Inventory tracked or serially controlled items on a job PO

[michael21]

A point was made below by @JerryCobb relating to a problem he is having with duplicated costs on job purchase orders.  I think that this is an even bigger problem, and that the way Titan handles inventory tracked or serially controlled items on a job purchase order is seriously flawed.  In short, if you put an inventory tracked item on a job PO you will mess up your inventory.  A serially controlled item on a job PO won't be found when you look for the serial number in an equipment search.  I created an entry in the ideas section, COMMUNITY-I-1319, that more fully describes what we have encountered and a potential fix.  If you look at it and agree, please vote for it.  If you have a workflow that avoids this problem, I'd love to know about it.

[michael21]

@rstare  Hi Ryan.  Just had my CSM check to be sure that the Match on item quantity on job calculation for equipment option was on in the Next as well as my live system, and it is.  So, I repeated the test, creating a job that auto-generated several equipment and some materials items onto a job.  I then entered a job PO with he items listed.  The system did load the PO items on the job with 0 cost.  It did not, however, make any attempt to merge with or delete the auto-generated items.  Those remained on the job with errors as they had no warehouse reference attached to them.  They did, however, distort job cost as both the generated items and the PO had cost.  To fix this, I had to delete each of the auto-generated items from the job.  At that point, cost was correct, as was inventory.  So, if the system is suppose to be able to automatically merge or eliminated these auto-generated items, there must be some other parameter that is preventing this here.  Any thoughts as to what that might be, Ryan.

Thanks

[rstare · Accepted solution]

Hey Mike,

Currently functionality of a Job PO is no different than a stock PO, all it does is tie the cost of the PO to that job. Therefore, in order to actually get the piece of equipment onto a location, it must be added to the invoice. 

Currently functionality of the euqipment search screen is only for installed equipment, not stocked equipment, and if the serialized item isn't being added to an invoice, it's not actually being installed at a locaiton and therefore still in stock.

Here's a slide on Job PO functionality - https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1IioQtOzILhkc6PIRO3OJNFYRdXZwyyqbpcE2T4Dht6w/edit#slide=id.g1...

[michael21]

Hi Ryan, @rstare.  I thought I would catch your attention with this.  I was not aware of the add at zero option.  This option does get us most of the way there, but not quite all.  First, it doesn't address the issue of increasing the workload discussed in @JerryCobb post.  He, (and we) attach equipment and materials to a task so that when sales people are quoting they have a better idea of cost and also so that these items can be automatically added to the job, saving time later.  When this is done, one need only identify the source of the item.  Everything else is already there.  Also, it gives inventory management people a good list of what they should pull for a job so they have it ready for the technician.  So, assuming that we leave these items attached, they will be on the job with no source, but with a cost.  Using the workflow above, they would also be on the job with zero cost.  The automatically generated items would then have to be deleted.  A more efficient approach would be to change sourcing on the item already there.  That said, the workflow you suggest is still better than having to book the PO through inventory and then changing the source, as we have been doing.  Since your workflow is better, I marked it as a solution.  Always good to get your input, Ryan, Thanks.

[rstare]

Hey Mike!

So if the item is on the invoice and you're using the invoice to generate the PO items, it should retroactively update the item cost to $0 once the PO is created and the system detects that the equipment/material items are on both the PO and Invoice, so you shouldn't have to remove the auto generated (attached) material/equip

[michael21]

Hi Ryan.  It doesn't.  I just ran one through the next system and the original items were not combined or eliminated, leading to the cost doubling that started this conversation.  I suspect that that may be because it needs to match serial numbers, but of course, serial numbers don't yet exist on the generated items.  In any event, I don't see how it could determine if there was a duplicate except through serial numbers.  We have lots of jobs where 2 of the same A/Cs or 2 of the same furnaces are installed.  I don't see how the system could decide a duplicate existed unless it either matched S/Ns or it assumed an item could only exist once.