Send Buyer a PO Suggestion

Kinetic ERP
1

Good morning,
I don’t normally use the Purchase Order forms. So I am not as familiar with them as I should be.

I have a request to make it easier for our buyer to reorder an item. When our chemicals expire they need to be reordered on a case by case basis. Sometimes we need more, sometimes we never use that chemical again. I’d like a way for a manager to pick a part number and send it to the buyer as a PO suggestion. It would be nice if a lot of the details are filled out for the buyer by the manager that decides to reorder the material.

We don’t use MRP, and I don’t think we use the PO suggestions system at all.

Is this something Epicor can do? If so, how? I picture just right clicking a part number and going to Open With > PO Entry. Or something to that effect.
Thank you!
Nate

2

Hi Nate,

We use requisition entry for purchase requirements that are not normal inventory type replenishment purchasing. Have you considered this? It makes a purchasing suggestion even without running MRP or generate suggestion, I believe. It’s fairly basic, just a request to buy something. You could set it up that anyone who can make a requisition can send to purchasing, then have buyers open PO suggestions and click buy on that suggestion. Voila, the PO is made. The nice thing with Reqs is that you can see who requested the purchase, which is handy at receipt time.

Nancy

4 Likes
3

Thank you Nancy! I think this is just what I was looking for.

1 Like
4

Interesting! When I opened this form I got an error I have never seen before!

Corrupt .resources file. Invalid offset ‘838860800’ into data section.


Exception caught in: Epicor.ServiceModel

Error Detail 
============
Message: Corrupt .resources file. Invalid offset '838860800' into data section.
Program: Epicor.ServiceModel.dll
Method: CallWithCommunicationFailureRetry

Client Stack Trace 
==================
   at Ice.Cloud.ProxyBase`1.CallWithCommunicationFailureRetry(String methodName, ProxyValuesIn valuesIn, ProxyValuesOut valuesOut, RestRpcValueSerializer serializer)
   at Ice.Cloud.ProxyBase`1.CallWithMultistepBpmHandling(String methodName, ProxyValuesIn valuesIn, ProxyValuesOut valuesOut, Boolean useSparseCopy)
   at Ice.Cloud.ProxyBase`1.Call(String methodName, ProxyValuesIn valuesIn, ProxyValuesOut valuesOut, Boolean useSparseCopy)
   at Erp.Proxy.BO.ReqImpl.CheckToDo(String dispatchId)
   at Erp.Adapters.ReqAdapter.CheckToDo(String dispatchId)

Is requisition entry part of a module we might not have? Does this error ring any bells for anyone?

5

Hi Nate,

The statement of “corrupt” makes me think it’s not a privilege issue. I am not aware of Requisition Entry being part of a special module but I’m not sure… Can you put data in Requisition Actions? Maybe if that’s blank there’s a problem.

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Nancy

6

I guess the error was a fluke. I opened Req Action Maint today, and I see a couple of entries there. I also opened the Req Entry without problem today. There is only one very old entry in there. It looks like someone tried to learn how to use it then gave up a decade ago! I’ll do some research and see if I can get it going for us. Thanks Nancy!

7

I am playing around with Req Entry. After I create a requisition, and save it, and dispatch it, what do I do next? Where does the req show up so that my purchaser can open it and buy it?

I checked the user guide and implementation guide, but there is surprising little information on requisition forms.
Thanks!

8

Hi Nate,

The Requisition should be in New PO suggestions accessible directly from menu or from Buyer workbench. Use binoculars and bring in all suggestions. The buyer must be an authorized one to see the suggestion. To view a buyer’s suggestion, you need to be setup as an authorized user for that buyer in buyer maintenance. In the grid view of the material list of PO suggestions, make sure you can see Requisition number field per below. Click the suggestion for buy and Actions / Generate Purchase orders and it’s now a PO.

Nancy

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2 Likes
9

Thank you again! This is very helpful. I don’t see a “Buyers Workbench”. Is that called something else? I found my suggestion under new PO suggestions, and I was able to click the “buy” checkbox, and then generate a PO. This may sound silly, but where did the PO go that I just created? I went to PO tracker and looked for any POs for the supplier I choose, and I couldn’t find any. EDIT: I found them! I must not have been looking in the right place.

Does this process assume that our purchaser is regularly opening the new PO suggestions to see if there are any new ones? Or is there some other method by which the purchaser can be notified that a new PO is available to approve? I seem to recall an email option for this somewhere.

10

You’re welcome Nate!
We have buyer workbench under Material Management / Supplier relationship management. I prefer just going to New PO suggestions personally, but our buyers like this workbench. Our buyers need to regularly open and review new PO suggestions because we run MRP nightly w generation of suggestions. For solely processing these reqs however, you probably could put an BPM for an auto email to the buyer on the dispatch of the requisition “send to purchasing” and then buyer would know to go to New PO suggestions to process on the basis of getting the auto email. One other thing we’ve found useful with Req is to enter Line comments on the Req to communicate with the buyer. When they see the New PO suggestion, it shows at the bottom per below.

Nancy

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1 Like