Running the Suggested P/O Program

The Suggested Purchase Order (P/O) program uses order cycle information (PILs, demand, and vendor target) to propose purchase quantities for products on Suggested P/O reports. A summary of these reports displays in the Suggested P/O Queue.

The Suggested P/O program populates the Suggested P/O Queue with a report for each buy line that has a product below its order point. The program uses the order points, line points, and surplus points of those buy lines listed in the queue to suggest the short buy or emergency buy. To meet the vendor target, the system suggests buying products back to their line points and moves the line point, based on expanding or contracting order cycles, until the vendor target is met or exceeded.

 Important: The projected inventory level (PIL) listed on this report will be different from the PIL indicated on the Primary Inventory Maintenance window. This difference is because the PIL on the Suggested P/O program is calculated based on the order cycle. The PIL on the Primary Inventory Maintenance window is real-time and is calculated based on all orders coming into the system and going out.

Note: The plus sign (+) on the Suggested PO Report indicates that there is at least one warehouse in the network that has 0 on hand.

Most buy lines contain many products and due to the large number, it is difficult to know which buy lines have products below their order points. Therefore, the Suggested P/O program is most commonly run for all buy lines at once. If you run the Suggested P/O program for one buy line and no products are below order point, the system displays the message: Report Not Found.

Secondary Buy Lines

Also, when suggesting a purchase order that uses a secondary buy line for a product, the system uses the secondary buy line's procurement path and not the one set up for the product's primary buy line. Override hierarchies still apply.

Note: If your company uses secondary buy lines, the processing time for this report can be longer than usual.

Package Quantities

When calculating the suggestions, the system rounds package quantities at the child branch level and adds the need to the parent branch's calculation, if the Divisibility flag is set to No at the parent branch level. This ensures that the system does not suggest broken carton quantities if the purchasing branch has the Divisibility flag set to No. For example, the parent branch has the Buy Package quantity set at 100 and the Divisibility flag set to No. The child branch has the Divisibility flag set to Yes. The parent branch requires a quantity of 15. The child branch requires 9. Therefore, the total quantity needed is 24. The quantity is rounded to the package, 100, which fills the needs of both parent and child.

Costs

The Suggested P/O Program displays costs for items based on the time the report is run. For example, the cost could change when running the Suggest P/O program for many branches at once. The program can take one to two minutes if there are several branches to query. If a cost has been changed while the program is running, the summary report does not reflect the change, but the detail report displays the change.

To run the Suggest P/O program:

  1. From the Purchase > Reports menu, select Suggest P/O to display the Suggest Purchase Order window.

  2. Complete the report filter fields to tell the system which information to include when suggesting purchases:

Field

Description

Buy Line

Enter a buy line ID to run the program for a single buy line or leave the field blank to run suggested P/Os for all buy lines at once. Use the Multiple button to suggest purchases for a select group of buy lines.

You must set a flag at the buy line level in Buy Line Maintenance to include a buy line in all buy lines. If you want to include the buy line, set the Suggest on All field to Yes.

Note: For super buy lines that do not have a procure group specified, the suggested P/O report first looks 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.

Purchasing Branch*

Enter one of the following to select the purchasing branch number. Only buying branches generate purchase orders.

  • For a single-branch warehouse, type branch 1 or all.

  • For central purchasing branches, enter the branch number for an authorized purchasing branch, as set up in Procurement Group Maintenance.

  • To run the program for all purchasing branches, enter all.

Print Individual Branches

Indicate whether to print individual branch summaries on the report.

This field only applies to branches using central purchasing and lets the central purchasing agent review the Suggested P/Os from both a network summary and individual branch perspective.

Ignore "Suggest on All?"

Indicate if you want the system to ignore the buy line setting. This setting is active only the Purchasing Branch field is set to All. The default is No. If you select all buy lines by leaving the Buy Line field blank, the system uses a setting of Yes in this field. You cannot change this setting.

Note: The Suggest on All flag is set in Buy Line Maintenance generally for a buy line that is included in a super buy line and you want to limit the system considering demand or an order for the items on the buy line.

Include Target Level 2?

Indicate if you want the system to include second targets for the buy line suggestions. Enter target #2 values in the Buy Line Target Maintenance window.

Note: You can convert the suggested PO for the Level 2 target using the standard conversion process, if that is a better purchase.

* Required

  1. Use the Print Options > Print Setup to select which columns to display on the report.

  2. Set options, if needed, and generate the report.

The Suggested Purchase Order window closes.

 Important:If a customer who is on credit hold orders a non-stock item, the system displays an error on the Suggested P/O Report by the item alerting the purchasing agent. This alert can help keep your warehouse free of non-stock items ordered that may not get paid for.

Suggested P/O Error Report

When the suggested P/O program runs, the system checks the following fields in the product file. If any of these fields have invalid data, such as a letter in the Min field, then the system creates a Suggested P/O Error Report and places it in Your Hold Files. The system creates this error report if any of the following product file fields have misinformation:

The report helps you when you import your data into Eclipse to make sure you are mapping the correct data to the correct fields. While the Suggested P/O program continues to run, it creates this report and lists the products with bad data so you can update the information and then rerun the Suggested P/O Report.

For information about what columns are on the report and available to add to the report, see What the Suggested P/O Report Shows.

See Also:

Suggested Purchase Orders Queue Rules and Guidelines

Displaying and Sorting the Suggested P/O Queue