Distribution Help and User Guide | POP Management

1. Changes to Standard Sage screens

In addition to the new menu options described later in this help and user guide, there are also changes to standard Sage screens, which are detailed in this section.

1.1. PL - Enter New/Amend Account Details

A Sicon tab and a Distribution sub category has been added to these screens with the fields shown in the screenshot below.

Where Sicon Landed Costs are to be used, and they have been setup within the Maintain Landed Costs screen, these fields allow you to record the appropriate settings for this Supplier. For more details see the Maintain Landed Costs section.

On the Company tab in the Supplier Details there is an additional Minimum order value field. When this is populated, a Purchase Order cannot be saved until the minimum order value has been reached.

1.2. SC - Enter New/Amend Stock Item Details

• Inspection required when receiving purchase order – With this item ticked, the Stock Inspections process can be used, whereby the item must go through the Inspection process on booking in.

Sicon tab  – Within the Distribution sub-section, stock dimensions and weights can be added for use with landed cost. N.B. This is a shared screen when using Sicon containers.

Suppliers tab – This has additional fields, used by the Landed Costs functionality.

The Landed Costs section in the top right allows you to record whether landed costs are applicable for the purchase of this stock item from this supplier, and whether they will be percentage based or value based. See the section on Maintain Landed Costs for more information about this functionality.

Landed Costs tab – This tab shows the values recorded against each Supplier defined on that stock item and allows them to be edited on this screen. The total cost is updated onto the supplier landed cost figure and used on the Purchase Order.

1.3. SC - View Stock Item Balances

Fields have been added to this screen to show the quantity of this stock item on current SOP Proforma’s and Quotations. The Forward Order box shows how many are required for Sales Orders that have yet to be allocated.

Drill down is provided on the fields in blue in the screen: Click on any of these areas to drill down into a list of the orders that are contributing to these figures. If you double click on an order in the list, then the appropriate order enquiry screen will open.

Show details will amend the sales order.

Clicking on Quantity allocated will display the allocations.

The Quantity On PO (On Order) screen shows the Due Date for the Line and the Header. Where Sicon Preallocations is installed, the Preallocated and Free Stock quantity are also displayed.

By clicking the Distribution button at the bottom of the View Stock Item Balances screen, you can access the standard Sage View Stock History screens.

View Monthly Trading Figures will open the standard Sage screen, where there are additional Usage Analysis and Lost Order Analysis tabs. The Lost Order tab is used in conjunction with the Sicon SOP Management module. Graphs have been added in each tab and a filter for warehouse location.

1.4. SC – Locations

We have added a new tick box to the Edit Warehouse Details screen when maintaining Locations within Stock Control Maintenance. This controls whether landed costs will apply to Purchase Order lines that are being delivered to this warehouse.

For details on the Distribution tab, please see the section on Landed Costs.

1.5. POP - Enter New/Amend Order

A number of new fields and buttons have been added to the Purchase Order screen. These are detailed below.

Confirmed – The check box on the Purchase Order allows you to record that the supplier has acknowledged and confirmed the order details and dates for the order. There is also the option to set the confirmed box in the order line.

N.B. – If the Supplier KPI function is to be used, the Purchase Order must be Confirmed before the Purchase Order is booked in.

This information is also available to view when drilling into the Purchase Orders from within the Stock Item Balance screen.

The Confirmed flag can also be seen in the Distribution, Purchase Orders List Extended screen.

Amount Remaining – This field is based on the Minimum Order Value (MOV) set against the supplier. Until the MOV has been reached and the amount remaining reaches zero, the Save button is greyed out and the order cannot be saved.

LC Template – Templates created in Maintain Landed Costs can be selected here.

Add Hist. Lines – Enables you to search for Stock Items ordered previously from the supplier, using a range of months set in the Distribution Settings.

When Adding Historical items to the Purchase Order you can see the Average Buying Price, Last Buying Price and Last Discount. The New Quantity, Buying Price and Discount can be amended before adding the lines to the current Purchase Order.

Copy and Paste – Allows lines to be added from an excel spreadsheet. To use this function when adding a purchase order, copy the contents of an excel spreadsheet (stock code and quantity) to the clipboard. This function is controlled by a Distribution setting.

Put on a purchase order and then click the copy and paste button within the purchase order.

The lines are added to the purchase order.

Item Order History – This button, on the Order Item Line screen, displays previous order lines for the Stock Item.

Set PO line date based on header date – With this enabled in Distribution Settings, if the Purchase Order date delivery requested date is amended a prompt will be displayed and all item lines can be updated to the new header date.

Zero Value Order Lines – Where a Purchase Order line has a zero value, on saving the item a prompt will be displayed to ensure the user wishes to continue.

Delivery & Invoicing tab – Where the Distribution Setting is enabled, the Purchase Order Delivery Address can now be amended.

Landed Costs tab – This additional tab shows the Provisional landed costs breakdown and allows you to record Actual landed costs, apportion them across the relevant lines and then tick the box to confirm the landed costs, so these are included in the stock value when the PO is booked in.

The Provisional Totals give you the totals for all landed costs on the order, based on the information entered in the Stock Item Details for this supplier. You can then populate the Actual totals as the costs are received and apportion these Actual costs across the multiple lines on the order, apportioned either by Percentages, the Weight or the Volume.

Once you have used the Apportion button to split the costs between the lines, click the Update PO Lines button to update the landed costs on the order lines.

When using Landed Costs, the Purchase Order cannot be received in until the Landed Cost Confirmed box has been ticked. This ensures that if item costs are updated on Goods Receipt, the landed cost will be included. If the box is ticked and no Actual costs have been entered, the Provisional values will be used for the Nominal postings.

When the invoice is matched to the order, the landed costs Nominal postings will be split between the designated Nominal control accounts for the landed costs types.

See the section on Maintain Landed Costs for full information on the configuration required for this functionality.

1.6. POP – Record Purchase Invoices

We have made a change in the functionality of the nominal coding on invoices being matched to purchase orders where landed costs are involved. Standard Sage200 landed costs functionality adds the landed costs to the value of the stock, so a posting is made to the default landed costs nominal account to correspond with the increase of the stock value. With our enhanced landed costs functionality, we reverse this posting out of the default landed costs nominal account, and instead split it between the nominal accounts specified against the landed costs types (defined within the Maintain Landed Costs screen in the Stock Control menu).

In the example below £21 of landed costs have been added to the stock cost and posted to the landed cost control nominal, we then reverse out the posting to the control nominal and split the cost between the 6 nominal codes as detailed.

1.7. PL – Supplier Transaction Enquiry

View Invoice Items – Within the Supplier Transaction Enquiry screen, this button allows you to view all the order lines associated with that transaction.

When a row in the list which has a source of POP is selected, you can open a screen which displays the order lines for the transaction.

In this view you can then drill down to the actual Purchase Order it relates to by double clicking the row or clicking the View Order button.

2. POP Management Menu

2.1. POP Management Dashboard

A default dashboard has been created displaying PO lines expected today. This can be amended in the Settings.

New dashboards can be added in the Dashboards menu.

Refresh timer: Sets how often the dashboard updates

Number of panels: This is the number of dashboard panels that can be displayed. This ranges from 1 to 4.

Panel: Select the dashboard you want to see.

The dashboards can easily be modified or added via the Maintains Dashboard Panels menu option.

2.2. Supplier Catalogue

The Supplier Catalogue can be used to create a catalogue of items that can be added as free text items to Purchase Orders. The purpose of the catalogue is to speed up the entry of frequently purchased free text items e.g. consumables.

Catalogue items can be entered into the catalogue by adding items or via the Import button in the Stock Item Catalogue screen. The item description needs to be populated as this is copied into the POP free text description.

When in a Purchase Order line and adding a free text item, the catalogue can be searched and an item from the catalogue selected and added to the order.

The item code and item description are pulled through to the Description field of the order line.

2.3. Supplier KPI

The Supplier Key Performance Indicator (KPI) screen allows you to view and analyse the delivery performance of your suppliers and can be filtered by supplier and date range. All KPI screens can be exported, facilitating further reporting via Excel.

NB: On first use, in order to pull through historical data prior to the installation of the Sicon Distribution module, the Update KPI’s function must be run.  See the POP Management, Settings for further information.

The number of Purchase Order lines included in the calculation is displayed, alongside columns showing the percentage of Early, On Time, Slightly Late and Late deliveries.  The KPI Score shown is the average of the order lines.

Double clicking on the Supplier name will display the Supplier KPI’s Stock Item screen.  This shows a list of all the Stock Items received from the supplier and the average KPI score.  As the information displayed on this screen may result in the Supplier Lead time requiring amendment, a button to access the Amend Stock Supplier Details has been added.

View Order Lines – This screen displays all the lines used in the calculation, with the item Quantity, Value, the relevant Purchase Order dates and the KPI Score for each line.

The Purchase Order view screen can be accessed by either double clicking on the required line or clicking on the View Order button.

View Monthly Breakdown – This screen shows the KPI breakdown of all deliveries by month.

The colour coding and criteria for the Supplier KPI’s can be set in ‘Supplier KPI Band Maintenance’, within the POP Management Maintenance screen.

Important: Please note that only Purchase Orders that have a status of ‘Confirmed’ will be included in the KPI calculations.

2.4. Purchase Order Expected Deliveries

This screen displays a list of deliveries expected for outstanding Purchase Orders.

The screen can be filtered by Stock code, Supplier and Due date. You can also include deliveries without order line due dates.

Purchase Order Lines can also be marked as ‘Confirmed’. If the Supplier KPI’s feature is being used, this screen can be used to ensure the order line has been confirmed before the items are booked in.

Amend Details – When a line is selected, this button will open the Edit Order Item Line screen.

Amend Order – When a line is selected, this button will open the Amend Purchase Order header screen.

If the Sicon Container Management module is also installed, the Expected Time from the order line will pull through to the Exp. Time column.

2.5. Stock Item Location Wizard

This feature allows you to more easily add a Warehouse location created within Sage, to multiple Stock Items.

Stock Selection tab – This allows you to select a number of Stock Items and assign a Warehouse location, Reorder, Minimum and Maximum stock levels. The Stock Items can be filtered by Product Group. To add the stock items to the Warehouse, select the Destination Warehouse and one or more stock items to add to it.

Copy from Warehouse tab – This feature has been created to enable you to quickly add all Stock Items from one Warehouse location to another. The Reorder, Minimum and Maximum stock levels will be copied from the source warehouse to the destination warehouse. This will update existing records, or add the destination warehouse to the stock items that are missing it.

2.6. Stock Inspections

This screen allows you to Pass or Fail stock items that have been flagged as requiring inspection within the Stock Item Details (see section above), and have been receipted into the inspection bin specified in the Distribution Settings.

Once the stock has been received into the inspection bin, the Stock Inspections screen can be used to inspect the item and Pass or Fail it.

Failed items are transferred to the Warehouse and Bin as set in the Distribution Settings. If the stock is passed the user can select the bin to transfer it to.

2.7. Maintain Supplier Price Lists with Quantity Breaks

This function allows Supplier buying prices to be set up against each stock item, based on multiple quantity breaks.

List stock items for suppliers – Filtering here will display all stock items that have price breaks applied for the selected Supplier.

List suppliers for stock items – Filtering here will display all Suppliers that have price breaks applied for the selected stock item.

Add button

Where the screen has been filtered by Supplier, stock codes, quantities and prices can be entered.

Where the screen has been filtered by stock item, Suppliers, quantities and prices can be entered.

Delete button – This will delete the highlighted line on the screen.

Export button, upper – This will export the buying prices of the displayed stock items/Suppliers (depending on the filter) to a .csv file.

Import button – Buying prices can be imported from a .csv file. An example import file can also be downloaded from this screen.

After populating the .csv file, it can be selected and checked for errors. Any errors will be highlighted in red, with a reason for the error.

Once any errors have been corrected, the Import button will no longer be greyed out and the file imported.

Export button, lower – This will export all stored Supplier/stock item buying prices.

Clear button – This can be used to reset the Supplier and stock item filters. The displayed list will also be cleared.

2.8. Purchase Orders List Extended

The extended Purchase Order list, shows the confirmed flag of the Purchase Order in addition to the standard Purchase Order information.

2.9. POP Order Line List

This displays the individual Purchase Order Lines. Where Sicon Container Manager is being used, the Container details and POP/Container Line status is shown. If Sicon Preallocations is being used, a column displays the quantity Preallocated to the purchase order line.

3. Maintenance Menu

These options allow you to maintain information used in the functionality of the Distribution module.

4. Maintenance Menu - Supplier KPI Band Maintenance

The colour coding and criteria of the supplier KPI can be set in this screen. The number of days late that contribute to each category can be defined.

Update KPI’s – This button pulls through all historical data, prior to the installation of the Sicon Distribution module. In order for this data to be included in the KPI’s, the Update KPI’s function must be run.

5. Maintenance Menu - Maintain Landed Costs

With enhancements to the standard Sage functionality, you can break Landed Costs down into more detailed types and have Landed Costs posting to multiple nominal codes, to reflect the breakdown of the costs. The split of the nominal postings is covered in section 1.6 POP – Record Purchase Invoice screen.

Estimated Landed Cost totals pull through to the Purchase Order, based on values entered for the Template/Supplier and Stock Item. Actual Landed Costs can also be entered on the Purchase Order, and apportioned between the relevant item lines on that order. See section 1.5 POP – Enter New/Amend Order section.

Landed Costs must be ‘Confirmed’ on the Purchase Order before the items can be received into stock.

There are a number of areas that require configuring in order to use Sicon Landed costs. Those marked with * are required for the Landed Costs Templates.

5.1. *Nominal Codes

Nominal Codes – You can configure up to 6 cost elements that make up the total Landed Cost. For each cost type, you can select a nominal code that the Landed Costs will be posted to. These will need to be set up in the Nominal Ledger.

5.2. *Stock Control Settings

Stock Control Settings – Within Sage Stock Control Settings, ‘Use landed costs’ must be enabled and the Landed Cost control account entered.

5.3. *Maintain Landed Costs

Maintain Landed Costs – The Nominal Codes created in 2.1 are entered in the Landed Cost Maintenance screen. This will define what codes are available for steps 2.6, 2.7 and 2.8.

5.4. *Distribution Settings

Distribution Settings – The ‘Use Sicon landed costs’ setting must be enabled.*

5.5. *Product Group

Product Group – For Stock Items that will be using Landed Costs, their Product Group must be enabled to ‘Use Landed Costs’ within the standard Sage Stock Maintenance>Product Groups screen.

5.6. *Locations

Locations – Warehouses containing Stock Items that will be using Landed Costs must be enabled to ‘Apply Landed Costs’, and the Landed Cost types made ‘Active’. These settings are found in the standard Sage Stock Maintenance>Locations screen, within the Warehouse Details tab and Distribution tab respectively.

5.7. Purchase Ledger

Purchase Ledger – Suppliers to which Landed Costs will apply, require the settings within the Sicon>Distribution tab in the Supplier Details to be populated. Where ‘Percentage Based’ is being used, provisional values can be entered. These will be used to calculate the Provisional Landed Costs value in the Purchase Order.

The Update Stock Item Supplier Landed Costs button would be used to update the details of Landed Costs recorded on Stock Items, where this account has been setup as a supplier of that item, and you’ve made a change to the setting regarding Value or Percentage based.

5.8. Stock Control

Stock Control – The relevant Supplier Account needs to be added to the Stock Item as a Supplier, and have Landed Costs set correctly in the Supplier Details screen.

* In the Landed Costs tab of the Stock Item Details screen, the value type must be set. *  Where values have been set in 2.7 the Supplier Details, these are pulled through and can be amended if required.

5.9. Templates

Templates – Landed Cost Templates can be created and added to a Purchase Order. This enables the user to add set costs from, e.g., a certain country, without the need to set the values for each Supplier. The settings above marked with a * will still need to be set.

New templates can be created in this screen, using the nominal codes previously created.

When entering a Purchase Order, the template can be selected from a dropdown list on the PO header.

N.B. When using the Landed Costs Templates, the hierarchy for which values will be used on the PO are:

• Stock Item Supplier (set up on the Stock Item grid)
• Stock Item (set up on the Stock Item grid)
• Landed Cost by Commodity Code (see below)
• Landed Cost Template value

6. Maintenance Menu - Update Landed Costs Per Commodity

A percentage duty can be added to a list of Commodity Codes. This will be used as a default value for all Stock Items in the Commodity Code and can be applied to each code via the ‘Update’ button. Any duty set for the Supplier or Stock Item will override the default value. In order to use the default Commodity Code value, the Supplier and Stock Item duty values should be zero.

In the below example a ‘Duty’ Template has been created with a zero value. The Supplier and Stock Code do not have a Duty value.

7. Maintenance Menu - Import Landed Costs

This function allows the user to import each of the 6 cost elements per Supplier for a Stock Item, as shown in the Maintain Landed Costs section and also update the Sage landed cost value for open purchase orders.

The file needs to be in a .csv file format, with columns setup as per the column headings in the import. Click the Find icon to select the relevant csv file. The Check File button can be used to validate the file.

Once the file has passed the validation step, the Import button is available for the import.

Where there are open purchase orders for the landed costs items, the following screen will be displayed.

Purchase order lines can be selected to update the Sage landed cost value on the PO line.

Clicking on import will update the landed cost values on the stock item.

8. Reports

Consignment Transfer – Only available with Warehouse Replenishment module

Purchase Orders & Returns Linked to Sales Orders – Lists Purchase Orders and any outstanding Sales Orders linked to them

Purchase Orders Outstanding Tracking Dates – Only available with Container Manager.

Purchase Orders Awaiting Confirmation Detail – Shows any purchase order that have yet to be confirmed.

Purchase Orders Awaiting Confirmation Summary – Shows purchase orders that are unconfirmed with less detail than the report above.

Discontinued Stock Items – Only available with SOP Management.

9. Utilities Menu

9.1. Settings

POP Management

• Use confirmed option on purchase orders – This displays a check box on the Purchase Order to show it has been acknowledged by the supplier. If Supplier KPI’s are to be used, this check box must be enabled.
• Use Sicon landed costs – This setting enables the Landed Costs functionality within Distribution.
• Include lines where the landed cost value to be apportioned is zero. This setting allows Purchase Order lines to be added to the landed cost apportionment screen even if the landed cost value set on the stock item is zero. It can be used where landed costs values against stock items don’t need to be set, a total landed cost value for the PO will be set manually and then apportioned across all lines on the purchase order.

• Display supplier part number on POP orders – A Part ref. field is displayed in the PO Order Item Line screen, showing the Supplier stock code (as set in the Stock Item details, Supplier details screen).
• Set purchase order line dates based on header date – Updates the PO lines based on the PO header date.
• Enable forward order enquiry – This feature adds the Forward Orders field to the Stock Item Balances screen.
• Enable supplier minimum order values – Allows a PO minimum order value to be set in the Supplier Details screen
• Enable ‘Add Historical Lines’ button – Displays the button in the PO header screen, allowing users to add items previously purchased from the Supplier.
• Past POP order line range in months (Historical) – Determines how many months to include when displaying POP Historical Lines.
• Enable “Copy and Paste” button – Allows the copy and paste option to show on a purchase order, so lines can be copied in from excel.
• Amendable POP delivery address – This allows the delivery address to be amended in the Delivery & Invoicing tab of the PO.

Inspection

• Items requiring inspection go to bin – This determines which bin items requiring inspection will go to on booking in the PO.
• Warehouse for failed inspected items – If items fail inspection they are transferred to this Warehouse.
• Bin for failed inspected items – Items that have failed inspection will be put on this bin, within the above Warehouse location.

Excluded Warehouses

• Warehouses selected here will be excluded from the usage calculation in View Monthly Trading Figures screen.

9.2. Import Stock Item Settings

Allow stock item values to be imported. For the POP module, the length height, width volume and weight for each stock item can be imported. An example import file can be generated using the example import file button, this can then be populated with the correct values, saved as a csv file and then imported.

9.3. Enable Module

The Enable Strings supplied by Sicon are displayed here.

10. Release Notes

The release notes page shows which release of the system includes new features or issues resolved.

At the release of Sicon v21 we announced that going forward, we will only be supporting Sage 200c and as such we are able to drop the year from our version numbers. We moved from 201.201.0.0 to 210.0.0.

New features detailed in the Release Notes relating to Pre-Release versions will not be detailed in the current Help and User Guide until the end of development phase.

11. New Features & Important Information