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To fully leverage the software's automated replenishment tools you must properly configure your item setups. This should include providing min/max stocking levels, default vendors and ideally aisle and bin locations for each item. Also, to better communicate with your vendor, maintaining vendor part numbers or catalogs for your stocking parts.
There are numerous reports that can be leveraged if manually creating Purchase orders, also, if your using a Just in Time inventory approach, you may be creating your Purchase orders project by project, directly from material management orders. This section is specifically targeting organizational restock procedures for stocking warehouses.
Using the Auto Create Purchase Orders procedure is the most common method of building out purchase order request for stocking warehouses. The process provides a variety of options to within a single batch auto create purchase orders for multiple vendors in a single session. Launch the process from the Purchasing Navigator by selecting the Auto Create PO's option.
This option pulls the Auto PO form displayed below. Starting with Step one the user selects the method to use to populate the form, step two is to choose to default all purchases to yes/no, and step 3 is to actually create the Purchase Orders.
We'll describe the variety of options for populating the form in a moment but first lets look at the item listing and the purpose of each field.
Referring to the grid below, review the column descriptions for each field in the item grid control displayed on the Auto Create PO form.
| Column | Description |
| Buy | Yes to include in your Purchase order No to exclude |
| VendorID | The Vendor the PO will be created for. This is populated based on the default vendor setting on the item setup screen. If no default vendor is listed the item will default to NO in the Buy column regardless of your setting in Step 2 of the form setup. |
| Item | Item number for the item being purchased. |
| Qty | Recommended purchase quantity based on your selection criteria chosen in Step One |
| Order By | If orders have a required date on them, and orders are factored in your selection criteria, this date will show the date this item is required to be ordered to meet your required date. This field uses the "lead time" setting based on the item setup form. If this setting is left blank the field will not properly calculate. |
| Required By | If orders have a required date on them, and orders are factored in your selection criteria, this date will show the date the item is required to be delivered to your client. |
| Description | Item description from your item master |
| Drop Ship | Indicates if the item is on an order that requires being drop shipped. (Optional flag that set on the order header and NOT displayed by default.) |
| Order No. | The order that has this item reserved . |
| OnHand | The current quantity on hand for this item |
| Available | The current available quantity for this item, factoring reserves |
| Min/Max | The current min/max settings for the item |
| Name | If for an order the client name, otherwise a description of the reason for purchase. |
| Vendor Price Comparisons | The final column displays the cost for this item from a vendor catalog, provided as a price reference. You can flag any number of vendors to appear here by selecting the "Include this vendor's catalog pricing in auto purchasing price comparisons" option on the Vendor Pricing Catalog tab of a Vendor record. |
The "Select Criteria" provides six distinct methods for populating data to the purchase detail grid. Each is defined below.
| Select Option | Description |
| Build From Open Orders Only | purchases for items on open orders where there is insufficient quantities on to hand to fulfill the orders; quantity purchased will be the total on open orders less the quantity on hand |
| Build from inventory min/max levels only | purchases items that are below the minimum stocking level; quantity purchased will be the quantity needed to bring item to the maximum stock level |
| Build from Open Orders bringing quantities up to maximum | purchase for items on open orders and brings stocking levels to their maximum; quantity purchased will be the quantity on open orders plus the quantity needed to bring the item to the maximum stocking level |
| Build from Open Orders (Ignore Current Stocking Quantities) | purchases for items on open orders and ignores current on hand quantities; quantity purchased will be the quantity on open orders |
| Build from inventory min/max levels only (Exclude Reserved) | purchases items that are below their minimum stocking level; quantity purchased will be the quantity needed to bring the item to the maximum stock level |
| Build for a single order | purchases items needed for a single order |
See Also: Auto Purchase
Once you've completed your vendor and purchase decisions assign the Department you wish to have applied to all of the PO's that are created, then select the Create Purchase orders option. You may now manually review, edit and submit the purchase request to your vendors normally. Your generated PO's will appear in your PO listing for open request in the Purchasing Module.