Displaying and Sorting the Suggested P/O Queue

You can display and sort the Suggested P/O Queue to best show the purchases you need to make. You can sort by buy lines, buyers, or carrying costs. In addition, you can specify what kind of queue you want to display. After running the Suggested P/O program, you can display the results to decide what to purchase.

To display summary information for the Suggested P/O Queue at all times, add a Suggested P/O Queue widget to your Solar Eclipse main window. For more information, see Widgets and Menu Shortcuts Overview.

To display the Suggested P/O Queue:

1. From the Purchase > Queues menu, select Suggested P/O Queue to display the Suggested P/O Queue window.

2. In the Branch field, enter the branch you want to display. To display all branches, type All.

3. In the Buyer field, enter the buyer's queue you want to display. To display all, leave this field blank. To assign a buyer, see Assigning Buyers to Buy Lines.

4.  In the Type field, select the kind of queue you want to display. Press F10 to select one of the queues. For a description of each type, see Suggested Purchase Order Queue Rules and Guidelines.

5. To select columns which display on the report, from the File menu, select Print Setup. You can shuffle the column selections to best suit your company's needs.

6. Click Update. The Suggested P/O queue displays.

Information displays based on how you sorted the queue the last time it was run.

7. Click the header buttons to sort by that column, such as Buyer or Carry Cost.

8. To change the column view, click the View Manager () at the end of the row headings and select one of the following: Total Buy (this is the default), Last Line Buy, Next PO Date, or Combine P/O.

   Column	Description
   Br	(Branch) The purchasing branch for the buy line displayed. The purchasing branch depends on your warehouse scheme. Warehouse schemes let you decide the most efficient way to purchase and store the products for your company.                                                             You must have the SUGGESTED.PO.QUEUEauthorization key assigned to view and create suggested purchase orders.
   Buyer	The Buyer responsible for the buy line. If there is no buyer listed, then any authorized purchasing agent can purchase the buy line. If there is a buyer listed, then there may be restrictions on who is allowed to buy the line. For example, there may be restrictions on warehouse space for a particular buy line which must be cleared before purchasing. Your company may indicate that only one person can purchase this with instructions to check the inventory location prior to purchase.
   Buy Line	The buy line or super buy line ID for the buy line suggested for purchase by the system. This is the primary buy line in which a product resides. A product can be in a primary buy line and have a secondary buy line attached to it, but the Suggested P/O Queue displays only primary buy lines or super buy lines. To view all products in the buy line listed, use the Buy Line Maintenance program to view the products. From the Suggested P/O Queue, you can place your cursor on the Buy Line ID, then from the Maintenance menu, select Buy Line Maintenance. Note: For super buy lines that do not have a procure group specified the suggested P/O report will first look to the individual product lines contained within the super buy line to determine procure group. If individual product lines do not  contain a procure group the system uses a default group of DFLT.
   Target*	The vendor target you should meet in order to purchase the buy line. A vendor target is determined by the vendor from whom you purchase products for this buy line. Different vendors have different targets. A target is the amount of product the vendor identifies as the minimum amount you can buy. For example, Jones Plumbing may require you to buy $500 worth of product before shipping without freight fees. In contrast, Smith's Supply may require you to buy enough product to fill a truck based on weight before providing a discount or before shipping. The system provides several options to meet the vendor target. Vendor targets can be in dollars, pounds (weight), pieces, or load factor. To adjust or change vendor targets, use Buy Line Maintenance.
   OCD* (Order Cycle Days)	Order cycle days indicate how often you buy from your vendor. The order cycle can vary when some products in a buy line sell faster than others. The order cycle calculation is the most effective time for replenishing a product line from a vendor, based on the vendor target for that line. A vendor target is the amount of product the vendor identifies as the minimum amount you can buy. Order cycle calculation = (Vendor Target / Average Monthly Demand of all Products in Buy Line) * 30 You must be assigned the SUGGESTED.PO.QUEUEauthorization key to view and create suggested purchase orders.
   LBD* (Line Buy Days)	The number of days needed as of the last run of the Suggested PO Queue to meet the vendor target. The Line Buy Days number is affected by a number of factors, such as the number of days since the last line buy, the amount of nonstock items needed in the buy line, or any unusual demand on stock items that keeps units different than the last forecast. This column number should match the LnBuyCycle column in Buy Line Maintenance. You must have the SUGGESTED.PO.QUEUEauthorization key assigned to view and create suggested purchase orders.
   Short Amount	The dollar value for the total number of items below order point. If a short buy is converted to an actual purchase order, this is the quantity amount on the purchase order. Note: If an asterisk (*) displays in this field, the system used the Line Point for suggestion calculation based on the Short Buy Quantity Methodcontrol maintenance record.
   Line Buy*	The quantity you must purchase to bring items in a buy line back to their line points, when creating a purchase order from a suggested purchase order. A line point is the upper limit to the amount of stock you want to have on the shelf for a given item so a warehouse can meet demand during the order cycle of the product. The line point calculation is: ((Lead Time Days + Order Cycle Days + Line Point Safety Days) * Demand Per Day) + Manual Safety Stock You must have the SUGGESTED.PO.QUEUEauthorization key assigned to view and create suggested purchase orders.
   Total Buy*	The total amount required to purchase the entire line as it corresponds with the Target field, as follows: If the Target is in dollars, then the Total Buy field displays $0.00 because the Line Buy field reflects the total amount in dollars. If the Target is in weight, then the Total Buy field displays the total weight required for an entire buy line.                                                             You must have the SUGGESTED.PO.QUEUEauthorization key assigned to view and create suggested purchase orders. Note: If you are combining purchase orders this amount changes based on the lines you select - line buys or short buys.
   #BOP	The number of items in the buy line that are below their order point. This number provides a gauge to determine which buy lines need to be purchased first. Despite the carrying costs, if there is a significant number of items below their order point, it is time to purchase the entire buy line.
   Carry Cost*	The cost of keeping a product on the shelf in your warehouse. This cost includes warehouse utilities, inventory shrinkage, insurance, or the cost of the money you have invested in the inventory. We recommend purchasing buy lines with a zero ($0.00) carrying cost first, because frequently you have a very quick order cycle on those items and purchase them often. In addition, with a zero carrying cost, the purchase does not cost you more to have the items on hand. The system automatically calculates the carrying cost for each buy line based on order cycle and demand history.
   Last Line Buy	Date of the last buy line for the product.
   Next PO	The date on which the next purchase order is to be sent.
   Short (check box)	Use to select which line items to combine on purchase orders.
   Line (check box)

   * If you run the Suggested PO for Target #2, additional #2 columns display for each of these columns, such as LBD #2 or Line Buy #2.

Additionally, you can drag and drop the columns to display the information as it suits your business needs, for example, you can move Target 1 and Target 2 so they display side-by-side.

9. Use the parameters you enter to convert the suggested purchases into actual purchase orders.

10. Repeat steps two through five to recalculate for other parameters.

11. Exit the window.

See Also:

Running the Suggested P/O Program

Suggested Purchase Order Queue Rules and Guidelines