Document priority / Automatic reservation

Introduction – Where to find document priority field

As our users suggested, we have upgraded the existing system of automatic reservation and fulfillment.

We have included the Priority field in all documents that cause automatic reservations. That means Sales Order, Work Order, Transfer.

In this blog, we will explain in detail the system of automatic reservation and committed/awaiting relations.

You can find more information about the backorder/fulfillment process itself on this link: https://www.erpag.com/news/fulfillment-backorders

What is an automatic reservation, committed/awaiting relation?

Automatic reservation is the process when the stock quantity is distributed according to the documents in order to prepare the abandonment of the stock. Which includes: packaging/delivery/consumption in the manufacturing/transfer to another warehouse, etc. This process prevents two or more documents from “claiming” the same items.

Committed / Awaiting relationship is an automatic process of linking goods from documents that require a quantity to sell. Or, consuming materials or transfer to another warehouse. And goods from documents that have been ordered through procurement (or work order or transfer request from another warehouse). This process prevents more goods being ordered than needed. And also, we have information when the ordered goods will be available to us (expected date).

These two processes are, in some cases connected, while in others they are completely parallel.

You probably noticed that the “Product and services” list in ERPAG has 4 columns that represent the quantity of items.

Each one of them represents a specific value:

ERPAG quantity columns

• On hand

On hand represents our current stock levels. You can see the details on reports, such as “Inventory/Stock list” and “Stock Card”.

• Reserved quantity

This represents the number of items, currently reserved by documents (Sales Order, Work Order, Transfer). The details can be seen on the “Reserved Items” report in the “Inventory” section of ERPAG. The “Pick List” report is also formed from this data.

• Committed quantity

We are obligated to sell this quantity (or use it in the Work Order or Transfer to another warehouse). Eg. We didn’t deliver this quantity yet (or packed, or used). Reports such as “Open Sales Order” and “Open Output Items” can give us more details regarding this quantity.

• Awaiting quantity

We ordered this quantity from our supplier. Or, we need to produce this quantity via Work Order/receive from another warehouse. This is the quantity that didn’t arrive yet, or we didn’t produce it. “Open Purchase Orders” and “Open Output Items” reports can give us more details.

Committed/Awaiting relation

If we have two Sales Order (“Customer One” and “Customer Two”) that claim the same items

Items can enter our stock from different sources. We can get them through Purchase Order, Work Order, Transfer, Customer Return, etc. We will use the most common and logically easiest for this example – Purchase Order.

In our example, we will enter a Purchase Order (manually or through the fulfillment option) with a quantity of 2 pcs.

The PO will get a column “Committed quantity” which represents the quantity claimed by an order. It can be a Sales Order/Work Order/Transfer. By activating the “info” button we are getting information which documents “claim” that quantity.

In the Sales Order, we will get the “Awaiting quantity” column which is a relation for the quantity we are expecting.

Note: We marked the “Expected” date (the date when we expect the ordered items to enter our stock) with green color. It is also represented in Sales Order, but if there are more “Expected” values (items from Sales Order are linked to more different orders with different expected dates), the most further one will be displayed.

On Purchase Orders details we see that the SO-000001 is before SO-000002, which means that the disposition is set based on the date and time of a document.

This is a good automatic system, but in reality, some orders are more important than others. For example, if a customer requests an urgent delivery or the whole manufacturing process is on hold because the raws are assigned for a less important work order. We appreciated our clients’ requests and feedback, and included the possibility of a more precise priority setup.

For more precise order setup, we use option “Priority”.

Document priority – Entry

As we already mentioned, there is a separate field in documents – “Priority”.

Priority is divided to 4 levels:

• Normal (the lowest priority level)
• Medium
• High
• Urgent (the highest priority level)

With the change of priority, the “committed quantity” order is changed as well.

In our example, after changes are applied in the Sales Order, the order will be different. We will see it when we activate the info details in the Committed Quantity column in the Purchase Order.

Now, we will create a new Sales Order with “Medium” priority.

Since the priority is now higher than in the SO-000001, The Awaiting/Committed relation will be towards the new Sales Order.

and SO-000001 will be removed from the relation.

Automatic reservation

As we already mentioned in the introduction of this blog, the automatic reservation and committed/awaiting relation can be parallel processes as well.

In our example, when we receive the quantity from PO-000002 to our stock, SO-000002 and SO-000004 should automatically reserve the quantity. In most cases this is the real scenario. But, what happens when the quantity appears from a different source (customer return or stock adjustment)? In that case, the quantity will be reserved based on the priority. The committed/awaiting relation will be recalculated as well.

An example – Stock Adjustment entry – Suprlus

In the Sales Order list, the SO-000002 reserved the quantity, due to the highest priority.

In the document itself, the quantity is “reserved” and ready to be “packed”. Regardless of us expecting the quantity to be received through the PO-000002.

You will be able to “pack” the reserved quantity through the Mobile App as well.

As we mentioned, the quantity is not “received” through a Purchase Order, so we also have recalculated relations in PO-000002 (we have new Committed/Awaiting relations).

In most cases, the “source” of the quantity doesn’t matter. But, if we want that SO-000001 has the quantity that came to stock “unplanned”, we will accomplish that by changing the SO priority.

Since “Urgent” is the highest priority, the quantity will be reserved for this Sales Order, and the PO-000002 relation will be as it was before.

Note: After items leave our warehouse (the moment when a Sales Order is packed, the material is loaded in a Work Order, Transfer document is packed), there is no Committed/Awaiting relation anymore. So there is no direct relation to Sales Order – Purchase Order. If you have a need to track items in such manner (when you need to know where did you get the items you sold on a specific Sales Order), we advise using Lot and Serial number tracking.

2020. ERPAG Inc.