Supply needs is a key feature in the Procurement extension : it summarizes every products the system recommends to purchase :
- Products for which you have orders to ship but no stock (backorders)
- Low stock products (stock below the notify level)
If a product fulfill one of these requirements, then it is displayed in the supply needs grid.
This is the quantity you need to purchase to fulfill backorders.
This is the quantity you need to purchase to reach the “ideal” stock level
If you use only the procurement extension, this is the difference between the current stock level and the “Notify for quantity below” setting (available in the “advanced inventory” popup from the product view)
If you also use Embedded ERP or the Inventory extension, the qty for low stock follow these rules :
- Applies only if the quantity available is below the warning stock level
- Then, calculate the quantity required to reach the ideal stock level
This is the quantity expected from purchase with status “Expected” : orders with another status are not considered.
Suggested qty to order
This is the SUM of the quantity needed for backorder, plus the quantity needed for low stock, minus the quantity to receive
This is the status of the supply need :
- Backorders : you must order this product because there are backorders (and maybe also low stock)
- Low stock : you must order this product to reach a certain level of stock
- Waiting for reception : there is one or several PO expected that cover the needs. Once the PO are received, the product will be removed from the supply needs screen
Select here quantities to add to the purchase order :
- You can manually fill quantities needed
- Use the button located on the left side of the quantity textbox to automatically fill it with : qty_for_backorders
- Use the button located on the right side of the quantity textbox to automatically fill it with : qty_for_backorders + qty_for_low_stock
Use this column to filter the supply needs by supplier.
If a product is associated to one or several suppliers, associated suppliers are displayed with the buying price
If use Embedded ERP, additionnal columns are available :
Display the sales history (based on the 3 ranges set in the configuration)
Calculate the average sales per week from sales history values.
More information there : Stock Helper.
Number of days before the out of stock (calculated using the current stock level and the averages sales per week).
The purpose of the supply needs screen is to help you to create a new Purchase Order easily.
First, you must apply the filters to identify products for the supplier you want to place a purchase order for :
- Using the “Supplier” column
- Using filters by product name
- Optionnaly, using the “Status” column (if you want to order only products required for backorders)
Once you have filtered the products, you must set for each product the quantity to purchase :
- You can fill this value manually in each textbox
- Use both button around the textbox (see above for more details)
- Use the “Fill with X qty” buttons at the top to mass fill the quantities (you can of course manually edit quantities after)
Once product quantities are filled, you can create a new Purchase Order using the “Create a new Purchase order” button : a list of suppliers drops, click on the wanted supplier and a new purchase order is create for the selected supplier, with the selected products and quantites.