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Check Loose Set Component StockIf you sell loose sets, you may encounter problems when one component is out of stock but the others are not. If you fail to catch this situation, and make the loose set out of stock, you will continue to sell the loose set, but Cat's will note, upon printing, that one of the components is out of stock, and generate a "lead-and-follow" invoice. The lead invoice will include all the shippable items on that order, including the shippable components of the loose set, and the "follow" invoice will include the backordered component. You must manually retain and fulfill this "follow" invoice when you get more stock of that component. Yuck! One problem with monitoring loose sets is that the components may be selling as individual units as well as in the set, so you can run out of stock very quickly without being aware of it. You can minimize the occurrence of "lead-and-follow" invoices by tracking low-stock components more closely. One way is to set a manual re-order point on them that is pretty high -- 500 or 1000 copies. When they hit that level, evaluate whether to put the set out of stock or reduce the stock to a comparable figure (depending on that component's unit sales vs. set sales). You can use one of the user-defined book fields, or any of the book fields that you are not already using for something else, to flag components for easy reporting. However, you can also activate an option in regular order entry to check the loose set components and backorder or reject the loose set if any of the components is out of stock. In order entry, we can check if a loose set's components have sufficient stock at the time of the order to order the quantity of the loose set entered. If the loose set has many components, there may be a visible pause when it's checking the inventory. It will stop after it finds any one component with insufficient stock. If any component has insufficient stock, we can display a message "Insufficient stock for component XXXXXX! Must backorder! <ENTER>". It would then set the "force b/o question" flag, so it will then display (for the set): "No stock - B/O? Y". The operator can backorder the loose set, or reject the backorder and turn it into a comment. This logic does not prevent the possibility of the component stock being "robbed" later by other orders for the same component being sold as an individual unit, so that when kit explosion occurs, you have out-of-stock loose components. This is a problem that is inherent to loose sets, where the component stock comes from the same pool as the unit stock for that title. Units are allocated at the end of the order, whereas components are not allocated until kit explosion occurs, usually the next time you batch invoices for printing or update the order activity archive. This logic can also be activated in the EDI module (EDI/Net or e-commerce for prepaid or B2B orders), but without the user interaction. Another option can be activated to prohibit release of loose set backorders if any of the components is out of stock. For more information about programming to check stock of loose components, email your questions (including your name and company name) or call us at 800-827-2287.
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