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Multiple open shipments on one Sales Order simultaneously


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My client needs the ability to have multiple shipment open on a sales order simultaneously. The create shipments to tell the warehouse to prepare configuration of the shipping items, prepares a pro-forma invoice, and creates a shipment to send to US Customs.

What have others done for their clients to achieve this or this type of need, workflow customizations?

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Best answer by asmith50 28 July 2022, 06:34

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@Sai Chettiar Thanks for sharing this idea, but this would only be a solution when you create a shipment for each sales order individually but wont work if you wish to process shipments in bulk for a lot sales orders at the same time, is that correct? 

Also this still don't give you the flexibility to have more than one shipment open for a sales order at the same time, right?

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Hey All 

A bit late to this but we had the similar situation.  Where parts of the same SO would need to be shipped out from different Warehouses based on business rules and/or availability of products.  

What we did is to use the Shipments screen instead of the Sales Order screen.  Here we create a new shipment, select the Warehouse applicable for the shipment and then use the Add Order function to select  the specific Sales Order from the list.  

This way lines applicable for that warehouse would be added to the shipment. 

Touch wood, but thus far we have not seen any issues with this approach through our testing. 

Happy to hear thoughts and any pitfalls or concerns around this approach.   

Regards

Sai 

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@gbrazelton14’s idea has our support as well.

Overall shipment process in Acumatica is in dire need of flexibility - real businesses don’t ship from a Sales Order consecutively one-by-one, and oftentimes corrections may be required for earlier shipments - which is something that Acumatica directly prevents unless you delete later (correct) shipments.

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@gbrazelton14 , i’ll reach out via email with proposed date/times for a deeper dive.  -Dana

I'm just adding my vote to @gbrazelton14 ,

it will definitely be a very useful feature for us, we come across this scenario on a daily basis .

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My 2 cents here...it would be great if Acumatica would add a HOLD status to shipments, and allow edits and item additions to the sales order while the open shipments are on hold status. The issue is often that an item gets received in that should be able to be added to the open shipment. The user may have already picked 17 items on that shipment and deleting the shipment and starting over is not an option. By having a hold status on the shipment, then allowing changes on the sales order, then when removing hold on the shipment you should check for any changes to items or quantities that need to be corrected because the order data has changed.

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@DConcannon Thanks for your clarification. Acumatica support recommended using the Blanket SO type. When I presented it to the client they really liked that idea. I will let you know if they come back with any other recommendations. 

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@asmith50 I am referring to pick, pack, ship of Acumatica’s WMS Product. While it packages as an additional cost to your client, it may be worth a look depending on full business-case to potentially avoid customizing, or a workaround using transfers, etc.

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@DConcannon When you say implement picking are you referring to modifying the workflow to add a picking type process between the sales order and shipment?

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@asmith50 - if the shipment cannot be confirmed, the requisite information for shipment in Acumatica is not available.

Have you considered implementing picking? Pick future shipments, stage, configure, wait for customer arranged shipping, then ship, then customs declaration (assuming your including shipper, transport charges, etc.) Not sure if this would work for your scenario, just a thought.

A similar process could be designed using transfers.

 

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Weighing in on @asmith50’s side on this.  We have a customer with sales orders that have many lines.  Some line items require minor configuration and/or staging.  Some groups of items are picked by different teams. Some ship via different carriers (big parts via LTL and smaller via parcel carriers). Some groups are picked/staged/shipped in different warehouses.

The ability to create multiple shipments via the processing screen is of limited use in these scenarios, as it assumes everything happens at once and is driven by a single user.

We have tested using the blanket orders feature to work around this, but it adds a layer of complexity and may impact the invoicing process.

It would be very helpful to have more flexibility in the sales order / shipment workflow to support these types of use cases.

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@Jeff96 Yes I tried on the process screen. If a shipment is open, the SO is in a shipping status, which new shipments cannot be create on.

Correct, you can open two shipments at the same time only if there are no open shipments on the order. 

Why don’t you create both at the same time?

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@Jeff96 Yes I tried on the process screen. If a shipment is open, the SO is in a shipping status, which new shipments cannot be create on.

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@Jeff96 I can’t create multiple shipments for the same order though. I need the ability to have more than one open shipment on the same SO.

 

Did you try doing it from the process orders screen?

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@Jeff96 I can’t create multiple shipments for the same order though. I need the ability to have more than one open shipment on the same SO.

@DConcannon I completely understand why the SOs are locked. In this unique case the client would have multiple shipments open simultaneously. Their shipping qtys will not change. The main reason they will have multiple open is due to the need of #1 US Customs declarations and #2 customer arranged shipping and #3 company configuration and preparation of shipments.

Does anyone have any experience modifying workflows to maybe add a new stage/state before confirmed which would “complete” the shipment and also unlock the SO?

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@asmith50 Can your client bring each shipment one step further and confirm the shipment?  The SO’s are locked for good reason until a shipment is confirmed. Once multiple shipments are confirmed you can use Actions, Correct Shipment to make changes, but only to the last shipment created.

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That is correct if you create the shipment from the SO screen. To create multiple shipments at the same time, you would go to the process order screen (screen ID SO501000) and create the shipment from there. 

 

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Acumatica doesn’t allow you to have an open (unconfirmed) shipment add modify the sale order simultaneously. The client needs to create multiple open shipments at the same time. If you create one shipment it lock the SO and doesn’t allow you to create additional shipments without confirming them.

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What’s the part your are strugling with? 

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