Your complete WMS features and requirements guide

You're ready to select your WMS system. Your goal is to enhance your warehouse’s efficiency, reliability, and profitability. But what exactly should you look for in a system?

The WMS functionality you choose will directly affect the day-to-day operations of your warehouse. If you prioritize the wrong functions, your warehouse might not realize the benefits of the system and could even face worsened processes.

We've created this guide to help you navigate through the jargon and pinpoint the actual tasks you need your software to perform. We'll break down your WMS requirements so you can prioritize the modules that your warehouse requirements, so you can prioritize the necessary modules and effectively communicate your needs to potential WMS vendors.

Our guide covers:

• Standard WMS features
• Advanced WMS features
• How to prepare your requirements list
• When you might want to consider bringing a customization request to your list of potential WMS vendors

So, let’s begin by looking at how to select the WMS features that work best for your business.

1. Map out problems you want a new WMS to solve

To understand why you need a warehouse management system, start by examining your business, especially if your operations aren't as productive or profitable as you'd like.

Examine every warehouse activity, from order fulfillment to equipment challenges, and consider unmet needs. Here are some questions to help identify the problems you want to address:

• Are inaccurate orders or inventory levels negatively impacting your business?
• How long would it take to verify inventory levels or overall order accuracy?
• What do you need to create, pack, and ship orders accurately? Do you have any of this already?
• How many manual processes are involved from receiving an order through fulfilling it and recording it as complete?
• What are the biggest complaints in your warehouse today?
• Who works in your warehouse? What do they do? How do they share their work status?
• What information does your warehouse leadership need to make a strategic change? Do they have access to this?

These concerns will help you set a scope for your WMS and ensure the features and requirements you present to vendors align with your business needs. Before engaging with specific companies or vendors, gather a few critical items internally.

Get a step-by-step overview of the entire selection process using this comprehensive WMS selection survival guide

Your quick prep checklist for WMS requirements gathering

2. Learn about core WMS features and what they do

Start building your WMS functionality list by knowing what's possible and considering both your current and future needs. This approach can help streamline the selection process

Let’s review essential warehouse management features that contribute to common goals like improved inventory accuracy, reduced stock levels, and efficient pick-and-pack operations.

Use this feature set to start building a WMS requirements template when you put together your RFP:

• Picking:  This crucial feature guides workers in filling orders. Basic functions should support mobile scanners and handhelds, and generate comprehensive lists and packing slips. Opt for systems adaptable to your warehouse layout.
• Receiving: Manages the receipt of goods from partners and customers. Features should include scheduling deliveries, returns management, quality assurance, and the ability to renumber or repackage received goods.
• Storage and inventory management: Allocates space for delivered goods, either automatically or manually. It should support single-load or mixed-load storage options.
• Counting: Tracks inventory across every stage and location, linking to picking and receiving activities to maintain real-time data accuracy.
• Warehouse control and management: Enables responsive operations, supporting practices like cross-docking, which routes incoming goods directly to fulfill existing orders without storage.
• Lot and serial number tracking: Helps maintain strict inventory control to streamline order fulfillment and restocking with tools like bin-level tracking and count validation. These features optimize fulfillment, provide automated audits, and meet requirements for specific customer restrictions, such as avoiding mixed lot shipments.
• Order allocation: optimizes inventory to meet current orders. It integrates orders from various sources, dynamically creates pick lists, assigns tasks to employees, and prioritizes based on criteria like back-order fulfillment.
• Group or wave planning: On a good day, you’ve got almost too many orders to fill. Wave planning tools allow you to create picking strategies to meet current demand and adjust when orders or priorities change. Look for support for multiple picking strategies.

 If you’re considering a functionality checklist for a pure B2B operation or for one that blends B2B and B2C sales, it’s the additional layers and supports that make the difference.

Use this WMS requirements template to find, shortlist and prioritize features for a new WMS

For example, order allocation modules that also support B2C operations will need robust integration capabilities, so you can tie your e-commerce website and ERP system to the WMS, ensuring orders flow smoothly. Why? Because 87% of retailers now offer BOPIS (buy online, pick up in-store), with click-and-collect retail sales projected to grow at a CAGR of 5.15% from 2025 to 2030.

This was a key factor in the past, but today most industries are adopting B2C-style interfaces in B2B spaces. As more companies use online sales portals for B2B, the differences between B2B and B2C WMS feature sets are shrinking.

3. Research advanced and specialty WMS features you might need

Identify unique business processes that set your warehouse apart, then seek WMS functionalities that align with these processes. Here are some advanced features that might enhance your operations:

• Specialty materials support: Track and trace materials with unique business or regulatory requirements, such as hazardous goods.
• Advanced verification tools: Provide multiple layers of order tracking and verification, enhancing accuracy across lot numbers, serial numbers, and more.
• Pre-staging tools: Optimize orders through warehouses based on factors like need, location, and inventory levels.
• Exception management: Flag and manage complex orders to prevent bottlenecks in picking or packing processes.
• High-volume returns support: Scale your returns management for e-commerce-focused operations to maintain efficiency.
• Robust food-recall tools: for food businesses, strict government regulations for food recall procedures are in place, so your software should support the recall process to make it as simple as possible.

Need help creating your warehouse management system's advanced features list? Look at these articles for a hand:

• Five features a good e-commerce WMS needs
• Four key features to look for in a manufacturing WMS
• Key features wholesalers should look for in a WMS
• Six advanced WMS features to consider during requirements analysis
• Six features to look for in a retail WMS
• Six key features to look for in a 3PL WMS
• What capabilities should a multi-warehouse WMS have?

Special consideration: WMS analytics

Analytics and benchmarking tools are becoming more common WMS features because of the readily available nature of data and processing engines. It’s getting easier to understand business thanks to systems that generate and share their data more freely.

Beyond some initial data and analytical capabilities that are moving into the realm of standard offerings — such as average time to fill orders and total landed costs of orders or items — you may want to look for additional analytics packages that can support your business.

Top choices include inventory optimization tools that can help you plan your warehouse layout and picking routes based on goods you ship most often; replenishment analysis specific to customers or target regions; workforce management tools that track individual user’s accuracy and speed; and synchromodality tools.

The business intelligence market is expected to reach $18.3 billion by the end of this year, according to Gartner. Analytics is the engine that powers that market, so having and using internal data will soon become a business requirement instead of an advantage. It’s one of the more important advanced features to look for in a WMS because the ability to grow your analytics usage will play a role in overall company viability.

For more on analytics capabilities to consider adding to your WMS functionality checklist, see five analytics features to make the most of your WMS data.

4. Consider making requests for WMS specialty features

Nearly 80% of companies with “high-performing supply chains” report higher levels of revenue growth than the average company in their industry. Achieving that level of performance often comes down to optimizing processes and software to run more efficiently and quickly respond to business changes or problems.

Ask yourself: what do you need to take your warehouse to that next level?

In some cases, it’ll be a core feature: 46% of SMBs either don’t track or manually track inventory levels, so standard inventory automation can help you excel.

In others, advanced features can help you reduce costs: U.S. retailers have roughly $1.43 in inventory they have to stock and track for every $1 in sales they produce.

But, in your case, it might be a feature we haven’t touched on yet. Perhaps it’s a business need to integrate with legacy or custom software that your business demands.

Preparing for demand spikes and unpredictable events

Or, you see demand spikes around specific events like natural disasters and want to forecast inventory levels based on multiple data sets. Perhaps you need a user interface that supports voice commands for everything, or you’ve got such a noisy floor that you require every command to be displayed visually on Internet-connected goggles.

Find WMS vendors offering the features you need with this comprehensive WMS vendor directory

Warehouse management system functional requirements are whatever you need to run your business better. If you’ve got a need that isn’t standard, reach out to vendors to see what support is possible.

Final thoughts

There’s a healthy tradition of customization in warehouse management functionality and feature lists. Many of today’s leading WMS were initially built to serve a single customer and then slowly developed and enhanced with new features and requirements as those companies gained new customers. So, you might have something that vendors have seen before.

Your business deserves a WMS that works for you. If something doesn’t meet your needs, the market is large enough that you can keep looking and will likely find something that does.