How does automatic ordering work?

Automatic ordering is a system process that automatically prefills an order based on projected needs, current inventory, pending transfers, and unfilled orders.

First, the system tallies how much of each catalog number is needed. This is done by accumulating needs in three different units:

1.  Grams
2.  Pieces
3.  Issue Units

These three units are kept separate throughout the auto-ordering process and are not interchangeable. The reason for this separation is that different items within the catalog number (and especially substitute catalog numbers) can have different unit sizes and weights and therefore fulfill the needs of the catalog number differently.

• If you have selected to include planned production for a date range, the system will first scale unproduced planned servings that are prior to the date range. By default the system will search for all unproduced planned servings from 7 days in the past through the day before the planning date range. The results of this recipe scaling are used to encumber available inventory, pending transfers, and orders, so that they will not be considered available for the rest of the process. The scaling process is the same as used in the following section and the encumbrance process is identical to the fulfilling process described later in this document.
• Next, unproduced serving records for the date range specified will be scaled according to planned counts. Recipes that call for ingredients by "each" or "dozen" will accumulate pieces needed. All other ingredient measures will accumulate grams needed by converting the ingredient measures into gram weight equivalencies.
• If you have chosen to consider pending orders against your warehouse (that is, consider if other warehouses have placed orders to your warehouse that you are expected to fill) then the system will add up the units ordered in these orders. This process will accumulate issue units needed.
• Finally, if you have selected to consider par-levels, the system will look through all catalog numbers you have set a par-level for your warehouse. Any quantities of catalog numbers considered in the previous sections will be overridden by the maximum quantity of the par-level as issue units needed. These par-level catalog numbers will not generate any orders if the on-hand (or on-order/in-transit) quantities are above the minimum level.

Fulfillment

After the needed quantities of each catalog number have been determined, the system attempts to fulfill these projected needs based on current inventory, pending in-bound transfers, and unfilled in-bound orders-- depending on your settings in warehouse options. The system fulfills from inventory first, pending in-bound transfers second, and finally from unfilled in-bound orders. First, grams needed are applied against the usable weight of these available items. Second, pieces needed are applied against the piece counts of the available items. For items not configured as piece-count items, one issue unit will be considered one piece. Finally, issue units needed are applied against available items.

Ordering

Any catalog numbers that have remaining quantities needed after the fulfillment process need to be ordered. The system will then look through the available bid contracts and internal order lists for each catalog number needed. If there are multiple items available to be ordered for a given catalog number, the system will choose the first one it encounters. The needed quantities are applied against the item in the same way as described in fulfillment. They are then rounded up to the next whole case size if broken cases are not allowed for this order item. You can display the details of this process by clicking the Worksheet button on the order screen after the automatic ordering is completed and prior to saving the order.