Automating Quantities Check in a Sales Order and the Available-to-Promise Report

• The company sets customer satisfaction as top priority. Therefore, they have chosen to automate steps in the sales process.
• Automatic availability check is performed in the sales order and reserve Invoice to ensure that sufficient quantities are available to fulfill customer orders in a timely manner.

An item availability check will determine if the item is available:

• With a sufficient quantity for your sales order
• In the particular warehouse associated with your sales order row
• On the customer's required delivery date

How is availability calculated? The basic definition is this: Available quantity is calculated as the in-stock quantity minus the committed quantity plus the ordered quantity.

• The system tracks the quantities for each item and displays the quantities for each warehouse in the item master.
• The inventory data tab of the item master record shows us up-to-date information on stock levels and demand for the item for each warehouse. This information is updated dynamically so it shows a true picture at any time.

  You can view:

  • The quantity in stock
  • The committed quantity, which represents a reserved quantity such as the quantity ordered by customers, needed for components on a production order or the quantity set aside for transfer to another warehouse.
  • The ordered quantity, which represents either quantity ordered for purchase by your company but not yet delivered or the quantity on production orders for an item produced in-house or a quantity requested from another warehouse
  • Finally, it shows the available quantity, which is the quantity available for your sales orders.

The availability check automatically checks row quantities for sales documents.

Let's look at how availability checking works with a business example.

• A very important customer orders 7 laptops but unfortunately only 5 are currently available in the main warehouse.
• As the sales-person enters the item, a popup box appears showing the full quantity cannot be confirmed.
• Several actions are offered in this popup window.

To activate this option, go to the Sales Document Settings sub-menu under Configuration and choose the Sales Order tab. Check the Automatic Availability Check box.

Also, under the A/R Invoice tab check the Activate Automatic Availability Check in A/R Reserve Invoice box.

• The Available-to-Promise Report is accessible from ALL marketing documents detailed view. Simply choose an item row and the Available to Promise option will become available above the table rows.
• This opens a window with the Available-to-Promise Report for the selected items.
• So even when you have sufficient quantity, you can check the availability to promise for an item.
• You can access the Available-to-Promise Report tile from the homepage - Inventory Transactions group.