Automatically allocate stock to a sales order allocation proposal line

Related topics

The following describes how to automatically allocate stock to all of the sales order lines that are included in an existing allocation proposal.

A sales order allocation proposal line displays the quantity of the item that your customer has ordered. On this same line, you have to enter the quantity that you will be able to deliver to your customer. Depending on the availability of stock, you will be able to do either a complete delivery of the ordered quantity or a partial delivery. If only a partial delivery of the ordered quantity of goods has been allocated, a new sales order line for the remaining quantity will be automatically generated when the pick list is confirmed (see About pick list confirmation). This means that a sales order line can be split into two deliveries; the second delivery being the back order quantity. The priority code used by the back order line will be the back order priority assigned to the customer. Back orders are allocated in the same manner as sales orders.

It is, however, important to note that the quantity of stock that the system automatically allocates is only a suggested quantity. The system is versatile enough to allow you to either accept this suggestion or manually change it (see Enter or change the allocated quantity on a sales order allocation proposal line and Confirm a manually created sales order allocation proposal).

There are two methods that can be used for automatically allocating stock to a sales order allocation proposal line. These are: auto allocate and fair share handling.

Auto allocate

This is used to distribute the available quantity of goods to the customers according to their priority.

Scenario:
Assume the following table depicts your current stock situation and the ordered quantity is 50. The available quantity (25) is insufficient to cover the ordered quantity (50). Since Customer3 has the lowest priority, the auto allocate function would not assign any goods to their sales order allocation line. Customer1 and Customer2 would be allocated the goods due to their high priority status:

Quantity in stock that is available to allocate = 25
Customer	Priority	Ordered quantity	Auto allocate will distribute
Customer1	1	20	20
Customer2	1	5	5
Customer3	9	25	0
The remaining quantity in stock is = 0

Note: When the quantity in stock at the delivering warehouse is sufficient to cover the quantity of goods that have been sold then the customer priority is irrelevant because all of the customers will be allocated the quantity they have ordered.

Fair share handling

This is used to distribute the available quantity of goods evenly to the customers, i.e. everyone gets something regardless of their priority.

When the available quantity of the item in stock is less than the quantity of goods sold, Fair share will suggest a quantity that is proportional to the ordered quantity. The system distributes the quantity in stock evenly according to the ordered quantity.

Scenario:
Assume the following table depicts your current stock situation and the ordered quantity is 20. The available quantity (8) is insufficient to cover the ordered quantity (20). The fair share function will assign goods to all of the sales order allocation lines:

Quantity in stock that is available to allocate = 8
Customer	Priority	Ordered quantity	Fair share will distribute
Customer1	1	10	4
Customer2	1	5	2
Customer2	9	5	2
The remaining quantity in stock is = 0

The following steps provide information on how to use auto allocate and fair share handling.

Select the Work with sales order allocation menu item.
On the initial panel, select the applicable proposal and click Details.
You access Work with sales order allocation, All lines, displaying all of the sales order lines that belong to the sales order allocation. The sales order lines are listed according to dispatch date and priority. The customers that have the highest priority are ranked first.
In the top right corner of the panel information is provided in the following fields:

Ava to allocate

Denotes the quantity that is available in stock to be allocated.

Remaining

This field is a counter and displays the quantity of stock remaining after the goods have been allocated to the sales order lines.

Fields that can be changed on this panel include:

Allocated

A suggested value is already displayed in this field if Auto allocation was set to YES when the sales order allocation proposal was created (see Create a sales order allocation proposal for allocated items).

Priority

This field will be covered in Enter or change the priority of a sales order allocation proposal line.

Auto-allocate
If a suggested quantity is not displayed in the Allocated field on the sales order line click Auto Alloc. The system will display the same panel again, but with updated quantities. Note: Goods will only be allocated to the lines that are inside the planning time.

Clear allocations
The Clear alloc function key is used to clear all of the values that are entered in the Allocated column.

Fair share handling
If the Remaining field displays a negative quantity, then there is insufficient stock and the ordered quantity cannot be delivered. In that case fair share handling should be used. Note: To use fair share handling the Allocated column must not contain any values. Click Clear alloc to remove all values. Click Fair share to use the fair share function. The system will automatically distribute a proportional quantity of goods based on the ordered quantity. Note: Goods will only be allocated to the lines that are inside the planning time.

Click OK. The system will display the same panel again, but with the updated quantities.

Note: Some sales order lines can only be allocated the total quantity on order. This may be due to the dispatch code which may not allow a partial delivery of the sales order line or that only a complete delivery is permitted for the customer (see the Panel help for a summary of the dispatch codes).

Note: For the lines that do allow a partial delivery, a back order will be created according to normal back order rules, and will be given the back order priority assigned to the customer in the Business partner file.

What to do next
If you want to manually change the suggested quantity of a sales order line you can do so by following the instructions in Enter or change the allocated quantity on a sales order allocation proposal line.

If you are satisfied with the quantities that were automatically allocated by the system then you are now ready to confirm the sales order allocation line and print the pick list. Follow the instructions in Confirm a manually created sales order allocation proposal.