# Central Warehouse
> Source: https://development.fuze-store.com/docs/account/organizations/central-warehouse

# Central Warehouse

A **warehouse** is a special kind of store that holds stock and supplies your other branches, rather than selling to customers. It's the hub in a hub-and-spoke setup: stock arrives at the warehouse, then flows out to your branches through [cross-store transfers](/docs/store/inventory/cross-store-transfers).

## How a Warehouse Differs from a Regular Store

A warehouse store:

- **Has no point-of-sale surfaces** — the register, orders, and sales screens are hidden, because a warehouse doesn't sell to customers.
- **Is hidden from the public store directory** — customers won't find it when browsing stores.
- **Keeps its full inventory tools** — locations, stock, suppliers, purchase orders, and transfers all work as normal.

Everything else about a warehouse works like any other store in your organization.

## Creating a Warehouse

You create a warehouse the same way you create any store — by choosing the **Warehouse** business type during setup.

1. Start creating a new store (from **Stores → Add Store**, or from your organization).
2. On the **business type** step, choose **Warehouse**.
3. Finish the setup. The new store is flagged as a warehouse and its POS surfaces stay hidden.

  For the warehouse to supply your branches, it must belong to the same
  organization as those branches, and each store needs the **Inventory** add-on.
  See [Linking & Unlinking Stores](/docs/account/organizations/linking-stores).

## The Hub-and-Spoke Flow

A typical warehouse setup runs like this:

1. **Receive stock into the warehouse** — record purchase orders or stock so the warehouse holds inventory.
2. **Link products** across the warehouse and your branches so they're recognized as the same items. See [Organization Inventory](/docs/account/organizations/organization-inventory).
3. **Send stock to a branch** — create a [cross-store transfer](/docs/store/inventory/cross-store-transfers) from the warehouse, ship it, and the branch receives it. Or let a branch **request** stock, which the warehouse accepts and ships.
4. **Watch combined stock** in the organization [Stock Overview](/docs/account/organizations/organization-inventory) to know when to reorder at the warehouse.

## Related

- [Cross-Store Transfers](/docs/store/inventory/cross-store-transfers)
- [Organization Inventory](/docs/account/organizations/organization-inventory)
- [Catalog Sync](/docs/account/organizations/catalog-sync)