Tip of the Month for April 2010

New P/O and Sales Order Dates

Additional dates have been added to Purchase Order line items. These were added to coincide with dates that have previously been available on the header of Purchase Orders. There are now 3 dates on each P/O line.

• There is an “Estimated Date” which is defaulted based on Average Lead Time on items setup in inventory.
• There is a “Required Date” which was available previously.  The “Required Date” will default from the “Required Date” on the P/O header if one is entered.
• And there is a “Promised Date” which is the date the item has been promised to you by the vendor, if applicable. The “Promised Date” will also default from the “Promised Date” on the P/O header if one is entered.
• On existing P/O’s, if the Required Date or Promised Date are changed on the P/O header, the program will detect this and offer to update line items, however the user can choose whether they want this to occur or not.
• All dates on line items can be overridden or changed as needed regardless of how they are defaulted.  They can be changed in P/O Entry/Maintenance as well as in P/O Acknowledgement Request Log Viewer.
• These 3 P/O dates are analyzed by various programs that show the status of open P/O’s and back orders for which P/O’s have been issued, such as the Open P/O Reports, P/O Inquiries, B/O Inquiries, P/O Hot List Expediter, P/O Acknowledgement Requests, etc.
• If a Promised Date is present on a line item, programs will use it first.
• Secondly if no Promised Date is present, the programs will look at the Required Date and use it.
• Thirdly, if neither a Promised Date nor a Required Date is present on a line item, then it will revert to the Estimated Date if present.
• Reports and inquiries will denote which date was found to indicate the source of the date to let the user know what the date means and how “reliable” it is.

Promised Dates have also been added to the Sales Order header and line items. You may enter 1 or 2 Promised Dates on both the order header and each line item. You can enter these as a promised shipping date or a promised delivery date, however it is recommended that everyone in the organization understand how these are being used and be consistent in entering them so when talking with customers they will realize what these dates mean.  The reason for two promised dates is that you might want to enter the date on which you plan to ship out to your customer the items you have in stock while in the second promised date field, you enter the date you want to ship out their special ordered merchandise such as when selling non-stock items.  These dates will show when viewing the items on Open Orders and Quotes in Customer Inquiry, searches, etc.

• These date(s) will default from the Promised Dates entered on the order header. You can enter 2 promised dates on the order header.  The first or primary date is shown, but you can right-click in the Promised Date field on the order header tab to enter a 2nd promised date.
• These dates will then default onto line items as they are entered onto the order, but can be overridden on individual items as needed.
• If you come back on an existing order after lines have already been entered on it and change either of these dates, the program will detect this and prompt you if you would like to change the date also on any line items that had the old date still on them. This allows an easy way to update a promised date such as when you have to change a promised date based on obtaining the items from your vendor.
• You can also enter up to two promised dates on line items, however they are entered differently in the
• If both have been entered on the header on this item previously, they will be showing separated by a "-". To override these dates, you can change the first date, the second date, or both.
• These dates will show when viewing the items on Open Orders and Quotes in Customer Inquiry, searches, etc.
• Note that if no second promised date is entered on the order header as might normally be the case, then the system will default the second promised date on line items to be based on the order date and the lead time if the item is a stock inventory item with an Average Lead Time. By doing this, you will at least have some idea of when the item might arrive from the vendor if ordered immediately and based on your average lead times you have been experiencing on that item from that vendor. This would mainly apply to situations where an item is back ordered and must be ordered from the vendor.
• If the item is already on order from the vendor, and you have ordered enough to take care of this customer's order as well, then this defaulted promised date might be able to be revised to be sooner than the default that was suggested based on lead time.