There is an oversight in the design of the allow/calculate backorder quantities functionality.
Presently, if you turn on the option in OE and AR it works as follows:
Qty on Sales Order = 10
New order for 10 items, posted.
Qty on Sales Order = 20
New shipment for 5 items, posted
Qty on Sales Order = 15. There are still 5 on backorder.
New shipment for the remaining 5 items, posted
Qty on Sales Order = 10
That's all working ok. But what happens if 99% of your customers work like this and 1% doesn't want backorders so you turn it off on their AR customer record? Well, this happens:
Qty on Sales Order = 10
New order for 10 items, posted.
Qty on Sales Order = 10
New shipment for 5 items, posted
Qty on Sales Order = 10. The remaining 5 are cleared out and forgotten about.
It should show 20 on order in the first step because this is a NEW order, not a backorder. You have absolutely no visibility over these NEW orders. They're not reflected in the totals and they're not showing in the drill down. They're essentially lost.
Imagine this scenario:
Qty On Hand = 200
Qty on Sales Order = 0
A customer without backorders turned on in AR orders 150
Qty on Sales Order remains at 0
Another user enters the system and enters an order for a customer with backorders turned on. Orders 150. The user thinks this is possible because the net stock available is still 200 and there’s nothing in the drill down.
Qty on Sales Order = 150
That’s a requirement to ship 300 but you only have 200 in stock. You won’t know that you need to raise a PO until you start to ship the goods and realise there isn’t enough stock but if you ship the first order first so they get the full 150 even though they're not too fussed, then the next customer only gets 50 despite really needing the full order so you need to then order in an extra 100. That’s going to cause a huge delay in shipment times and affect your profitability because you're ordering ad-hoc amounts at the last minute rather than bulk orders up front.
This is the current behaviour we are experiencing at our client. It’s leading to a lot of customer complaints which is reflecting badly on us and on Sage.
When the second order is being raised, the clerk should be able to see that there isn’t enough stock and speak to supply chain to raise a PO. This gives plenty of time to get the stock in, ready for shipment or at the very least the customer can be informed in advance that there is a delay.
I have been through support and told this isn't a bug but actually bad design. We would like this looking at as a priority. I don't like the idea that this relies on other people voting for it when it's costing our client money to work around.
by: Andy P. | over a year ago | Operations Management
Comments
Precisely.
Totally agree.. as a just about to be new Accpac user (and now almost wishing we weren't going to be) the whole OE backorder process seems completely ludicrous.
Why on earth should an item that you CAN supply go on backorder?? and at the same an item that you have sold NOT show as committed just becuase that particular customer doesn't accept backorders..
YOu can use the Committed Items field to commit these items to this particular customer. It decreases inventory qty, even though it hasn't actually been shipped, so that the next person entering an order see the actual amount of inventory still available. This may not work for all scenarios but may be a good start.
Probably dragging up an old one but the committed quantity is useless for this scenario. If I back order a product for a customer I have committed that quantity against a current or future purchase order.
Every other ERP system I have used works that way except for Accpac. It's not negative inventory it's simply I have committed stock from a PO to a customer. When the PO is received it SHOULD already have that stock committed to the back order so it doesn't get sold to someone else.
The whole back order/committed stock process stinks and is amateurish at best.