Project management can be facilitated by automation rules that will help to reduce some of your manual tasks. In this example, we will address the requirement to generate shipment receipts within a workflow that does not have physical shipments into a warehouse.

Here we will review how to prepare Paragon for these automated functions as well as how to activate and maintain your rules.  These rules will allow Paragon to automatically generate purchase orders as soon as your sales orders are issued, and will automate the generation of receipts as soon as your shipments have been created from your customer sales orders.

Paragon has you covered with our growing library of rules at your disposal.  As always - contact us for help setting up rules at support@paragon-erp.com

Workflow

This document relates to a very specific but fairly consistent workflow when it comes to fulfilling your customer requests.  This workflow involves creating sales orders, automated purchasing, scheduled shipments and generated receipts for those shipments.

The Paragon rules described in this document help to automate the sales process right down to the shipment of goods to the client or project locations.  Sales orders will be created manually and they will trigger the automatic creation of purchase orders (by preferred supplier) for the goods being requested.  Once the purchase orders are verified and issued, shipments can be generated and can then be used as documents for the trucks to retrieve the required goods.  Once that's done, automated receipts are generated to control the movement of the goods from the supplier's location to the project destination.

Manual sales orders

Sales orders are entered into Paragon manually.  Those orders represent the customer's request for goods and specify the quantities, prices and shipping dates that are to be respected based on an agreement.  Paragon will automatically create all the required purchase orders needed to fulfill those customer requests once the sales order is issued.  Each PO will be created for the vendor that is associated with the product on each sales order line.

Automated purchase orders from sales orders

These automated POs will be created and assigned to the appropriate suppliers based on the vendors associated with the products being sold.  One PO will be created for each required vendor (for potentially multiple products).  The purchase orders must then be issued manually once they have been verified and approved.  Only issued POs will be available for generating automated receipts.

Shipments created from sales orders and split by supplier location

Once the customer is ready to receive the goods they requested, shipments can be manually created from the original sales orders with the quantities that the customer has agreed to receive.  As soon as the shipment is created, add the supplier code to each shipment line to define which supplier location will be used for each automated receipt that will be created.  If no supplier code is assigned to the line (or if the supplier code is not linked to a vendor ship-from location) the automated receipts will use the default address on the purchase orders associated with each of the original sales order lines.

Note: If you try to create shipments for more units than were originally requested by the customer on the sales order, you will receive a notification advising you of the discrepancy.  The receipts will still be created and you will have the chance to adjust quantities afterwards.

Automated receipts from sales orders / shipments

When the shipments have been approved and issued, Paragon will automatically create receipt documents for those approved shipments in temp status. This allows for time to review the receipts and approve (and issue) them before assigning them to your drivers and delivery trucks.

The setup

Attributes

Attribute setup is required to prepare Paragon for the data that will be used throughout the workflow.

Please note that these attribute names can be changed to suit your needs. Just remember that any changes to the attribute names must also be reflected in the rules scripts as well.

Is primary vendor - on/off attribute.  This attribute is used on the vendor module to indicate if a supplier is considered a valid vendor for this automated feature.  Any vendor that has been set as a primary vendor can then be associated with a product and therefore will be used with these rules.

Primary vendor - custom attribute (created by Jonar).  This attribute is a drop list of all appropriate vendors (defined by the is primary vendor attribute outlined above) placed on each product to indicate which supplier is to be used when purchasing specific products.

Purchase order name - custom attribute (created by Jonar).  This attribute is added to transaction lines to help track which POs have been created from those transactions.  Each time a purchase order is automatically created from a sales order line, Paragon fills that PO number in this attribute.

Transaction references - free flow text attribute.  This attribute will be filled by Paragon and can be viewed on transaction more tabs and will list all associated transactions.

Supplier code - drop list attribute.  This attribute will be used to determine which supplier location address is to be used on the automatic receipts that are generated from your sales orders / purchase orders.  The list in the drop down can be a code or a short name that can be linked to the ship-from addresses in the vendor module.

Screen setup

Vendor screen

The is primary vendor attribute must be added to the vendor setup screen.  If the attribute is set to on in a vendor, that vendor will be available in the drop list of primary vendors on each product.  Please also note that each vendor ship-from location (or address) can be linked to a supplier code which is then used to determine the proper pick up location for each automated receipt.

Product screen

The primary vendor attribute must be added to the product setup screen.  This will indicate which supplier is to be used when creating automated purchase orders from sales order lines.

Sales order screen

The purchase order name attribute must be added to the sales order lines 

Transaction references is added to the sales order more tab

Purchase order screen

Transaction references is added to the purchase order more tab.  See above for an example.

Shipment screen

Purchase order name set on shipment lines.  See above for an example.

Transaction references is set on the shipment more tab.  See above for an example.

Supplier code is set on shipment lines

Receipt screen

Transaction references is added to the receipts more tab.  See above for an example.

Attribute inheritance

Purchase order name must be inherited from sales order lines to shipment lines.

Install and activate the rules

All rules are activated and maintained from the rules card in the settings screen.

The rule for automatic purchase orders from sales orders must be installed on the after_issue_order trigger.

The rule for automatic receipts from sales orders / purchase orders must be installed on the after_issue_shipment trigger.

Seeing the rule in action

Once your rules have been installed and activated the workflow described in this article can be followed to see how your rules are being used.

Create and issue a manual sales order to have Paragon generate all required purchase orders based on the primary vendor on each product.

Issue your purchase orders manually to prepare them for automatic receipts.

Create shipments from your original sales orders and issue them to have Paragon generate all required receipts based on the vendor, purchase order and selected vendor location / address.  Each receipt can be printed and given to your drivers as pick up requests for each supplier location.

What now?

Now that you have successfully run through the suggested workflow from sales order to receipt all that's left to do is to invoice your clients and complete your receipts so that your inventory levels are correctly adjusted.