Future Sales (FS) can help you improve your sales department's performance and your inventory management by using your sales forecast to purchase products in advance by generating a Purchase Order (PO), a Prebook (PB), or a Standing Order (SO) for future inventory.
Table of Contents
Enable Future Sales
To enable future sales, a customer must first be created under the name of ''Future Sales" (note this customer will only handle future sales inventory.) Selecting a customer in the settings is the key to associating POs to the future inventory, all the items you purchase under this customer (for example, "Future Sales") will go to the future inventory.
Step one: Create a Customer
To create this customer, follow the steps below:
Go to Setup and select Customers.
Add the customer "Future Sales" to your customer list on Setup > Customers > Add Customer.
For Multi-Location Companies: If you are working with several locations, make sure that the customer you entered on the Future Sales Settings is associated with the different locations that you are currently using.
Step two: Enable Future Sales
Go to Setup and select Settings.
Click on Future Sales from the Inventory group.
Enable the Future Sales checkbox.
Select a customer.
Set the "Truck days after".
Click on Save.
The Truck Days After setting allows you determine the Max Age for the products to be included in the availability. However, when the number of days have been specified per product or per category, the system will consider those values first. For further information about this, please read How to Set Up the Max Age for the E-commerce Products (Options 1 and 2)
Future Sales Sources
Future Sales orders can come from three different sources described next in detail:
From a Purchase Order. You can create a PO for the FS Inventory, and when your Vendor confirms the products, they will go to your Future Inventory, where your sales team will see the products.
From a Standing Order. You can create an SO for the FS Inventory, creating a recurrent order from the FS inventory. Orders created from the SO will then wait for approval by the Vendor. Once your Vendor confirms the products, they will go to your Future Inventory, where your sales team will see the products.
From a Prebook. You can create a PB for the FS Inventory, creating a recurrent order from the FS inventory. When your Vendor creates the PO and confirms the products, they will go to your Future Inventory, where your sales team will see the products, and the system will delete them from the PB.
Remember that Future Sales Inventory is not yet in your warehouse.
Final Price Behavior & Hold on Confirm
The future sales setting also has two additional options for managing your Future Sales:
1) Final Price Behavior: This window will allow the user to choose how the price should behave once unsold items are transferred to the inventory based on the 2 available options.
2) Hold on Confirm: Allows selecting whether or not the product should be automatically put on hold after the items are confirmed or available in the inventory.
Allocation Price Behavior
This option allows choosing the price behavior when an allocation is performed with products within a Prebook without sales price. There are two options available:
Should calculate the sales price based on the landed cost and GPM: The system will calculate a new price based on the landed cost of the item and the GPM setting.
Should maintain the sales price specified in the PO or Future Inventory pricing screen: The system will set the price in the Future Inventory Pricing screen, even if the GPM is lower than the one set as default.
For those Prebooks that already have a price assigned, the system will always respect that price. Remember this option applies both for Prebooks in boxes and units.
Purchase Products from Future Sales
There are three ways to create Purchase Orders for Future Sales; through Prebooks, POs Standalone, and POs at a time.
Please take into account:
Remember to enter the customer you selected on the Future Sales Settings, the products you purchase under this name will automatically go to the future sales availability.
Option one: Create Prebook for Future Sales
Go to Prebooks & SOs and select Add Prebook.
Enter the Prebook information.
Select Future Sales as a customer.
Go to Purchase Orders and select Add PO.
Search the Prebook.
Complete the Prebooks information.
Click on Add from the Actions column.
Go to PO Summary.
Approve the PO.
The PO will be submitted to the vendor; once confirmed, the products will be transferred to the future inventory, and the items will be removed from the Prebook.
Option two: Create a Standalone Purchase Order
Go to Purchase Order and select Add PO.
Click on Standalone POs.
Enter the General Order Information.
Click on Save.
Add items to the PO.
Click on Add.
Once your Purchase Order is submitted, the vendor must confirm the products to transfer them to the Future Inventory.
Refer to How to Create Future Sales Orders for more information.
Info: Keep in mind that the Truck days after count from the POs Truck day will determine the number of days the items will be available in the future inventory.
Option three: Create a PO in the Single Purchasing Mode
Go to Purchase Order and select Add PO.
Click on One PO at a time.
Enter the General Order Information.
Click on Save.
Click on Add single items.
Select Future Sales as a customer.
Add items to the order.
Click on Add.
When the Vendor confirms the order, these products will be added to the Future Inventory.
The system will suggest the prices for the items based on your company’s GPM.
Enable Vendors to create Purchase Orders
You can enable your Vendors to create Standalone Purchase Orders for Future Sales.
Do the following instructions to give permissions to a Vendor:
Go to Setup and select Vendors.
Click on Edit from the Actions column in the Vendor you are editing.
Click on the Options tab.
Check the box on Allow creating POs.
Click on Save.
Price Lists for Future Sales
Enabling this setting will allow the system to take the price from the price lists (type Prebook or All) already created and associate it with the customer when creating orders with future inventory in Order Entry, Prebooks, and in the E-commerce instead of using the price set up in the Purchase Order. If the setting is disabled or there is no price list for the product, the system will take the price entered in the PO.
To use price lists for Future Sales, you must enable the setting Price Lists. To enable the setting, do the following instructions:
Go to Setup and select Settings.
Click on Future Sales from the Inventory group.
Click on the checkbox of Price Lists.
Click on Save.
Skip Local After
By enabling this option, the system will not refer to the Local After value set up per product or category in all the screens where this information is used and will only consider the Truck Days After value.
E.g., You have a product for Future Sales with a Local After value per product set up at 4, and the setting Truck Days After is set up at 6. This configuration will make the product available in Future Sales inventory from 03/02/2018 to 03/06/2018. If you enable this setting, the system will skip the local After Value, meaning the product will be available for two more days until 03/08/2018.
Hide Inventory from Sales Screens
If this setting is enabled, the system will hide the option for adding Future Inventory Items when the users create a Prebook or an Order.
Related Articles
-
K2K Future Sales (Knowledge Base)
-
Create a Prebook (Knowledge Base)
-
Place a Future Inventory E-Commerce Order (Knowledge Base)
-
Future Stock (Knowledge Base)
-