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Physical Count - Display Quantity "Available" and "Available for Shipment" on Physical Count Screens

  • 15 February 2023
  • 15 replies
  • 537 views

Use Case

My client runs an in-house repair shop. They are using service orders to manage in-house repairs on equipment. There are open service orders where stock items are already consumed on the repair. The service order can’t yet be closed because further work needs to happen. 

Problem

When a physical count is generated, the items already used on the service order are still considered “on-hand” by Acumatica. This causes the physical count to display higher book quantity than there actually is on the bin. This can cause stock items to be reduced too low by mistake.

 For example:

  • I have 13 stock item X on hand
  • I used 2 on an open service order
  • I generate a count, which displays 13 on hand
  • During the count, I input 11 as Physical Quantity
  • The system adjusts 13 stock items down to 11
  • I close and bill my service order
  • This process further reduces stock item X by 2 units
  • Now I have 9 in the warehouse, whereas I should have 11 in the warehouse. I have adjusted down the Item X by 2 units during the count, which shouldn’t have occurred 

I think it would be very helpful to display Available and Available for Shipment quantities on the count related screens. This would solve this issue.

I assume a similar issue can show up in a distribution environment, however, I have not tested this through a sales order/shipment process.  

I wanted to throw this out there and first of all see, am I missing something? If not, then I’ll move this to product idea. 

15 replies

Jeff96
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Does your service order indicate that these items are needed for it? If yes, this solution wouldn’t work. 

Think of a scenario where you created the order with these two items but haven’t picked/used them yet. You have available QTY 11 and On Hand 13. In reality, you still have 13, so entering 11 would be wrong. 

 

A better solution would be where Acumatica moves out items that have been picked. This would be helpful with distribution as well. 

Jeff G.
Dave Gutman
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Hi @eshahid98  would it be practical to create a new warehouse for goods being used on service orders.  When goods are needed on a service order then first do a transfer to move the goods from the main warehouse to the service warehouse. This does add another step to the process of consuming goods for service orders but should solve the counting issue.

Dave Gutman
E
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@Jeff96  - you made a fair point about service orders where items are added but not yet picked. I think if items are picked, the user can allocate these items to the service order. The allocation today reduces from “Qty Available for Shipment”. However, they are still not reduced form “On-Hand”. 

That’s why I think if Qty Available and Qty Available for Shipment columns are visible on the counting sheets, it would do the job. I think my client would find it acceptable to allocate such quantities on the service order, so the count may display accurate Qty Available for Shipment. 

We can do similar allocations on the Sales Order side too.  

 

E
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@Dave Gutman  - good idea for lower volume environments. This wouldn’t be efficient in a high volume process. 

Dana Moffat
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@eshahid98 let’s meet to discuss.  We’ll send you proposed meeting date/times to get together to explore your feedback and idea further.

I don’t think logical warehouses are the answer here - you will lose inventory visibility.  -Dana

U
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Acumatica does not consider items consumed on a service order until service invoice is released. So technically items are assumed to be in stock. one of the ways is to close out all pending service orders as far as possible and freeze the inventory transactions during physical inventory counts.

sroberts29
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My client is manually running totals on items on open Service Orders - hundreds could be open. Then manually adjusting the physical count to account for this variance. It seems items of Service Orders of a certain ‘status’ should be able to be excluded from a Physical count.

Dana Moffat
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In 2023R2, a validation has been added for outstanding allocations.  To find out more, please see the release notes and the section Inventory and Order Management: Improvements in the Inventory Adjustments.

 

 

T
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Dana,

Thank you for the 2023r2 information that will help add visibility to allocations when performing physical counts. I reviewed the release notes and have 2 questions if you can help out…

  1. If the “ignore item allocations” box is left unchecked, will the error message only be triggered if the resulting quantity will leave you unable to satisfy the allocation? Could it be configured to trigger if there are any allocations at all even if the resulting qty will still be sufficient?
  2. Will the new “Allocations affected by inventory adjustments” report be configured such that it can be run prior to releasing a mass physical count adjustment, so users can investigate all stock items with allocations associated with the referenced adjustment?

My concern is making incorrect inventory adjustments because we’re unable to count allocated items, AND the resulting adjustment will not drop the quantity to a level that will jeopardize the allocation. 

Happy to take this offline if that makes more sense. Thanks!

T
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Hi @Dana Moffat ,

Still looking for an answer to the above. Our stock items allocated to service orders have created a big problem during physical counts. @eshahid98 hits the nail right on the head. We have precisely the same problem.

I’m happy to see the increased visibility on allocated items via reporting and error messages, but we really need a means to account for those allocations even if they won’t be jeopardized by the impending inventory adjustment. 

Hypothetical would be (10) on hand and (2) allocated. Physical count results in (8) which would trigger a (-2) inventory adjustment. The on hand total would be changed to (8). Still plenty to fulfill the allocation so no error or reporting would be triggered. Inventory would then be incorrect and eventually the problem compounds itself out of control. 

Did you and @eshahid98 make any headway on a proposed solution when you met offline?

Thank You!

Dana Moffat
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Hi @twheeler, i suggest an off-line discussion for a deep dive.  I’d like to bring @cindywhitner76 into the conversation since service orders are involved.

K
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To add to this conversation is that Service Orders are not deducting from QTY On Hand or from the Book QTY at time of counting.

 

Currently the Book Qty is QTY on Hand - Qty on confirmed Shipments.

 

This neglects the Service Order part.

Would be good to have additional flexibility to select what needs to be included in the Book QTY to be counted or have them broken out to show what has been allocated to Service Orders and such.

Dana Moffat
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@cindywhitner76 re: Service Orders

T
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@Dana Moffat.

Thanks for your response. I hadn’t seen it until the system pinged me about the other recent post. I had a chance to deep dive on this with two of your implementation consultants during a recent full scope system assessment. 
 

Unfortunately, the findings were that there are no options or immediate concerns a to remedy this gap in functionality. I’m confident that this is prevalent enough to deserve being addressed. @krausef77 post about selecting options would be very helpful.

I’d be excited for the opportunity to talk with you and Cindy about this further. Please let me know if there is an opening for that. 
 

thanks

thomassherman51
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Hi @eshahid98  would it be practical to create a new warehouse for goods being used on service orders.  When goods are needed on a service order then first do a transfer to move the goods from the main warehouse to the service warehouse. This does add another step to the process of consuming goods for service orders but should solve the counting issue.

@eshahid98, I have found that this solution offered by @Dave Gutman has worked best my clients in Acumatica and other ERP solutions.

If you do not want to create a new warehouse you could consider creating a location called ‘Service Orders’ to which you would transfers the items to be used on service orders. 

When preparing the physical count in Acumatica you could then add this location, ‘Service Orders’, to the exclusion list.  

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