Understanding how the system commits inventory is essential. Often the system shows that products are unavailable, even though these products are physically onhand. This occurs because the system puts a hold on, or commits, inventory for existing orders. Therefore, products that are physically on hand can be unavailable for sale, and taking the product off the shelf will likely short another customer.
When committing inventory, the system considers the product's order status, ship date, and Plenty Date. The system also considers products that are expected to arrive, based on existing purchase orders and transfers.
The system uses the ship date to determine whether sales commitments for all the products can be kept. If not, the order status changes to Call When Complete. Monitor the Trouble Queue regularly to track these orders and notify affected customers.
Use the Future Ledger to examine inventory commitments and replenishment schedules. This ledger can help you decide how to best fill orders with immediate needs. See Over-Committing Inventory, below.
The system commits inventory for a customer when you order a stock item and do one of the following:
Assign it an order status of Pick Up Now.
Assign it an order status of Ship When Specified or Call When Specified, if the specified date is before the Plenty Date. If the date is beyond the Plenty Date, the system assumes you will have plenty anyway and does not put a hold on the item.
To commit inventory for a customer:
Create or open a sales order and display the order's Body tab.
Ensure that the products are available by the customer's required date. If needed, choose a view that shows product availability.
On the Status tab, specify one of these order statuses for the products:
Pick Up Now
Call When Specified
Ship When Specified
Make sure that the Ship Date and Ship Via settings will get the products to the customer by the required date. If not, edit these fields as needed.
Save your changes and exit the order. The order is processed and inventory is committed.
Note: Using an order status of Bid or Cancelled does not commit inventory.
The system lets authorized users over-commit inventory. If a product is over-committed, the sales order does not print until the inventory becomes available. You can still print a pick ticket in this case by using a Pick Up Now order status. Over-committing inventory also automatically triggers the item for a cycle count.
Any time you over-commit inventory, use the Future Ledger. Find other orders on which the item is committed, and then reschedule these other orders to a date beyond the calculated Plenty Date. This lets you borrow the committed inventory from an order that can wait and use it for an order with a more immediate need. Regardless of how you over-commit inventory, the order's Change Log records inventory over-commitments.
Note: In addition to over-committing inventory, you can fill customer order needs by procuring products, transferring products from another branch, or direct-shipping from a vendor.
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