i-Clarity Purchase Order Processing consists of 5 stages:

1. Creating an initial Purchase Order.
2. Sending it to the supplier.
3. Recording the goods and services that have been received.
4. Reconciling the good received with the supplier invoice
5. Exporting the confirmed invoice to an accounts package, e.g. Xero for analysis and payment.

Purchase Orders are created in 5 different ways:

1. When you create a spectacle order by confirming a dispense.
2. When you create an order from the Direct Debit module.
3. From the Stock Form - e.g. for frame stock.
4. From the Stock Form - automated 'Impress' ordering.
5. From the Stock Form - using automated reorder quantities.

This article looks at method 5, creating a Purchase Order when stock quantities fall below a defined level.

Automated Stock Re-Ordering (Solutions etc)

This is a process for automatically creating a Purchase Order for products that have dropped below a specified re-order level. This can be particularly useful for products such as CL solutions, which have a limited shelf life but you need to hold sufficient stock to be able to supply your patients.

To set up automated stock reordering, you will need to decide - 

• What the minimum stock level you want to trigger the reorder.
• What quantity you want to reorder.

The optimum reorder quantities will depend on several factors, such as - 

• What rate the products are being sold at.
• How long it takes to receive orders from the supplier.
• How much carriage costs are. For example, is it better to wait to send one large order with possibly larger quantities or send multiple smaller orders.
• What quantity discounts are available for bulk orders.
• How often you want to run the process, e.g. every week or every month. For example, you may want to set aside a single day every month to do all the re-ordering so it would be sensible to have higher Min Stock levels and higher re-order quantities.

For the first figure, you can review the sales for each product. You can do this in several ways - 

• Review the sales for an individual product from the stock form.
• Use the 'Full Sales Report' from the Reports module and selecting a suitable time period, e.g. sales over the previous 6 months.
• Use the Detailed Stock Sold report from the Reports Module. Again for a suitable period of time e.g. the last 6 months.

All these factors will change over time, so this is one area of the system that you should keep under constant review.

Having decided what minimum stock level and reorder quantities you want, then go to Maintenance, Products, Products.

Find the product and click the Edit button as shown below.

This will load the following screen.

Click 'Set Re-ordering Levels'. This will load the following screen.

This enables you to set the Minimum Stock Level and Re Order Quantity for the selected product for each branch. Once you have decided these for a particular branch click the '+' button. Once you have added these for each branch, you can the click 'Close'.

Note than you can also remove products from this list by clicking the Delete button.

Purchase Orders are created for products below reorder level by going to the Stock Module, clicking 'Stock Menu' and the 'Replenish Stock'.

This looks at every product that has a Minimum Stock Level recorded against it and, where it finds products that have dropped below, creates a Purchase Order to the relevant supplier for those products. The suppliers are listed in a dialog box like this:

The Purchase Orders themselves can be reviewed before printing by selecting 'Purchase Orders' and then 'View Purchase Orders'. Then use the drop-down for Order Type to select order type 'Replenish to Send'. Just like other Purchase Orders, you can add additional products, delete products and amend quantities before printing and sending the Purchase Order to your supplier.

Note 1 - You cannot create a Replenish type order for a supplier if there is already a Replenish order for that supplier waiting to be sent. If this is the case, then you will see a message on screen like this:

You can either retrieve the Purchase Order(s) and print them, or (possibly better) delete the outstanding Purchase Order and then run the Replenish process again as this will include all the products that were waiting to be ordered in the previous Purchase Order too.

Note 2 - To avoid overstocking, the Replenish Stock process considers existing Purchase Orders that have been created for the supplier but have not yet been received.

Details of products that are set up for reordering can be listed from two Stock Reports:

Products Below Min Stock Level - This shows all those products which are due to be reordered in the next Replenish order.

Stock Reorder Levels - This list all products that are set up with Minimum stock levels and reorder quantities.