The vendor prices file contains the price books for each vendor. This information is used by the automated inventory restocking process to find the best price for products that need to be reordered. The purchase order screen uses the vendor price file to find the best price for a product when the default price is requested.
Each price offered by a vendor for a particular product is entered into a separate record on the vendor price screen. The vendor price screen is shown below. It is accessed by selecting Vendor Prices, from the Select, Purchase Order menu.
Each price record also includes lead time and unit of measure information. The lead time is the time in days, from the time the purchase order is entered into the system, to the time the order is received. The automated inventory restocking process uses the lead time to calculate the required date, Order Required, for the purchase order (the date the order should be received).
The unit of measure or U/M, is used by the system to make the conversion between product units and vendor units. It is calculated as follows:
U/M = product units / vendor units
Product units represent how the product is stored in inventory. Vendor units represent how the product is sold by the vendor. If 1 unit sold by the vendor is stored in inventory as 1 unit, U/M is equal to 1. If 1 unit sold by the vendor is stored in inventory as 5 units, U/M is equal to 5. If 2 units sold by the vendor are stored in inventory as 1 unit, U/M is equal to .5.
Other purchase order information found in the price record includes: product code, description, vendor code, vendors specification code for the product, minimum quantity, order size, price, and vendor address location code.
The Vendors Spec. is the vendors code for identifying the product. This code appears on the printed purchase order form sent to the vendor.
The Minimum Quantity is the lowest number of vendor units that must be ordered to qualify for the price in the Price field.
Order Size is the package size, in vendor units. For example, an order size 4 means that the product is sold in packages of 4 vendor units to a package. This means that an order would have to be a multiple of 4 vendor units (i.e. 4, 8, 16, etc.). In the example screen above, the minimum quantity is 0 and the order size is 1. So as little as 1 vendor unit could be ordered for the 21.00 price.
The Vendor Address is the location code associated with a vendor address. The automated inventory restocking process checks this field to determine where a purchase order for this product should be sent. The billing address for the vendor (the address in the vendor master file) is used if this field is left blank or if the code same is entered. If an alternate vendor address is to be used, an address code previously entered in the Alternate Vendor Addresses screen is entered in this field. After the address code has been entered, its associated address is displayed.