Division Inventory Parameters

The tunable divisional Inventory Parameters can be accessed from the window in the Division Parameters.
These parameters set the division definitions and defaults that impact inventory control, including:

General Settings

SHOW WARNING WHEN RENTING LOCATION IS NOT OWNING

Check this box to generate a warning message on the screen when a non-bulk rental product is rented from a location, other than the "Owning Location" identified on the Fixed Asset Tag.

Uncheck this box to suppress any warning about the owning location differing from the rental division.

DISABLE MERGING ASSET TAGS IN SALE TO RENTAL XFER

When Sales products are transferred to merge with a Bulk Rental product using Transfer Sale To Rental, the new rental product can be added to an existing Fixed Asset Tag, or to create a new tag.

Uncheck this box to allow the operator to select an existing Fixed Asset Tag from the window, to which the additional product quantities being transferred should be added.

Uncheck this box to generate a new tag for transfers to bulk rental products, if the rental product is flagged to allow multiple tags.

# OF DAYS TO DISPLAY HISTORY FOR SALES PRODUCTS

Enter the number of previous days of sales history to display for this customer for a Sales part, when it is sold on an Invoice, Contract, Quote, etc., as outlined in Sales Product History.
Any sales activity on unposted invoices for the customer is not reflect in this history.

AUTO DISPLAY HISTORY FOR SALES PRODUCTS IN DOCS

This setting only applies if a value has been entered in the # Of Days To Display History For Sales Products field for this division.
This parameter can then be set to always display this sales activity in the documents, or to just make it accessible on demand.

Check this box to pop-up the Sales Product History window after the sales part is entered on an Invoice, Contract, Quote, etc, displaying the customer's posted sales activity for the Sales part for the past number of days as determined in the # Of Days To Display History For Sales Products parameter.

Uncheck this box to suppress the automatic display of the sales history window on the document.
This information can still be viewed on the product detail line on the document by windowing on the Unit Price field to access the Special Pricing Search window, and then clicking on the Sales History button.

TWO STEP TRANSFERS UPDATE STATUS CODE

As Non-bulk rental items are received at a location using Receive Branch Transfer, the Status Code can be automatically updated to control whether the equipment is available for rent or not, as defined by the Status Code pre-set when the transfer was initiated in Internal Branch Transfer.
For an example of the application of this feature refer to the "Status Code Update on Branch Transfer" explanation in Internal Transfer Console.

Check this box to provide the option to choose a new Status Code in Internal Branch Transfer to apply to all non-bulk equipment on the transfer, when it is received at a destination location through Receive Branch Transfer.
For more information on Status Code processing refer to Product Status Code Overview.

Uncheck this box to suppress this processing in Internal Transfer Console.

REGIONAL RESERVATION PROCESSING

The 'Regional Reservation Inventory Availability & Fulfillment' feature enables overbooking on the reservation when there is insufficient quantity available at the current location but there is time to acquire the quantity needed, or there is quantity available at another store located in the same Region.
To utilize this feature the Company Security Parameters to Allow Overrides On Location Quantities For Reservations should NOT be activated and the Group availability checking needs to be on for relevant Groups.

• Regional Inventory Transfer to Fill Over-Booking:
  This processing provides the ability to create a Reservation with an over-booking of selected products and groups when there is quantity available for the period of the reservation at another Location within that Branch/Division's Default Inventory Region.
  The Maximum Group Quantities parameter can be used to control the products by Group, that can be overbooked based on using an Internal Branch Transfers to move the products in the area to the reservation location.
  The Regional Reservations Days value is used to determine whether there is sufficient time to complete a transfer, which controls how the availability checking should be calculated.

  The Region Reservation Fulfillment utility can be run by Region, manually or automatically by the INRF20 job from Automatic Reporting, to generate the Internal Branch Transfer transactions to fill the overbookings for eligible products, by moving the products in the area to the reservation location.
  A Rank can be assigned to a Location in the Region table, to establish a priority for fulfillment.

• External Fulfillment of Over-Booking:
  This processing provides the ability to create a Reservation with an over-booking when there is no quantity in the area, based on a defined Lead Time of a minimum number of days which could allow a Branch manager time to organize a re-rent or to buy extra stock before the Reservation order is due.
  The Maximum Group Quantities parameter can be used to control how many items by Group are allowed to be overbooked over the regional availability.

  The Product/Group Bookings Report can be run manually or can be run automatically by the RSRQ10 job from the Automatic Reporting, to identify products or groups that have been overbooked over what is available at the regional level.

The configuration and setup for this inventory over-booking and location control feature on Reservations, can be accessed from the Region Reservation Processing window provided.

Availability Settings

INVENTORY LOCATION CHECKING

Check this box if the inventory being entered on an invoice needs to respect quantities currently available at the document Location.
Uncheck this box to disable the Location checking at this division, and to respect quantities available at all locations.

For Example:
There is a quantity of 5 at location A, but none at location B
When this flag is unchecked the item could still be sold on an Invoice for Location B even though there are none at that location.
Conversely when this flag is checked, none could be sold on an Invoice from B as it is checking location quantities.

USE REQUIREMENTS WHEN CALCULATING AVAILABILITY

Requirement checking uses the document date to determine availability at a location.
The response to this parameter is exercised according to the operator's location, as assigned in Operators.

Uncheck this box to use current location product count as the available quantity on the counter documents, without checking the requirements by document dates.
This availability checking then only considers product quantities available for rental or sale at the location, and any quantities that are out on documents regardless of date are considered not available.

• Product quantity available = quantity now On Hand at the location (RSIL), less any total quantities from the location on Contract, on Reservation, on Work Order, and on Sales Order.
  

Because the availability requirement is based on location when the Use Requirements when Calculating Availability is not activated for a division, only those same four reserved Status Codes display for Non-bulk rental equipment in the product search window on the document:

C - on Contract
W - on Work Order
R - on Reservation
O - on a Sales Order

i.e. Product Status Codes such as WB for in Wash Bay, etc, are not reflected in the product searches.

Note: When not utilizing the Use Requirements when Calculating Availability feature, because only the location totals are considered, any products on these open documents regardless of the document date, are counted as committed.
This means availability could be distorted if documents such as old reservations (unfilled or honoured) are not purged, or old contracts are not closed.

Check this box to cause the availability checking for products on counter documents to check product requirements for the actual dates of the document.
This results in a more accurate availability number, however because each document must be checked for actual dates of use, the check process could take longer.

• Product quantity = quantity On Hand at the location, less quantities that are out as of the document date on Contract, on Reservation, on Work Order, on Sales Order, and also less quantities on saved Worksheets times the rental conversion factor
  
• Group quantity = product quantity On Hand at the location, less sum of product quantities in that Group that are out as of the document date (on Contract, on Reservation, on Work Order, on Sales Order and less on saved Worksheets times the rental conversion factor), less sum of Group quantities (on saved Worksheets, and Reservations times the rental conversion factor).

In the product lookup selection window on the Worksheet, Contract, etc., any Non-bulk rental equipment that is NOT available will display one of the following codes:

C - on Contract
D - on a Delivery
E - Exchanged but not yet available
F - Off Rental
I - on Inventory Transfer
L - on a Lease O - on a Sales Order
P - on a Pickup
R - on Reservation
S - on a Saved Counter Worksheet
W - on Work Order
X - on Pickup Exchange
CP - on a Closed Pickup

Requirement Checking Example:

Product A has quantity of 3.
1 of A is out on contract from the 1st to the 10th
1 of A is out from the 20th to the 30th

Attempt to rent all 3 of A on the 8th.

Using Requirement checking 2 would show as available on the 8th.
Not using Requirement checking would show only 1 as available.

TWO STEP TRANSFERS CHECK AVAILABILITY FOR # DAYS

The two-step processes, checks the current on hand quantity available at the time of the inventory transfer and also checks the bookings for the period of time determined by the number of days set for the division.
By setting a "number of days" a time allowance can be set when the equipment is in transit and not available.

Enter zero or blank if only the quantity on hand at the location should be checked when quantities are transferred from one location to another using Enter Internal Branch Transfers.

To activate the two-step product availability and requirement checking feature when products are transferred in Enter Internal Branch Transfers, enter the number of days starting as of the transfer date.
This value determines the period of time during which availability requirements should continue to be checked, and will prevent any transfers from being generated within that period if the transfer quantity would cause an overbooking in the "Transfer From" location.
Any overbooking warnings are displayed during this period.

The Allow Overrides on Location Quantities availability flag is respected as set in the Company Security Parameters.

CURRENT RENTAL INVENTORY STATUS QUESTION DEFAULT

This divisional default preference is based on the default division of the operator as defined in Operator Codes.
This can be over-typed in Current Rental Inventory as required.

Check this box to cause the "Include Status Avail = N prompt in the Current Rental Inventory inquiry to default to YES.
Uncheck this box to cause the "Include Status Avail = N prompt in the Current Rental Inventory inquiry to default to NO.

Document Search Settings
These parameters define the default settings for the filters provided in the Inventory Search utility that can be used on a document to select the products.
The defaults can always be over-typed.
The parameter defaults in the search window are respected according to the document location.
In the case of a worksheet starting without specifying the location, the defaults are applied according to the operator location as defined in Operators.

COMPANY WIDE SEARCH LIMIT

This is a display information field only and defaults from the value defined by the Maximum Number of Search Results quantity set in the Company Inventory Parameters.

DEFAULT PRODUCT TYPE

Select one of the following product types to use as the default in the inventory search for this location:

• Select Rental to set the default product search to Rental equipment only.
• Select Sale to set the default product search to Sales parts only.
• Select Both to set the default to include Both rental and sales products in the search.

Note: Certain sales programs such as sales orders, sales quotes and invoicing, will default this search setting to Sales regardless of the default set for the division.

DEFAULT LOCATION, "ALL" OR "SEL"

This parameter sets the default location for the product search on documents for this division, as follows:

• Type ALL to include all locations in the search.
• For a single location, leave this field blank for the Head Office, or select a specific location code from the drop-down list.
• Type SEL to use a selection of locations to be included in the searches for this Location, as outlined in Default Search Locations.

USE LOCATION IN INVENTORY SEARCH

The default location defined for the division by the Default Location, "ALL" or "SEL" parameter above always applies to the Inventory Search on documents, but not always to product searches in the inquiries as the search in these utilities is usually required company wide.
This parameter can be set to cause Inventory Inquiries to respect the Default Location, "ALL" or "SEL" value.

Uncheck this box if Inventory Inquiries should default to ALL in the product search.

Check this box if the Inventory Inquiries should respect the Default Location, "ALL" or "SEL" value set for this division.

DEFAULT AVAILABLE ONLY

Uncheck this box to include both available and unavailable products in the product search.

Check this box to only display available products, so that products with zero or negative quantities at the location, will not be included in the product search results.

DEFAULT DISPLAY GROUPS

This prompt applies to only for the Rental product searches.

Check this box to default the search to Groups for this division.
Uncheck this box to default the search to list products.

Note: All defaults can always be over-typed in the search selection window as required.

COLOR WHEN AVAILABLE

Accept the default colour to display in the Inventory Search window when signed in at this division, for groups, rental and sales products, when there is quantity available with no commitment for the requested period, or select a preferred colour from the Colour Selection window provided.

COLOR WHEN BOOKED IN FUTURE

Accept the default colour to display in the Inventory Search window when signed at this division for groups, rental and sales products, when there is quantity available but there is any future booking on reservations, contracts, or worksheets, or select a preferred colour from the Colour Selection window provided.

COLOR WHEN OVERDUE

Accept the default colour to display in the Inventory Search window when signed at this division for non-bulk rentals only, when there is quantity available at the period start because there is a reservation or contract Due Back, or select a preferred colour from the Colour Selection window provided.

Note: This status really only applies when Use Requirements when Calculating Availability is activated for the division above, and if Show Off-Rent As Available in the Company Security Parameters or Show Stale-Dated Contracts As Available in the Company Contract Parameters.

Example conditions include:

Open Contract, Reservation or Worksheet with date due back prior to current rental period.
Off-rental or pickup dated prior to current rental period.
Reservation not honoured or converted that ended prior to the current period.

COLOR WHEN NOT AVAILABLE

Accept the default colour to display in the Inventory Search window when signed at this division for groups, rental and sales products, when there is no quantity available, or select a preferred colour from the Colour Selection window provided.

NON-BULK RENTAL PRIMARY SORT

The non-bulk rental equipment can be sorted in the Inventory Search window to present preferred units first in the selection list, applying the Primary Sort method first and then the Secondary Sort within the Primary sort.

The choices for the optional preliminary sort that can be utilized for only non-bulk rental equipment include the following:

• Status Code to use the sort sequence setup in the Status Code Sort Order window below.

  Note: To use the "non-reserved" Status Codes in this sort the Use Requirements when Calculating Availability feature must be activated for the division.

• Date Last Moved to sort by the oldest last moved date defined in Sales Inventory / Rental Inventory.

• Last 3 Months Rental Hours to sort by the highest hours rented over the last three month calendar period.

NON-BULK SECONDARY SORT

An optional secondary sort within the primary sort can be utilized for non-bulk rental equipment with one of the options outlined above.

STATUS CODE SORT ORDER

The equipment search results can be sorted and displayed in a selected Product Status order for non-bulk rental products, defined by individual divisions as outlined in the Product Inquiry Sort Order window.

Finished?

Click OK to exit the window.

Note: Any changes made to the Inventory Parameters will not be applied until the Division Parameters are accepted.