Processing Group

This section allows you to do things with the stock you have, not editing the records like you can in maintenance but you can freeze, reserve stock from this menu.

A mixed case (sometimes known as a BOM (Bill of Materials) Product) is an item that is made up of a number of other items, for example, a “Summer Case” may contain some wine, crackers, cheese, glasses, etc this would be sold as the “Summer case” to the customers.

When you set up the product there will be choices relating to the structure of this product, this is explained in full on the Product Maintenance section of the site.

The mix case build is used when you wish to generate the cases in advance and is usually used when there is a promotion or high expected number of cases where the warehouse can pre-plan and premix.

Prior to running this BUILD, you may need to freeze the stock whilst the warehouse builds the mix cases to ensure you do not use them for orders.

In order to use this, the product must have been created prior to using this form and you need the new rotation number from the warehouse (if it is a rotation warehouse) prior to running this routine.

You have to let the system know the warehouse the goods are coming from “Source Warehouse” and the warehouse you will be storing them after they are mixed “Destination Warehouse” and you will also need to know the following:

New product code.
If required for the destination warehouse, the rotation number.
The finished number of pre-mixed cases.
Whether the new stock will be excise and customs duty paid (generally this is YES in all cases).

The components section will show you the quantity it will require from the source products in order to complete the mixed cases.

You then have to select the view rotations and correctly indicate which rotation was used for this mixed case.

Once you have completed this you can then update and save the Mixed Cases Build form.

You will not be able to save this if the information is incomplete or does not balance.

To make sure that the Duty is paid for the stock you would need to do the following.

Create a Home order (Duty Order) to the warehouse to pay for the Duty.
Landed the stock that has been Duty Paid.
Use the stock that has been Duty Paid in the BOM Build.

Having the ability to freeze stock is the same as putting it on hold, QA held, etc. It should be used when the stock is also not available in the warehouse. Any stock marked as frozen is removed from the order available amounts.

We recommend you use this facility to indicate the stock frozen at the warehouse end which would be for a quality, trading standard only.

If you wish to reserve stock then use either the unpaid customer reserve or simply enter a sales order for the customer.

In order to enter a frozen quantity, you will need the following information

Warehouse
Product Code
Rotation Number (if applicable for the warehouse)

We will hold either the rotation or a general amount of stock for this product (depending on warehouse-type)

In order to freeze the stock you enter the quantity of units/singles you wish to freeze (alternatively total singles is also possible as a single figure) and you will be asked for a reason for this being frozen.

Anything you freeze will be added to the amount already frozen.

We have seen customers use this to freeze for a customer, resulting in some very out of date fizzy water being stored for more than eight years, so please use this with caution. If possible use customer unpaid reserves or sales orders to soft allocate stock

Release / Unfreeze

The entire batch of stock which was frozen has to be released at the same time.

You can not unfreeze part. Using the same screen you will have the option to unfreeze.

Customer unpaid reserves are an option which allows you to hold stock in reserve for your customer, this should be used as the first choice when wanting to keep stock back for them.

The unpaid reserves are always shown on the stock availability

You have the ability to overrule the on reserve by simply allocating over what is order available to what the physical stock is, for example, this is done when you know the next receipt of the stock is imminent and you do not wish to

In order to reserve the stock, you need to enter the following details

Warehouse Code
Product Code
Customer Code

You then adjust the total singles to be reserved for the customer.

Stock is then reserved for the customer and can be seen in the customer records as well as product records for the specific product.

When placing a sales order for the customer for the product you may be presented with the following screen.

This allows you to reduce the reserved quantity by the amount on the order, it means that you do not end up with reserved stock forever.

Reservations using this are for a specific product, not a specific rotation number, should you need to specify the rotation then the best method to do this is to have a specific rotation for the customer unpaid reserves and to arrange this to be frozen at the warehouse otherwise based on FIFO workings this stock could simply be taken by the warehouse.

Transfer of Unpaid Reserves

It is not possible to transfer unpaid reserves from one customer to another within Commerce, you will need to remove it for one customer and add a new held record for the new customer.