Service Orders with Items to Be Purchased: Allocations for Service Orders

In MYOB Advanced, allocation is a broad term used to denote splitting the item quantity into smaller quantities with different subitems or lot numbers, splitting the quantity into separate units with serial numbers, or specifying quantities that should be reserved for the order in different warehouses. This helps your company to avoid overstocks and stockouts of items being sold.

In this topic, you will read about allocating stock items for service orders and allocating stock items that have been purchased for service orders.

Allocation of Stock Items for Service Orders

You can reserve the specified item quantities for the service order by allocating them on the Service Orders (FS300100) form. On the Details tab, you can click a service order line and view the item availability information at the bottom of the form. You may want to reserve the requested quantity for this specific item (or for multiple items).

To allocate stock for a particular line of a service order, you use the Line Details dialog box, which opens if you click the needed line on the Details tab of the Service Orders form and then click Line Details on the table toolbar. By using this dialog box, you can select whether to reserve the requested quantities of the item in a single warehouse or multiple warehouses. Also, you can use the Line Details dialog box to track the order fulfillment. For each allocation line, the Related Document column contains the reference number of the document related to the current stage of the order fulfillment.

Notes on Processing of Appointments with Allocated Items

With allocations for each inventory item line, the system will not allow a staff member to assign more units of an inventory item to an appointment than the quantity of units specified in the related service order. For example, suppose that one service and two units of the ACINF21 inventory item are associated with a service order on the Service Orders (FS300100) form. Two appointments are created to fulfill the service order, and each appointment has one unit of the ACINF21 inventory item assigned. Suppose that during the second appointment, the customer asks for a third unit of the ACINF21 inventory item. The system will not allow the staff member to modify the quantity of the line associated with the two original ACINF21 inventory items because the appointment quantity would be greater than the service order quantity. In this case, the staff member needs to add a new line item to the second appointment for the extra ACINF21 inventory item on the Details tab of the Appointments form. The system will add the line item to the service order as well.

If a user clones an appointment that includes inventory items, if the quantity of inventory items in all appointments exceeds the quantity specified in the related service order, the system automatically adds new items to the service order.

If the scheduler has added inventory items to a service order, and then not all inventory items have been used in the appointments associated with the service order, and if the billing cycle is set to generate invoices from appointments, when the service order is closed, the system cancels the allocation of the quantity of inventory items that were not used in appointments.

Allocation of Purchased Stock Items for Service Orders

If the ordered items are out of stock at the shipping warehouse, you can process a purchase from a vendor for the subsequent sale to get the sufficient quantity of ordered items directly for this service order.

After receipts have been released for the related purchase orders, you can track the stage of fulfillment for each line of the original sales order by clicking Line Details on the Service Orders (FS300100) form. In the Line Details dialog box, which opens, you can view the allocation that the system automatically performs to reserve the line item quantity required for the service order on the purchase receipt. In the Line Details dialog box, you can also view the reference numbers of the related documents in the Related Documents column: the purchase order and the receipt. (You can click any reference number of a related document to view the document.)

If a purchase order for an inventory item was created from a service order, after the inventory item is received, the inventory item is automatically allocated for the service order. Additionally, if a serial number was specified in the purchase receipt, the serial number is copied to the service order.

Item Availability Tracking

The way the order quantity is reflected in the system depends on the availability calculation rule selected for the item class (of each included item) on the Item Classes (IN201000) form. For details on availability, see Availability Calculation Rules: General Information.

Generally, as the status of a purchase order for a service order changes, the purchase order quantity updates the FS Prepared, FS Booked, FS Allocated, and On Hand total quantities, which are reflected on the Inventory Allocation Details (IN402000) form.