We are a small manufacturing company but use projects to track both our shop jobs and field jobs. Currently the process to allocate materials to a field job is prohibitive. We will do the following steps 30-60 days prior to the job being on the schedule. Project inventory is turned on. 1) a transfer has to be created to move the materials from free stock to project stock (this then removes items from availability.) Then the items are added to a PR Sales Order for shipping. PR sales order does not update inventory or GL. Then an inventory issue is processed when the materials leave the shop relieving the inventory from the Project Stock location and costing it to the job.
How can we issue the materials (reserve) them for the project in the inventory so that the items don’t show available for other orders but would still be shown as in the warehouse until it is shipped to the project. If we do an issue up front, it removes the items from available inventory, however the stock is still in the warehouse. If we are audited then our on hand count would be higher than system count because they have already been issued in the system. When the materials are costed to the job is not an issue as we use WIP for costs until project completed.
Basically we need a more streamlined way to allocate stock items to a project without having to do 3-5 steps to complete the process.
Suggestions?