often sitting on exactly these.
Search for the SKU and click its row to expand it. Every bin holding that SKU is listed underneath, each with its own expiration date and lot number.
Click the pencil icon on the bin you want to change.
To clear the expiration date, click the button showing the date, then click that same highlighted date in the calendar. It un-selects, and the button goes back to reading Pick a date.
To clear the lot number, delete the text in the Lot Number field and leave it empty.
Leave Change Qty empty. Nothing about the quantity needs to change.
Click Update.
Repeat for each remaining bin. There is no way to do several at once.
6A. Finding every record that carries a date
The bins still holding stock are the ones anyone will notice, but they are usually the minority. Most old dates sit on bins that have since been picked to zero, and those are hidden until Hide Empty is turned off.
Work through the catalogue with the switch off and clear as you go, rather than clearing the visible ones first and coming back. A bin at zero looks like nothing needs doing, which is precisely why these get missed and turn up later in an export.
If the dates all arrived in one receiving session, they will share a creation date and tend to sit together in the same handful of bins, so they are quicker to find than the catalogue size suggests.
7. Verification
The Expiration and Lot columns on the bin row show a dash.
Reopening the pencil shows Pick a date, and an empty Lot Number field.
A "No changes detected" message means the date never un-selected. Reopen the calendar and click the highlighted date again.
With Hide Empty off, no remaining bin for that SKU shows a date.
8. Constraints and caveats
Full access to Inventory is needed. Read-only users do not see the pencil at all.
There is no bulk clear and no CSV route. Each bin is done on its own.
The inventory CSV upload cannot help here. It rejects expiry and lot values for any bin that still holds stock, and directs you to this screen instead.
Clearing a date moves no stock and records no quantity movement, so it is safe to do on live inventory during a working day.
Where a purchase order line carries an expected expiry, receiving pre-fills it onto the stock being put away. A date cleared here will come back on the next receipt unless the purchase order is corrected as well.
Clearing the date on a bin does not change what was recorded on the receipt it arrived on. The receipt keeps what was entered at the time.
Where a warehouse system feeds inventory in, it supplies its own expiry and lot, and a later sync can put back what you clear.
9. Worked example
A brand that does not track expiry at all asks for expiration dates to be taken off its stock entirely. The dates come from a single receiving session rather than an ongoing feed, and most of the records carrying them sit on bins that are now empty.
Observation | Reading |
|---|---|
A small number of bin records carry a date, all created on the same afternoon. | The dates come from one receiving session, not from an ongoing feed, so there is nothing to switch off before clearing them. |
All but one of those bins hold zero stock. | Those have been picked out and have kept their dates. None of them appear on screen until Hide Empty is turned off. |
One bin still holds stock. | That is the only record affecting anything anyone sees day to day, so it is cleared first. |
No purchase order line carries an expected expiry. | Nothing will re-add the dates at the next receipt, so clearing them once is enough. |
The brand's products are not set to pick by expiry. | The dates are changing nothing about allocation or picking, which confirms that removing them costs nothing operationally. |
The job is a short series of small edits and no stock movement. What stalls it is not the clearing but the finding: most of the records are invisible until the Hide Empty switch comes off, and the one visible record makes it look like a single line fix.
10. Related documents
SWI-002 — Move Inventory Between Locations
SWI-004 — Read the Inventory Screen
SWI-009 — Recover Stock Stranded in Picking Totes