We try to make the suggestions of purchase orders appear for what work they are, we have not been able to link the suggestions that result from running the processes to generate suggestions and show what work is required, the work field appears blank.
Does anyone know How to link the material that is needed for a job with the suggestions of purchase orders?
Thank you.
You can make the materials on the job purchase direct, but that means you have to have a release for every place on the job that it’s used, (may or may not be a problem depending on your BOMs). Also when anything is received it gets issued directly to the job, bypassing inventory. This has some costing implications to be aware of.
The other solution that we use, is to make a planning contract for each job. This basically makes a mini-warehouse just for that job for parts that are designated link contract.
Those are two ways to be able to know what materials go to what job.
I had seen those two fields, but in the field help and application help their definition is not very understandable. I’m going to do tests with the two options to see which one fits the best.
Thank you very much for the information and for the help @Banderson .
Greetings.
There is a lot going on with each of those, and a lot of set up to make it work on it’s own. But once you get it set up the correct way, it will pretty much work on it’s own.
Here’s a long thread where I learn about how planning contracts work. It should give you a basic understanding of how they work and what it takes to set them up.
@CTapia - Is the material for the job, normally in inventory? Or are you looking to just link BTJ materials?
If it is for an inventoried part, you might need to do some tricks that prevent the PO suggestions from lumping demand for the part into one PO line. Adding a PO comment may force each demand to generate a separate PO.
PO comments only come through on buy to job orders. (I’m pretty sure)
" … comment may force …" 
I’ve tried, It doesn’t 
@ckrusen Some material is in inventory, but other material is purchased specifically for the job. When running the process of generating suggestions, the material that is thrown does not show what work is required, the work column is blank, the only suggestions they bring for which work is required are all subcontracting operations.
When things are purchased to inventory, Epicor is assuming that one PO can satisfy multiple demands. It’s not a PO for each individual job unless you are buy direct to the job. Planning contracts can group supply and demand by however you set them up. We use one planning contract per job because we have really large jobs. Others may do a planning contract per order that includes many jobs. It’s up to you.
Can I ask why you need the job in the purchase suggestion? If your set up and schedule in correct, Epicor is handling all of that for you.
You can see the demand for the job in the time phase (right click on the part number, open with, time phase) and you can see what the requirements and supply is for a specific part number.
If you have parts that you will almost never buy to inventory, check the non-stock check box in the part maintenance. This will trigger the system to select purchase direct when the job details are built. Then you will get a suggestion specific to the job.
follow-up to @Banderson’s post… A part that is Non-Stock can be stocked. A better name would be, “A part we’d prefer not to stock, but are willing to.”
If a job need 75 connectors, but they come in boxes of 100, the leftover 25 could be put into stock for later use. Otherwise you’d have to expense the hole box of 100 to the job and “throw out” the leftovers.
Just don’t forget, you will have to manage those extra 25 mostly manually. That part will always create the buy to job suggestion, but you can change it once the job is built. You just have to remember to look for it. (that can be kind of pain)
Not to hijack this thread …
If a part is Qty Bearing and Non-Stock, and there is QOH, how do the following scenarios play out with respect to PO Suggestions?
A PO suggestion to the job will be created.
A PO suggestion to the job will be created.
A PO suggestion to the job will be created.
The non-stock makes it so it doesn’t care what’s on hand. Someone has to look and make the decision to uncheck the purchase direct box.
@Banderson We want you to show the work to have a quicker way to check if the material you are suggesting is ok. To be able to filter by work and do a faster search.
The Non-Stock Item field is selected only for the final parts that are manufactured here in the company and are those that are sent to customers. We do not select the material that is purchased because it may contain material or pieces and these are left as stock in storage.
Well, you should be ordering by due date. (I know, easier said that done.) Epicor is supposed to organize it for you so you don’t have to look up the jobs. If it’s due, order it. But there has to be discipline on the scheduling side to make it work.
What do you do if you have the same part number on multiple jobs?
@Banderson That is one of the reasons why we are interested in the purchase suggestions we can see the work for which they are required, some jobs require the same part. If we want to find for which job that part number is required it would be quicker and easier to see it from the suggestion than to track the part or where it is used.
It is correct that Epicor is supposed to order it by date and by priority depending on the programming.
It’s pretty easy to use the time phase to walk through the list. It’s just right click, open with, and then as you click on different part numbers, the screen looks up whatever row you are on. If that isn’t good enough, you will need to buy direct to the job (non-stock). There is no other way to get the job’s required into the purchase suggestions, because a purchase suggestion to a job is not a 1:1 relationship.
@Banderson Yes thank you very much, in fact that I am reviewing the parts with time phase as you suggested in a previous comment, and this is what we need.
That’s why I think that epicor does not have the explicit connection between purchase suggestions and a job because it’s not a 1:1.
Thank you very much for the information.
