pQuotes & POs
To create a new purchase quote, navigate to PURCHASING » New PQuote. Clicking New PQuote will generate a new quote and auto-assign a PQuote ID that increments with each additional quote created.
A PQuote header can be edited to store further information about vendor, Dock Date, contact information, etc. Note three things: 1. It is not required that your purchasing person fill out each and every one of the purchase quote header fields. Cetec lets you log whatever vendor and PQuote information is relevant at the moment, and come back later to enter other data as required. 2. We also let you define which header-level data is required for purchase order entry. 3. These fields are customizable per your company processes.
To add lines to your PQuote, fill out Add Line form with relevant information and press OK. Additional lines can be added by clicking on Add Line and filling out the information. For each line item added to your quote, the system delivers part information with real-time data on how the part ties to the rest of your operations. To access this information, hover your mouse over the far right column a particular line item and click on .
To view a list of all PQuotes navigate to PURCHASING » My PQuotes. Here you may search across every PQuote in the system or filter the list based on PQuote status or buyer assignment. You can choose Open, Closed, or All from the menu to the left and/or choose a buyer from the drop down menu called PQuote For and press Go. Users can then choose an individual PQuote to view or modify.
It is important to understand that Cetec uses PQuote as pre-purchase order template. Every PO has to go through PQuote stage. In order to convert a PQuote to a PO, hover your mouse over the workflow module on the upper right of the screen. Here you may change the workflow stage of PQuote from Working to Request Quote from Vendor, Submit for Approval, etc (the workflow stages can be tailored to suit your business needs). Submit for Approval submits the prepared PQuote to the purchasing manager for review. Once this is done, the purchasing manager will see the PQuote under a contextual menu in the purchasing module called Pending Approval. When PO has been submitted and orders received, you can close PO by clicking Close from the left side menu on the individual PQuote page.
As PQuotes are pre-PO templates, PO Entry is one-click away from a PQuote. To convert a PQuote into an actual PO (registering a forecast supply signal in Cetec ERP), either select the Convert To PO from the left side-nav (if you have user permission to do so), or click Approve in the workflow module at the upper right to automatically approve the PQuote and enter the PO simultaneously.
After Approving and/or converting a PO, a message will flash on the top right in green, “PO created”, and a link to the newly created PO will appear in the PQuote header and in the left side-navigation of the PQuote screen. Click either of those links to access the PO.
From the PO screen, PO data may be added, edited, or deleted. To edit, select the Edit link from the left side-nav and edit any relevant PO header or PO line level data. To delete PO header info or any PO lines, select the Delete link from the left side-nav.
This is a contextual menu accessible only to purchasing managers. Here the purchasing manager can review PQuote that are in the pending approval stage, and approve or disapprove purchase.
MRP is a tool designed to aid both procurement, purchasing, and internal production planning activities by providing users with a system snapshot of both raw material and subassembly / sub-batch material requirements. This report is produced by an automated system comparison of demand signals against supply signals, i.e. sales orders against purchase orders, inventory levels, and corresponding material lead times, in addition to Re-Order Point (ROP) values maintained for materials (this is also referred to as Kan Ban in manufacturing terminology). Buyers can work through the buy report, utilize real-time stock checking tools to justify purchase quantities, and automate purchase order entry for material required.
Please remember that MRP is only a helping tool for your purchasing needs. Specifically, it is important to understand how refreshing works in MRP (the manual behavior of the refresh function is explained in more detail here). Since the MRP report is intentionally only manually refreshed, it is always possible that the Need To Buy quantities displayed in MRP are not fully up-to-date. Therefore, whenever you make a purchasing decision, please use the Part Info drop down, and especially the Waterfall tab within, which are updated real-time, to make sure that there has been no recent orders for the part since the last time you refreshed the report. For complete documentation of the Waterfall inventory report, please see the documentation page at Support » Documentation » Part Records » Part Waterfall (Inventory Projections).
Additional fields in the MRP report include:
Lead Time - Lead Time indicates the time it takes for material to get from a vendor to your shipping dock from the time you place the order with the vendor. When purchasing material to have enough in stock by the need date, the lead time of an item should be be considered. The Need Date minus the Lead Time generates the latest possible date for procuring your material. Need Date - Need Date is just another term for Work Start Date in the context of MRP. The Work Start Date for an order is the date you need the components by to begin working on the order. For the sake of clarity, we call Work Start Date the Need Date within the context of MRP. The goal of MRP is to help users procure the required quantity in stock by the Need Date. Source - An item appears on MRP for one of two reasons. First, if the projected QOH (Quantity on Hand) for the item approaches the ROP (Re-Order Point) manually set for the part. Second, if the supply and demand pushes the its projected QOH into the negative. This field indicates the reason (either ROP or Supply/Demand) for the inclusion of the item on the list. Qty - This is the suggested Need To Buy quantity. The need to buy quantity should be validated with a real-time check of projected inventory via the Waterfall report, accessed via the blue part info icon. Note that if your unit of measure (UOM) for this quantity is anything other than ‘each’, there could be piece measurement requirements for the part. We indicate these potential requirements for items in MRP by putting orange bars to the left and right of the item Qty field. This notifier only exists if the raw material is defined on a BOM that explicitly dictates specific piece measurements.
To view a list of all material requirements navigate to PURCHASING » MRP. Here you may search across every item with material requirement in the system and/or filter the list based on parameters given such as product code, vendor, product manager, source type, or any combination of these parameters. To do so, set the filters in the header of MRP and click Search to refine the result.
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Expand All Part Info? - This is more of a display option than a parameter for search. Every item on MRP has to be justified by looking at Part Info. One way to do this is to individually click on to the far right to display the part info. Yet if this is too tedious for you, you may set Expand All Part Info? to Yes it will automatically display the part info for every single item returned on MRP. The Part Info contains a lot of information about the part, including its waterfall. Choosing the Waterfall option from Expand All Part Info returns only the waterfall.
- Hide Ignore - Checking this option hides all ignored items from MRP. This is only for display purposes, a visual aid for buyers as the work through the list. The ignored items remain in the system. Click refresh to show the hidden items again. To learn more about the ignore function, click here.
- Source Type - An item appears on MRP for one of two reasons. First, if the item projected QOH (Quantity on Hand) approaches the ROP (Re-Order Point) manually set for the part. Second, if the item supply and demand pushes the item projected QOH into the negative. Using Source Type parameter you may display items generated based on either the ROP or the supply/demand.
- Order # - Displays the items only if they appear in the order number entered.
- Leadtime Cushion - The two most important variables for MRP are Leadtime and Need Date. Lead Time indicates the time it takes for a material to get from a vendor to your shipping dock. Need Date is just another term for Work Start Date in the context of MRP. The Work Start Date for an order is the date you need the components by to begin working on the order. Need Date minus Lead Time generates the latest possible date for procuring your material. Giving Leadtime Cushion a value of N displays all and only the items whose latest possible date for procurement falls between today (the day of viewing MRP) and +N days from today. For example, if today is 07/01, and if Leatime Cushion is set to 9 days, the returned search will display only the items whose latest procurement date falls between the period of 07/01~07/10.
When MRP is refreshed, it generates the most up-to-date material requirements page by comparing demand signals against supply signals (or scanning for Re-Order Point values) at the time of the refresh. Cetec ERP enforces a manual refresh of MRP to enable buyers to work through an entire list of material requirements without having to constantly start over from the beginning of the report. In essence, manual refreshing over automatic refreshing gives users the time to work with the data. When the most up-to-date data of material requirements is desired, simply click Refresh link inside the header. Refreshing MRP page via Refresh is different from refreshing the page using your web browser; only explicit Cetec ERP manual refresh will generate new material requirements for you to work from. Note that this purchasing best-practice methodology assumes that a buyer is validating the suggested Need To Buy quantities (which are manually refreshed) with actual projected inventory quantities via the Waterfall report (which are real-time numbers).
For each item in the buy report, the buyer should double-check to see whether the need to buy quantity is indeed justified. To do so click on to the far right of the row, then use the data provided to justify, adjust, or ignore the suggested buy quantity.
MRP streamlines the purchasing process by giving users the ability to directly add items from MRP to a purchase quote, which can then be turned as easily into a purchase order. To do so, select the desired required items from MRP and then click Add to PQuote button on top. The button will display existing purchase quotes to add to, or you can create a new purchase order by clicking on New PQuote. These actions will turn the item on which the selected item is located dark gray as a visiaul cue to the user that the item has been addressed until the report is manually refreshed by the user.
Users may not want to purchase recommended items listed in MRP. If this is the case, choose the items to ignore from MRP and click Ignore on top. This will turn the line on which the selected item is located dark gray as a visual cue to the user that the item has been addressed until the report is manually refreshed by the user.
VENDOR & PRC MANAGEMENT
To view a list of all vendors in your system, navigate to PURCHASING » Vendor List. Here you may search across every vendor in the system and filter by vendor name and status. Type in the terms to search and click Search to refine the vendor list. You may also sort the vendor list by clicking any one of the header titles at the top of the vendor table. For instance, to sort by incrementing Vendor Number, click the link for that column at the top of the column. To sort by decrementing Vendor Number, click the link again.
Vendor performance helps users track delivery performances of vendors, which can then be used as predicative data in estimating future delivery dates. Vendor performance page lists the difference between line Dock Date (this data is filled in when creating a PQuote) and received date (this data is filled in under WAREHOUSE » Receiving). The variance between due and received dates is captured in Days Variance or Variance fields. This data can also be also displayed as a graph by clicking on Show Bar Graph.
PRC (product code) is the first three digits of a unique code used to uniquely identify every part in inventory. For instance, a part called XPL686868 has PRC of XPL and part number of 686868. Users can develop PRC naming scheme to easily organize inventory pARTS E.G. MIC for Microsoft products, and MAC for Apple products. PRC list is a tool designed to help users organize and maintain PRC codes. To view a list of all PRC codes, navigate to PARTS » PRC list. In order to create a new PRC code, click Create PRC. You may also edit pre-existing PRC code and add default vendor number and buyer initials by clicking on Edit.
Shortage Report
Shortage Report is a tool designed to aid purchasing activities by providing users with a forecast of material shortage and resulting lateness in work orders. This report is produced by an automated system comparison of demand signals against supply signals, i.e. sales orders against purchase orders, inventory levels, and corresponding material lead times. Essentially, the Shortage Report is a sister report to MRP, displaying the same data in a different view. In conjunction with MRP, the Shortage Report can help the buyer stay on top of his material needs.
To view a list of all work orders expected to be late, navigate to PRODUCTION » Orders » Shortage Report. Here you may search across every work order expected to be late in the system and/or filter the list based on parameters. To do so, set the filters in the header of Shortage Report and click Search to refine the result.
Automatic Vendor Notifications
Cetec ERP keeps your purchasing team and your vendors on the same page via automatic purchase order notifications. To use this feature, navigate to the vendor record and select the “Notifications” option from the left-hand navigation menu. This will take you to the Notifications page for the vendor.
Notifiers are automatic emails that are sent out when triggered by selected events. Notifiers are tied to four objects: Customer, Part, Vendor, and Work Order. Vendor Notifications come in four types. Let’s walk through the notification types together.
- Past Due POs
- All Open POs due within the next 30 days
- All POs that require a Pull In - Dock Date is not sufficient for the Need Date
- Report of Open POs with a dock date in the next X amount of days, where X is the based on the date modifier
- List of open, unacknowledged POs
- List of late POs
- You can use the date modifier to buffer this. For example, a date modifier of 5 would send a list of all open POs with a dock date less than the current date plus 5 days.
Let’s run through a quick description of the various fields you can utilize when setting up a notifier.
Name - Enter a name to identify this automatic notification. Date Modifier - Only the Confirmation Tracking notifier type will use this field. Date Type - Will always use Dock Date. Email To - Enter recipient’s email address.
After you set these parameters, click “Update”.
Below the update button is the Notification Sent table that tracks every email sent via Automatic Order Notification.