What the documents look like
Brand omnichannel stock transfers move goods between stores and warehouses. The main data sources are ERP inventory, store POS, ecommerce orders, and WMS. The routine documents are transfer requests, inventory snapshots, store shortage lists, and transfer logistics notes. These materials sit in different systems, and the request, approval, dispatch, and receipt records for one transfer event can belong to separate documents.
Document comparison for contracts and transaction materials must match the quantity and route in a transfer request against the logistics note and the receipt record item by item. Data updates daily or weekly. Citation work must check the material version and its effective scope. When sources disagree, no single side can be treated as correct by default. This page addresses one task only: citation source and tracing inside contract and transaction material comparison for omnichannel stock transfers. Retrieval does not grant authorization, and it does not decide whether a material has been approved or executed.
Constraints at the citation tracing step
The knowledge base search node can link one or more knowledge bases that share the same vector model, and it outputs cited content as an array whose length may be zero. The citation cap is controlled in tokens. The minimum relevance value takes effect only under semantic retrieval or result reranking. These mechanisms mean citation tracing can only check the retrieved source passages. Retrieval itself is not authorization and does not judge whether a material has been approved or executed. A pending request is not approval. An offered option is not execution. An unsigned termination is not a completed termination.
Hypothetical paper exercise sample. A brand retail supply chain team prepares one transfer request. The source text reads: "Transfer request T-2024-0312, request date March 12, 2024, outbound from East China warehouse SKU-A 200 units to store M-017, requester Li, approval status is pending supply chain supervisor review." A separate transfer logistics note reads: "Logistics note L-2024-0315, dispatch date March 15, 2024, SKU-A 200 units, destination store M-017, receipt status: not signed." The draft sentence to be judged reads: "This transfer request has been approved and completed receipt into inventory." Comparison must check the approval status field of the request, the receipt status field of the logistics note, and whether a receipt record exists. In this sample the approval status is pending review and the receipt status is not signed, so "has been approved" and "completed receipt into inventory" both lack support. If a receipt record is added with source text "Receipt R-2024-0318, SKU-A 200 units, store M-017, receipt date March 18, 2024," then the receipt fact gains support, while the approval status still requires separate verification against an approval record.
Configuration and implementation checks
The table below covers the sample on this page and lists documented settings or implementation checks relevant to citation source and tracing.
| Configuration item | Hypothetical exercise starting value | Reason and comparison method |
|---|---|---|
| Linked knowledge bases | Transfer request base and logistics note base | Check whether the two bases share the same vector model identifier; only matching identifiers may be linked together |
| Search mode | Hybrid retrieval | Request numbers and logistics note numbers are exact identifiers, so hybrid retrieval covers both semantics and keywords |
| Citation cap | Set to 2000 tokens as the hypothetical exercise starting value | The sample materials are short; compare against the combined text length of one request plus one logistics note to confirm key fields are covered |
| Minimum relevance | Set to 0.5 as the hypothetical exercise starting value | Compare against the retrieved passages holding the approval status and receipt status fields and observe whether they are retained |
| Result reranking | Enabled | Candidate results span several materials; after reranking, check the source order against the scores |
| Cited content output | Accepted as an array | Check whether the output array contains the request and logistics note source text; when the length is zero, record the empty result |
Three common errors
- Treating pending review as approved. The sample request approval status is "pending supply chain supervisor review," while the draft sentence says "has been approved." The input is the request source text. Compare the approval status field against the draft wording. The observable result is that the field value "pending review" does not match "has been approved."
- Treating an unsigned logistics note as completed receipt into inventory. The sample logistics note receipt status is "not signed," and no receipt record exists. The input is the logistics note source text and the draft sentence. Compare the receipt status field against the wording "completed receipt into inventory." The observable result is that the receipt record is absent and the receipt status is not signed.
- Treating retrieval output as an authorization basis for execution. The input is the citation array output by the search node. Compare the array contents against whether approval records and receipt records exist. The observable result is that the citation array holds only the request and logistics note source text, with no approved or receipt-completed record, so transfer execution cannot rest on it.
How to verify the setup
- Compare the sample request source text against the draft sentence. Input the request source text "approval status is pending supply chain supervisor review." Compare against the draft sentence "has been approved." The observable result is that the approval status field value does not support that wording, so the judgment is unsupported.
- Compare the sample logistics note source text against the draft sentence. Input the logistics note source text "receipt status: not signed." Compare against the draft sentence "completed receipt into inventory." The observable result is that the receipt status field value does not support that wording and no receipt record corroborates it, so the judgment remains pending verification.
- Check downstream handling with an empty citation array. Input an explicit paper citation array []. Compare whether the downstream node still runs through and records the empty result. The observable result is that the chain does not error when the citation length is zero, and downstream empty-result handling must be designed separately; this does not show that the retrieval rule always returns an empty array.
For the linked knowledge base check, verify the vector model identifier of each selected base first and exclude any base that does not match, rather than running a cross-model retrieval to compare missed recalls. RRF is a fusion process for mixed results, not a switch to enable. Image retrieval requires a corresponding image input and model capability, and reranking requires a model and its enabled setting. The optional paths in the overall retrieval flow diagram do not mean every request executes all of them.