Business Alerts

The Business Alerts window allows for quick viewing and processing of key information related to various parts of the system. The Business Alerts can be configured, per user, to automatically open upon log in.

Reminders

The Reminders tab displays Notes that are assigned to users. Use the Assigned To filter to see notes assigned to your user, another user, or all users (there is a user permission to prevent a user from seeing other user's reminders). Additionally, you can use the Type and Due filters to further filter the list of reminders.

At the bottom of the note body there is a button that displays where the Note originated. For example, "Customer ABC - ABC Services" would indicate the note was added in the Customer window for ABC. If you click this button it will open up the related windows, in this example the Edit Customer window.

In the Reminders tab or in the related window, you can click the checkbox to mark the note as completed. Once a note has been marked as completed, the note will be removed from the Reminders tab, but it will remain in the related window with a completed status.

Customer Credit

The Customer Credit tab is made up of three sub tabs which display credit related information.

  • Credit Held Customers
    This tab shows all the customers that have a credit hold in effect, as well as the type of credit hold.
  • Overdue Invoices
    A list of invoices which have a balance and are past their due date will be displayed here.
  • Disputed Invoices
    An invoice can be marked as In Dispute in the Customer Invoice window. When an invoice is marked as "In Dispute", its balance is removed from the customer's credit evaluation. An invoice might be marked as In Dispute due to a customer believing they were invoiced at the wrong price. Until a resolution is determined, you can use the In Dispute feature.

Assemblies

The Assemblies tab of the Business Alerts allows you to review suggested assembly quantities and generate an Assembly session.

Note

The suggested assembly quantity is calculated differently depending on the On open Sales Orders only option.

The suggested assembly quantity is calculated as:

  1. The Net Available quantity is first computed for each warehouse:

    Net Available =
         On hand quantity
         – Reserved quantity for the warehouse (i.e., safety stock)
         – Total scheduled and backorder quantity from customer sales orders
         – Total component quantity from unposted inventory assemblies (or the suggested assembly quantity for the parent assembly when the "On open Sales Orders only" option is checked)
         – Total outstanding quantity from vendor PO returns (negative outstanding quantities from a vendor purchase order)
         + Total outstanding quantity (not received yet) from vendor purchase orders

  2. Next, the Net Available quantity is then compared to the Minimum Stocking Quantity for the warehouse. The item is not recommended for assembly if the Net Available Quantity is greater than the Minimum Stocking Quantity. Otherwise, the next calculation is performed.

    If Net Available quantity > Minimum Stocking Quantity then Suggested Assembly Quantity = 0

  3. The Suggested Assembly Quantity will restore inventory to the Maximum Stocking Quantity for the warehouse.

    Suggested Assembly Quantity = Maximum Stocking Quantity – Net Available

  4. Finally, if there is a Minimum Reorder/Assembly Quantity for the warehouse it will be used if it is higher than the computed Reorder Quantity.

    If Suggested Assembly Quantity < Minimum Assembly Quantity then Suggested Assembly Quantity = Minimum Assembly Quantity

Review Suggested Quantities

The Assemblies tab can display all assembly products or you can use filter options to focus on certain assembly products:

  • On open Sales Orders only

    • When the "On open Sales Orders only" option is unchecked, Acctivate suggests a quantity based on the current availability and stocking levels.

      This means that assembly products containing other assembly products as a component (i.e., sub-assemblies) may need their assembly sessions created first before a suggested qty can be generated for the sub-assembly product.

      For example, assembly product "AssemblyA" has -3 available and contains "AssemblyB" as a component, which has 0 available. In the Business Alerts window "AssemblyA" will have a suggested quantity (3).

      Once the Assembly session for "AssemblyA" has been created, the availability for "AssemblyB" will now be -3 and therefore the suggested assembly quantity will be 3.

    • When the "On open Sales Orders only" option is checked, the Assembly tab will only show assembly products that are currently on sales orders. A suggested quantity will be calculated for the top level assemblies and their sub-assemblies.

      The suggested assembly quantity is calculated similarly to the above calculation, however for sub-assembly products, the "Total component quantity from unposted inventory assemblies" part of the calculation is replaced by the suggested assembly quantity (Sugg Qty), not the build quantity (Bld Qty), for the parent assembly.

      For example, assembly product "AssemblyA" has 0 available and contains "AssemblyB" as a component, which has 0 available. "AssemblyA" is added to a sales order, changing its availability to -1; "AssemblyB" remains unchanged with an availability of 0.

      When the "On open Sales Orders only" option is checked, both "AssemblyA" and "AssemblyB" will have a suggested quantity of 1. That is because Acctivate will recursively loop through assemblies and their sub-assemblies to suggest an assembly quantity. This allows creating a single assembly session containing all assembly levels.

  • Below Min Stk Qty
    When this option is checked, only products that have a Suggested assembly quantity will be displayed.

You can check both options to see only products that have a suggested assembly quantity and are on open sales orders.

Build for and warehouse details:
If you click on an assembly product, the right pane will display warehouse information and the Build for section will display associated sales orders and parent assembly products

  • Sales Orders: If this assembly product is on a sales order, the sales order and ordered qty will display here (note: the quantity ordered may not be the same as the suggested build quantity).
  • Assembly Products: If this assembly product is a component of another assembly product that has a suggested qty, that parent assembly product will appear here.
Note

Assembly products that are Active, but Discontinued, are excluded unless they are on an open sales order.

Create Assemblies

  1. You can check the individual products you wish to assemble, or you can use the Apply suggested qtys button at the top of the window to set the Build Qty to match the Suggested Qty. If you wish to build more or less than suggested, you can override the Bld Qty to reflect the quantity you want to build.
  2. Click Create Assembly Session. A single assembly session will be created. There will be a transaction created for each Product/warehouse.
  3. Create the assembly session may cause sub-assemblies (assembly products which are components of another assembly product) to have a Suggested Build Quantity. You may need to perform the steps again. Similarly, non-assembly components will see a reduction in their availability quantity once you create the assembly session which could cause them to appear on the Reorders tab of the Business Alerts as needing to be reordered.

Reorders

The Reorders tab of the Business Alerts allows you to review suggested reorder quantities and generate multiple purchase orders at once. The Reorders tab will only display products which have a Suggested Reorder Quantity greater than zero. Products that are Active, but Discontinued, are excluded.

The suggested reorder formula is based on the min stock qty, max stock quantity, and min reorder quantity defined at the warehouse level of the Edit Product window. The Suggested Reorder Quantity is calculated as:

  1. The Net Available quantity is first computed for each warehouse:

    Net Available =      On hand quantity
         – Reserved quantity for the warehouse (i.e., safety stock)
         – Total scheduled and backorder quantity from customer sales orders (excluding special order quantities)
         – Total component quantity from unposted inventory assemblies
         – Total outbound quantity from unposted inventory transfers
         – Total outstanding quantity from vendor PO returns (negative outstanding quantities from a vendor purchase order)
         + Total outstanding quantity (not received yet) from issued vendor purchase orders

  2. Next, the Net Available quantity is then compared to the Minimum Stocking Quantity for the warehouse. The item is not recommended for reorder if the Net Available quantity is greater than the Minimum Stocking Quantity. Otherwise, the next calculation is performed.

    If Net Available quantity > Minimum Stocking quantity then Suggested Reorder quantity = 0

  3. The Suggested Reorder Quantity will restore inventory to the Maximum Stocking Quantity for the warehouse.

    Suggested Reorder Quantity = Maximum Stocking Quantity – Net Available

  4. Finally, if there is a Minimum Reorder Quantity for the warehouse it will be used if it is higher than the computed Reorder Quantity.

    If Suggested Reorder Quantity < Minimum Reorder Quantity then Suggested Reorder Quantity = Minimum Reorder Quantity

Reordering

  1. Open the Business Alerts.
  2. Click on the Reorders tab.
  3. Click Reorder>>
  4. Check off the products you'd like to reorder.
  5. If a Preferred Vendor is not defined, select a vendor associated with this product from the Vendor Name field.
  6. If necessary, change the PO Qty from the suggested quantity to the quantity you'd like to order. Update the PO Cost if necessary.
  7. Click Save Selection. Optionally, you can Print a Proof report which can be used to review the Products to be reordered.
  8. Finally, click Create POs to create a PO per Vendor, per Ship To warehouse.

After creating Purchase Orders from the Reorders tab, use the Purchase Order Manager to locate the PO's created or use the Purchasing List.

Note

The Reorders tab allows you to review, save reorder selections and edit reorder selections before creating Purchase Orders. Purchase Orders created from the Reorders tab are expected to have gone through a review process and therefore are created with an Issued status regardless of the Default Status for new Purchase Orders.

Reorder Wizard Header

Field Field Type/ Length Definition
Warehouse List You can select a particular warehouse to see only products that are needing to be reordered in that warehouse.
Vendor Lookup Use the Magnifying Glass to select the Vendor which you'd like to filter on. Only products with that Preferred Vendor will be included.
Group By Vendor Check Box When checked, the Grid will display each distinct Preferred Vendor. You can expand a vendor to see the products related to that vendor. If unchecked, the grid will list each Product that needs to be reordered.
Hide Assemblies Check Box Assemblies are typically created through the Inventory Assembly transaction so by default they are hidden. However, in some instances you may benefit from purchasing an assembly product rather than assembling it yourself. To include Assembly products, uncheck this checkbox.

Reorder Wizard Grid

The columns can be rearranged by dragging a column header where you would like it.

Field Editable when reordering? Definition
Description No A description of the Product to be ordered.
Product ID No The Product ID to be ordered.
W/H No The warehouse the quantity should be ordered for.
Preferred Vendor No The Preferred Vendor from the Vendors tab of the Edit Product window.
Vendor Name Yes The vendor which will be used when the Purchase Order is created.
Vendor Product ID Yes The Vendor Product ID which will be used when the Purchase Order is created.
PO Qty Yes The Quantity that will be ordered from the vendor
PO Cost Yes The Purchase price.
PO Amount No The total Purchase Order line amount.
Available No The available quantity on the Reorders tab is calculated differently than the warehouse availability. Availability for the purpose of reordering is calculated as:
  • On hand quantity
  • – Reserved quantity for the warehouse (i.e., safety stock)
  • – Total scheduled and backorder quantity from customer sales orders (special order quantities are ignored)
  • – Total component quantity from unposted inventory assemblies
  • – Total outbound quantity from unposted inventory transfers

If the "Included quantities on POs for available quantity" option is enabled, then the total outstanding quantity from vendor purchase orders is added back in.
Rec Qty No The Recommended Order quantity in stocking Units.
Unit No The stocking unit of the Product.
On Order No The quantity in stocking units outstanding on Purchase Orders.
Suggested No The Suggested quantity is the quantity that will be ordered in the Purchase Unit. For example, if the reorder formula suggests you reorder 11 Ea, but the default purchase unit for the vendor is "Dz" (dozen), the Suggested order quantity will be 1 Dz.
On Hand No The quantity on hand for the warehouse.
PO Unit Yes The unit to be used on the Purchase Order. Defaults to the Vendor's purchase unit or the Product's default purchase unit if none defined for the vendor. If you change it on this screen the Suggested quantity will update to match the unit.
Suggested Cost No The Suggested quantities unit cost.
Reserved No The Reserved quantity for the warehouse.
Lead Time No The vendor's Lead Time in days.
Mgmt Cost No The management cost for the warehouse.
Min Stk Qty No The Minimum stock quantity of the warehouse.
Max Stk Qty No The Maximum stock quantity of the warehouse.
Vendor Last Cost No The Last PO price for this vendor.
Avg Cost No The Average cost for the product for this warehouse.
Last Cost No The Last cost for the product for the warehouse.

Web Orders

If you've enabled the web store option to Skip Orders with Warnings, any Web Store orders that were skipped due to having a warning will appear in the Web Orders tab.

Field Definition
Web Store This field will display the Web Store template ID that was used to import in the sales order.
Type The Type will always be "Order".
ID The Web Store order ID/Number.
Note The reason the web store order was Skipped. You can hover your mouse over this field to see the full text explaining why the order was skipped.
By This will display the user which imported in the Sales Order.
Date The date the order was last attempted to be imported in.

If the web store template is configured to retry importing orders with a warning, Acctivate will attempt to import these orders in during the next web store sync. Some warnings may resolve themselves, for example an order might be skipped because the web store is still processing the payment, while other warnings may require some action. For example, the web stores using a Product ID which isn't recognized by Acctivate. In that case, you may need to setup an Alternate Product ID in Acctivate to associate the web store product's identifier to the Acctivate Product ID.

Whether the template is configured to re-import these orders or not, you can choose to trigger a resync of these orders by either checking the boxes next to the skipped orders you want to import, or check the “Select All” to try to re-import all the orders. You can also use the Shift key on your keyboard to select a range of orders, then right click and choose “Check Selected”, or you can use Ctrl + mouse clicks to select specific orders. After making your selections, click Retry Import... to resync the selected orders. Additionally, you can use the Delete Checked button to delete any records from this list if you do not need to try to import them again.