Purchasing
From Aligni Wiki
Aligni's purchasing feature enables creation of vendor purchase orders directly from you database. Purchase integration allows you to take advantage of the Aligni PartCart to efficiently create purchase orders, email them directly to vendors, and receive inventory.
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Creating a New Purchase
To create a new purchase, simply navigate to the Purchases main tab, then click "New". Aligni will create an empty purchase order and automatically select it as the active Part Cart if the Part Cart is not already in use. At this point, you may add parts to the purchase by navigating to other pages within Aligni.
Vendor Purchase Orders
For a single purchase, Aligni manages multiple purchase orders, one for each vendor associated with the purchase. This organization allows you to group parts associated with the same purpose to a single purchase, even if multiple purchase orders need to be created to more than one vendor. Of course, you're welcome to have a single vendor associated to a purchase, as well.
Quantity Helper
The Quantity Helper is a popup activated by clicking the magnifying glass icon near the quantity entry field. This helper has a brief overview of pertinent details that can help you choose the quantity to order. Among the data presented in the Quantity Helper are:
- Reorder Quantity - The quantity manually specified per-part as the minimum inventory quantity.
- Current Inventory - A list of existing inventory at each location as well as any inventory reservations, allocations, or inventory in-transit.
- Historical Consumption - Past inventory consumption for this part over distinct time periods.
- Predicted Consumption - Predicted usage based on planned, allocated, and reserved inventory consumptions.
- Recent Builds - A short list of recent builds that used the part.
- Where-Used - A list of assemblies that include this part on their part list.
Price Helper
The Price Helper is a popup activated by clicking the magnifying glass icon near the price entry field. This helper displays the most recent quotes available for the part and allows you to click on any of them to pre-fill the other entry fields for the purchase. If a particular quote has a min/mult associated, those values will be displayed beneath the quantity entry field. To cancel a quote selection and enter the price and vendor information manually, simply click "Manually enter price."
Submitting Purchase Orders to Vendors
When you complete the purchase, it is good practice to Commit the purchase. This prevents further changes from being made. At this point, you can download a PDF copy of each vendor's purchase order or email them directly from within Aligni to those contacts you have designated to receive POs. When you submit an email purchase order to a vendor, you will also receive a copy of the PDF via email. (In fact, any user that has been selected to receive POs will receive notification with the PO attached.)
Receiving Inventory from Vendors
Finally, when you receive inventory from a vendor, click the "Receive Inventory" link. Entering the quantity received and submitting the form will increase inventory counts at the specified locations. The inventory unit will represent the quantity received and the price paid on the purchase order.
