Step By Step: Using the Inventory Requirements

Inventory Requirements

For the introduction to Requirements refer to the manual section Automating Purchasing with Requirements, which also explains how the Requirements are created in opentaps. Once you have created Requirements using one of the two methods discussed, you will want to complete the processing by finding the open Requirements and then taking action on the ones you need to process into orders for inventory.

Finding the Requirements to Process

To find the Requirements you need to process, navigate to this screen:

* Starting at the Main Navigation screen,
* Click: the Purchasing icon,
* Click: Planning Tab,
* This opens the Inventory Screen where you can look up inventory status according to a
  number of selection criteria that are discussed in the manual page 
  Inventory Screen.  The displayed inventory items are presented with
  management controls like quantity on hand, reorder quantity, days to ship, and prices.
  This page is for manual review of inventory status relative to restocking.
* To select Requirements needing approval, updating, or cancellation,
  Click Either: [Find Requirements] or [Open Requirements]
  Use [Find Requirements] to select by very specific criteria
  Use [Open Requirements] to find all (open) Requirements currently awaiting action

Required Products

Either of these buttons will produce the same format of data, the page that opens lists Requirements in a format that is ready for these actions, approval, updating, or cancellation. Refer to the Open Requirements Screen.

This screen shows a list of all the requirements which have not yet been approved for restocking into one of the company's owned or designated facilities (where the company is designated as eligible for receiving inventory).

When you search the list of open requirements by productId, you will see requirements for both the product and any manufacturing bill of material components it may have. When the product is one you manufacture internally, thus the Requirement is Internal type, see the User Manual section "Using Production Management Processing Power" for a discussion of processing Requirements to Production Runs.

Each Requirement line item in the displayed list shows the following information for one Product item:

• the Requirement ID,
• the Requirement Type (Product, Internal, Transfer, etc.)
• the Facility for restocking
• the Product
• date when the required inventory is needed
• Requirement Status (Proposed, Created, Approved)
• the proposed Supplier for a reorder
• the proposed Quantity to reorder
• a Checkbox to signal that action is to be taken on this line item

By selecting the checkboxes and clicking on [Approve] below, you will approve the selected requirements. Alternatively, if you click on [Update] to record all the Quantity changes you have made, or you can click [Cancel] to remove the selected requirements.

Finally, on the Open Requirements Screen in the upper right hand corner is an [Approve All] button which allows you to approve all your open requirements at once, with Quantity changes you may have entered.

Processing Orders from Approved Product Requirements

Once you have some Approved Product Requirements that should be processed as orders, proceed as follows:

* From the Main Navigation screen,
* Click: Purchasing > Planning > [Approved Product Requirements], 
* The Approved Requirements Screen will open, which applies to requirements for
  purchased products (as opposed to internally manufactured products.  

  See the later sections for details about Approved Internal Requirements
  for needed Production Runs, and for the Approved Transfer Requirements
  regarding Inventory Transfers that need to be processed.

Approved Product Requirements By Supplier

This sub-section discusses processing the Approved Product Requirements, which means creating the needed Purchase Orders from these requirements. The display is a Supplier list that shows the following information about these Approved Product Requirements:

* The Supplier for the proposed order
* The “# Products” is for the number of distinct products approved for this Supplier. 
  For example, if product A has been approved with quantities 2 and 3, it displays as 
  1 product in this column.
* The selected warehouse where you would like a purchase order to be shipped 
* A checkbox to indicate that orders should be consolidated to this Supplier

Now, there are three options for continuing the process, proceed with one of these:

* Option 1 -- Click [Review Order] to go to the Order Screen where you can review the
  quantities and prices of products to be ordered and create a purchase order for 
  selected items only.
  (A "Create Order" screen opens which allows editing and selection of line items. See
  the discussion below.)
* Option 2 -- Click [Order All] to immediately create a purchase order for all of 
  this Supplier's items.
  (A completed "View Purchase Order" screen will open.)
  Approve the order, or edit [Estimated Delivery Date] or [Edit or Add Items].
  Refer to the Reference Manual page View Purchase Order Screen.
* Option 3 -- Click [Cancel All] to remove all of the Requirements in this line item.

Create Order Screen

Each of the products required from this Supplier are detailed on this screen and two things can be edited:

* Check the Select box to include this item in the order you are about to create.
* Edit the Quantity to be ordered if needed. 

When edits are finished you can continue to create the purchase order:

* Click [Purchase Order Quick Entry] -- the Review Order screen opens
  Refer to the Create Purchase Orders Screen for Options on this order
* Click [Create Order]

If no editing was actually needed you can go directly to creating the purchase order for everything on the page, with no changes by:

* Click [Order All]

You can also [Cancel All] items from the Supplier.

Processing Production Runs for Approved Internal Requirements

Internal Requirements are created when your inventory of internally manufactured products is less than, or is projected to become less than the minimum inventory level you specified in this data entry:

• [Catalog Manager] > Product ID (section) > [Facilities] Tab > "minimum stock" entry.

This can happen because you have received orders for a quantity of Product that you manufacture, which exceeds the current inventory, or which requires configuration in order to ship it, and for other reasons. Refer to Requirements. Such pending internal requirements (that are not yet Approved) appear in the list presented on this screen:

• [Purchasing] Icon > [Planning] Tab > [Open Requirements] button.

Internal Requirements that have already been Approved, or are in Approved state because they were generated from an Approved Sales Order, will appear in the screen at this location:

• [Purchasing] Icon > [Planning] Tab > [Approved Internal Requirements] button.

The next step in processing an Approved Internal Requirement is to create the Production Runs that are required to manufacture the needed Products, so that the inventory required to fulfill you Sales Order will be available on time.

For details on how to create the Production Run, please refer to this page:

• Produce Approved Requirements, which relates to this next step.

Processing Inventory Transfers for Approved Transfer Requirements

Transfer Requirements are generated by the opentaps system when you need to use inventory that not in your primary warehouse, but which is available in a backup warehouse that you operate. (The primary warehouse is the one that is normally associated with your store, or where your pending production run is planned. In either case there is a need for inventory that is not in the primary facility.) Refer to Backup Warehouses.

When the system determines that the back-up warehouse contains inventory that you need to use in the primary warehouse operations (to supply stores, or to supply production runs), then Inventory Transfer Requirements can be generated when you run MRP. These requirements appear in Open Requirements initially, and when approved they appear in Approved Transfer Requirements, where they can be processed into Inventory Transfers.

When you run MRP you can choose to create the Inventory Transfer requests directly, bypassing the Approved Transfer Requirements step, if you do not need to review and consolidate multiple possible transfers before creating transfer requests that will move materials. Refer to MRP for more discussion.

For additional information on how to create the necessary Inventory Transfers from the requirements listed, please refer to Approved Transfer Requirements.

Step By Step: Running MRP << Manual pages

Planning Tab and MRP << Tab pages >> Suppliers Tab

Procurement Processes << Section pages >> Inventory Processes