Feature - PO Ship-To File Received to Transit Location
The purpose of this feature is to recognize inventory for accounting purposes as soon as the merchandise is on the ship leaving the starting port (i.e., FOB Source). But in the meantime, the merchandise has not arrived our warehouse yet, so it is not available to sell. In addition, we need the ATP to show the date when the inventory is scheduled to arrive at our warehouse so our customer service staff can advise our customers with regard to accurate shipping dates.
In order to use this feature, you need to turn on the "Inventory Transfer Control" feature in Global Setup -> Dist -> Inventory Transfer Control. Answer "Y" to "1. Use Inventory Transfer Control ?"
PO Ship-To File Maintenance
If the "Inventory Trasnfer Control" feature is turned on in Global Setup, the user will see a new field added to PO -> Maintenance -> Ship To File Maintenance: "Recv to Transit Loc." See sample screen below:
By default, field "9. Recv to Transit Loc" is blank. If the user enters a valid location into this field, it means upon receiving in P/O (both regular and warehouse), the inventory will be received to the transit location. In the meantime, a transfer batch will be created between the transit location and the regular location. The lead time will be used to create the transfer batch to determine the estimated arrival date.
Transfer Batch
See the sample transfer batch below that was created through PO Receiving Posting (from both legacy and warehouse receiving):
View Inventory in Transit in ATP
The ATP will also reflect the transfer batch items with the estimated arrival date. See the sample screen below:
In above example, note that two transfer ATP records are created for each item because one is created to decrease from the transit location (location 1 in this case.) The other is created to increase the final location (location 2 in this case.) Your rep can use this information to advise your customers on the estimated delivery time. Because the merchandise is already on the ship, the estimated delivery time is fairly certain compared to the PO line item promise date.
Change the Transfer Batch Arrival Date
Since the estimated transfer batch arrival date is calculated based on the lead time setup in the P/O Ship-To file, you can change the transfer batch to reflect a more accurate date if necessary. See sample screen below:
Be aware that the system security will ensure that only the original "owner" who created the transfer batch has the right to change the batch information. At the moment, there is no other security flag to allow other users to override this transfer batch.
Upon the receiving of the inventory at the final location, all you have to do is to bring up this transfer batch in Change mode or Dispatch mode to complete it and post it.
FOB Source vs. FOB Destination
FOB (freight on board) Source means the buyer owns the inventory as soon as the inventory leaves the source location. In the import/export business, that typically means when the merchandise is on the ship of the source harbor.FOB Destination means the buyer owns the inventory as soon as the inventory arrives at your warehouse.
In the above example, we show you how to properly handle the FOB Source to reflect on your financials correctly. Compared to FOB Destination, it creates an extra step (Transfer Batch Processing) in your receiving procedure to deal with the ownership issue.
If your term with your vendor is FOB Destination, or you're not concerned about the impact on the accounting side, then the best way to handle the receiving is to enter the receiving transactions as soon as the ship leaves the source harbor, and put the receiving transactions on hold pending the actual receiving arrival date. Elliott ATP will reflect the pending receiving transaction records as "R" (Receiving) record type. This will reflect the most updated receiving schedule by comparing the ATP "P" record from Purchase Order Line Item Promise Date.
You should also use the "Vessel" feature when entering receiving. Vessel will be used like a batch where you can put the entire receiving batch in the vessel on hold. You can also update the scheduled receiving date in the vessel so you don't need to do the tedious update on a per-receiving-transaction basis. If you use PO warehouse receiving, you will also have the benefit of using CSV import to create the receiving batch.
Modified Programs: PO2002, POWHRPST, PO1401
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