Materials

What is the function of Purchase Management Module in Reckoner?
Answer. Purchase Management Module handles the purchase of the material based upon the material requirement plan as well as production plan prepared for the period. The materials handling, however, is taken care by the inventory management system which in turn controls the actual consumption and, therefore actual requirements of the materials. Purchase system uses the actual materials requirements and consumption reported by MRP to optimize the purchase plan and perform the purchases accordingly. This module performs the tasks of evaluation of indents, preparation of purchase plans, registration of suppliers, raising of product esquires and tenders, evaluation of quotations, placements of orders, bill passing, post order processing, supplier ratings etc. This module also interfaces with Accounts Receivable and Payable modules for payments processing and analysis. Also it creates necessary vouchers for bill payments by interfacing with financial accounting module. This Module also interacts with the Production Planning and Shop Floor management module for the requirements of goods, which can be produced in-house.
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What do we mean by Item code? What kind of Code can be assigned to an Item? What is the purpose of using Item Code?
Answer. Item Code is a unique Code to uniquely identify an Item . In Reckoner each Item is assigned an item code for unique identification as well as for depicting the heirarchical structure of the various Items as per the Company requirements.
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What does the 3 Structures: Stock group-Stock Type -Stock Category mean?
Answer. Stock Group: Stock Group classifies Items on the basis of their use in the organisation, use to which material is put to in an organisation, for example, 'Raw Material', 'Finished Goods' etc.
In the Stock Groups, you can define Item at the leaf level. The Stock Groups defined here appears in the Purchase Definitions where you define Products (at the leaf level of stock group defined here).

Stock Type: Stock Type is yet another classificatin of the Itenms on the basis of their physical nature or property. More or less left to the discretion of the User to decide the basis on which the Items are to be segregated into various stock types such as it could be Raw materials, Semifinished goods, finished goods, etc.or it could be Chemicals, Plastics, etc. Stock Type is also used to categorise goods for the purpose of storage in the Godowns. Such as in the godown named Raw material godown stores all the Items grouped under the Raw Material Stock Type, etc.

Stock Catergory: Stock Category is basically used to categorise Items under the determined heads as per the norms of twe Company such that these items could be easily referred to for the purpose of reporting. Such as we can categorise te Items under te heads such as the Exciseable and non-exciseable goods. Theuser can then view the details regarding exciseable and non exciseable Items seperately and individually. Reckoner leaves it to the Users discretin to decide the categories he wants to put various Items into according the norms of the organization.
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What is UOM? How de we define UOM in Reckoner?
Answer. UOM means Unit Of Measurement.
Package Definition allows you to define Units of Measurement (UOM) like kilogram, meter, etc. to measure an Item.
To define Package, proceed as follows:
1. Enter Unit Type, Unit Symbol, Unit Name and Base Unit. Specify Dimensions (like length, width and height are dimensions of cubic meter unit) of the unit. If the unit is computed, in that case specify the 'Computation Formula' (For example, if you define Box as Unit, you could measure its volume. Specify the formula length *breadth *height).

2. Click on Add button in the lower frame to enter the details like Dimensions Description, Base Unit, Minimum Value Maximum Value, etc.
3. Click on Save.

In the Packaging Tab page - The Packaging tab page is basically divided into two parts. First, select the Primary Unit of the item. Enter the Conversion Factor if the Secondary Unit of the item is specified. Each Item can have multiple UOM for example, if item is 'Paper', its primary unit would be 'Meter' and lets say the secondary unit is 'Roll' so in the conversion factor you have to give the value or the measurement that how many meters of papers can come in one roll.
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Does Reckoner allows to maintain any restriction on the size of order for each Material or for each vendor?
Answer. In Reckoner the User can maintain minimum or optimum order size for each material and also for each vendor for that material. It also allows to define other information such as lead time for each vendor, order processing expenses, etc. This information is used by Material Requirement Planning (MRP) regularly for planning.
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How does Reckoner keep track of Issue of materials?
Answer. Can maintain optimum issue size for each material. Also it tracks the items which can only be issued as full lots and cannot be broken. System allows maintenance of various issue schemes viz. LIFO, FIFO, etc. however, it also provides flexibility for users to strictly follow the issue scheme or choose the specific item for issue.
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Does Reckoner support Cycle count Frequency?
Answer. Reconer supports detailed physical stock counting process. System also allows to define stock counting frequency / cycle count frequency for different items differently based upon ABC Classification, etc. Generates automated reminders / count documents. Allows to define rules for allowable stock variations, etc.
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What all types of Stock for Items are supported in Reckoner?
Answer. Suppots various types of stock options for items such as Stock items, consumption or non stock items, service items, consignment stock, BOM assemblies, etc.
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Does Reckoner allow to maintain and monitor various lead times?
Answer. Allows to maintain and monitor various lead times for materials availability. Also overall lead times for specific vendors for different materials can be maintained. System also takes care of indegenous / imported material lead time.
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Does Reckoner allow excess and short receipt of materials?
Answer. System allows to define over and under quantity variation in the goods receipt. This can be defined for individual materials or for Goods receipt process or for individual vendors.
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How many types of serial numbers are supported in Reckoner and what is the significance of revision number in the serial number?
Answer. Revision number. It is generally used by Sales and Purchase modules, to maintain the revision state of their documents.
Revision number is generally used for the documents which needs to be revised from time to time such as Purchase Order, Quotation, Invoice, Production Order, etc. The system ensures that the serial number for the revised document should remain the same and only the revision number should be added/appended to the existing serial number for that document.
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Does reckoner have any facility such that a person can approve a document before it is finally posted?
Answer. All documents support authrisation process for one or many authorisers who can authorise / reject / or send for review (after/before authorisation) any document.
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How many types of statuses does materials in a Reckoner document have?
Answer. Reckoner supports various statuses for each material in stock such as available for use / under inspection / rejected / consignment stock / subcontractor stock / reserved stock, etc.
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If any Authoriser wants to state any reason for his disapproval or any such note while authorizing?
Answer. Each authoriser can put his comments or notes on documents while authorising or rejecting it..
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Sometimes in an organisation's godown the stock of certain materials is not available and the organisations often use substitute materials for these Items. Is there any such facility to track the subtitute materials in case of emergency use?
Answer. Reckoner allows definition of substitute items for consumption. Even BOM allows definition of alternative materials to be used in different cases.
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Does Reckoner provides any special marks that the Items bear on them as a mark of identification?
Answer. System can generate lot nos. and hence stickers displaying lot nos or barcodes can be printed for each item. This allows easy identification of items with respect to various documents.
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How much textual information can the user store about the materials?
Answer. Allows maintenance of remarks, long description and a short description for each material.
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How do we maintain the database of the Vendors and Customers (personal information) of our company through Reckoner?
Answer. reckoner records the personal information such as name, address, phone number, etc., for each of the organisation's Vendor and each of organisation's Customer through party Definition. In reckoner each andevery Vendor and each and every customer of an organisation is considered a party.

In reckoner first of all the User adds information of any vendor or customer is dealing with in the Party definition and then through purchase or Sales modules describe that whether that Party is he dealing with is a Vendor or a Customer respectively or both.

E.g., In Purchase Module while defining Supplier the User has to give Party reference for that Supplier.
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How can we restrict Reckoner users from generating orders to the supplier whose previous records are not worth keeping further dealings with them?
Answer. Reckoner allows the User to assign some status to the Supplier based on which the transactions could be caried or stoppped with that supplier accordingly. Supplier status could be 'Open', 'Purge Transaction' or 'Blocked'. Transactions with the supplier are done if the status is open. Blocked refers to the status where transactions with the suppliers are closed temporarily due to some misunderstanding between the supplier and the company. Purge Transaction means that no further transactions would be carried out with the specific supplier in future.
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What all other information does Reckoner keep track of about the Vendor?
Answer. Reckoner keeps track of all the information relevant and crucial for the organisation such as Market Share, years of relation with the organisation, Average Annual sales, Average Annual Purchase, Last year purchase, Total Purchase till date, Credit allowed, Payment days, Frequency of Purchases, Charges Specification as given by the Vendor, etc.
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How many types of Godown are supprted by Reckoner?
Answer. Reckoner supports two types of Godown definition Physical Godowns and Logical Godown, wherein both the types are used for grouping the various godowns under these. Physical Godowns refer to the physical location of th godown where the goods are stored whereas logical godowns are the used justto group certain godowns. While defining physical godown the user has to tick "Storage of Material".
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Does Godown Definition has any heirarchy?
Answer. Reckoner facilitates heirarchical structure of godowns wherein the User can group certain godowns together as per the norms of the Company. User can create any number of Logical godowns that would hold a number of other logical as well as physical godowns. If a godown falls under another godown then the user has to specify the name of the Parent godown while defining the child godown. Also the User has to add all the sub-groups that has to be stored in the godown and the type of stock that is to be stored in this godown.
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How do we know that who is the Incharge of the godown and who is the person who can issue the material and receive the same on behalf of the Company?
Answer. In Godown definition [Path: File--> Definitions--> Materials--> Stock--> Godown Definition] the system prompts the User to enter Godown Incharge who can be any person irrespective of whether he belongs to any group of users of Reckoner or not since the User can enter here any name. Then the designation of the receiver of material could also be selected from the drop down provided in Godown Definition.
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Is there inter company stock transfer transactions with financial effect?
Answer. Yes.
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Can multiple GRN to one Purchase voucher possible?
Answer. Yes.
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Is there physical stock verification interface in Reckoner?
Answer. Yes.
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Can we do transactions to show material sent on returnable basis?
Answer. Yes . Multiple options are available . You can define a outside godwon and do stock transfer which will give you informatioon of how much material is lying outside. You can use similar method for subcontracting also. Also you have an option where you can define a direct issue and return against the issue which is linked to the issue.
For example, we have a fixture / gauge which needs to be sent outside for repairs/ maintenance. As this is an item going out of the factory it won't be available for its functional use till it is received back. Thus we will show an outgoing entry & incoming entry (linked to the original one).
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Can we do transaction to show material sent on nonreturnable basis?
Answer. Yes.
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Can we show transactions of material movement sent to third party for reprocessing/ reworking?
Answer. Yes, as explained in #181.
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Does Reckoner supports lot tracking?
Answer. Yes.
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Is varied material issue schemes available - LIFO/ FIFO , any other?
Answer. Yes.
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Is batch expiry date available for raw material?
Answer. Yes, under enhancement currently.
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Can there be auto generation of batch number?
Answer. Yes.
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Is there bar code interface?
Answer. Yes.
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How system value goods at FG stage?
Answer. For valuation at FG stage, it can be at Standard cost defined for the Finished Product which can be updated on a monthly basis OR the option exists to value at actual cost which is actual rm qty and actual cost + reources at std cost * actual qty as entered in production confirmation.
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Can we add fixed % or amount per unit as Production Overhead for valuation of inventory ?
Answer. Yes.
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How do we know non moving items in stock ?
Answer. List of slow or non moving items report is available.
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Does sytem have mapping that not to accept expired material?
Answer. Yes under enhancement currently.
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Can we attach drawings (PDF or any other form ) in item master?
Answer. Yes.
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Can we have variance of book stock value & physical stock value interfaced externally ?
Answer. System has complete support for stock reconcilaition. One option is the stock reconcilaition document type will show you stock as per books and you can enter the physical and system will automatically reconcile and generate reconcilation GRIN/issue. Otherwise for interfacing with external device to this document can be customised depeneding upon how you will bring in the data.
E.g As on year end date we take a physical stock of all locations. Book (system) stock will be different from the physical stock. We need to have interface of book to physical stock - so that physical stock will be uploaded in the system. This is to find quantity variance and subsequently value variance. Significant variances will need an explanation to be given to auditors as well as internal analysis.
System has complete support for stock reconcilaition. One option is the stock reconcilaition document type will show you stock as per books and you can enter the physical and system will automatically reconcile and generate reconcilation GRIN/issue. Otherwise for interfacing with external device to this document can be customised depeneding upon how you will bring in the data.
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Can we disable a item code?
Answer. Yes.
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Can there be inventory adjustments - Book to physical?
Answer. Yes.
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ITEM

What is the difference between an Item and a Product?
Answer. All physical goods available and in use by an organisation are referred to as Items. An Item can be a raw material, finished good, spare part etc. Reckoner allows definition of all inventory/ stock items in the Inventory Management Module. However the system also allows extending the definition of the item in Sales, Purchase, and Production Modules as Products based upon the information required in those modules
An Item can therefore be associated with multiple products.
For example, 'Tube Light' is a commodity in an organisation, the supplier refers to it as 'Philips Tube Light', 'Crompton Tube Light', 'Surya Tube Light'. Here, 'Tube Light' is the Item and 'Philips Tube Light', 'Crompton Tube Light', and 'Surya Tube Light' are Products.
This concept is useful because for a user what is important is a tubelight not the make or other characteristics of the item. This concept helps in reducing the size of inventory in the Item Master, which in turn helps in better control of resources. Hence, you need to define both Item and Products.
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Can Reckoner keep track of goods entering the premises? If so how?
Answer. Reckoner tracks the incoming as well as outgoing materials in and from the stores of the organisation through the Gate Entry function of Reckoner.

In Reckoner we have various Items which could be a raw material or a product, i.e., a finished product. Does Reckoner track any as to whether a type of Item is produced or purchased,etc.?
Answer. Item Sourcing can be defined for individual items such as manufactured, purchased, subcontracted, by-product, traded, etc. In Item definition (All physical goods available and in use by an organisation are referred to as Items. Use this function to define Items and information specific to them.) on Item Tab page the user has to enter the Item Source (Item can be produced, purchased or it can be a by-product).
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Does Reckoner provides any facility to enable the user to enter any substitute for a product?
Answer. Yes, In Item definition Reckoner allows the user to provide substitue for the Item, if any.
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Can there be multiple quotations to one Purchase Order Possible?
Answer. Yes.
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Can there be multiple P.O to One GRN possible?
Answer. No. Not recommended by Best Practices.
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Is one P.O to multiple GRN possible?
Answer. Yes.
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Is one Quotation to multiple P.O possible?
Answer. Yes.
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Can there be Quotation comparison for multiple suppliers?
Answer. Yes.
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Can import documentation be handled ? (capturing all relevant data - B/L, mode bill of entry details, mode of transport, statutory details etc)
Answer. Yes, may require some customization. Data capture is definable for most of the things in imports but if specific document prints are required then customisation may be involved.
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Can we raised P.O for services?
Answer. Yes.
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Can we define multiple delivery schedules against a open purchase order?
Answer. Yes.
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Can we define suppliers item code against our item code in the master?
Answer. Yes.
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Can we attach suppliers to specific purchase items?
Answer. Yes.
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How do we assign or assess a rating to supplier?
Answer. System calcuated on the following parameters: Rejection %, Comparision between average cost and supplier average cost, Comparision between minimum cost and supplier minimum cost, Average delivery days, Average supplier delivery, Average delay days, Average supplier delay days.
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Is there price revision history - for suppliers?
Answer. Yes.
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Is there material requirement planning?
Answer. Yes.
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Can we close P.O's?
Answer. Yes.
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A purchase order may have 5 items ; 2 items with 5 & discount, next 2 items with 10 % discount & last item without discount. Can we have line level discount code ?
Answer. Yes.
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LOT & SERIAL NUMBER CONTROL

Can Lot numbers be generated : Manually in Reckoner?
Answer. In Reckoner, Materials can be issued in lots which can be either system generated lots or lots generated manually.
Item Definition, the Schemes Tab page - select the Storage Type as 'User would enter' from the drop down menu. Any item that comes to stores is kept in lots and the lot number would be alloted by the User. It helps in keeping track of the item so that older stock can be issued earlier.
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Can Items be tracked by lot numbers in Reckoner?
Answer. Reckoner provides the option of generating lots which could help the user to issue materials in lots.
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How many Issue Schemes does Reckoner provides for?
Answer. FIFO
FIFO (Lot wise)
HIFO
LIFO
LIFO [Lot wise]
Moving Simple Average Price Method
Moving Weightage Average Price Method
Simple Average Price Method
Standard Cost Method
Weightage Average Price Method
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How many Stock Value Schemes does Reckoner provides for?
Answer. FIFO
FIFO (Lot wise)
HIFO
LIFO
LIFO [Lot wise]
Moving Simple Average Price Method
Moving Weightage Average Price Method
Simple Average Price Method
Standard Cost Method
Weightage Average Price Method
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INSPECTION

Does Reckoner have the facility of Inspection of materials?
Answer. Reckoner allows inspection definition at the level of individual materials or Goods Receipt Notes. Can maintain information such as inspection required Y/N, inspector name,etc., in Item Definition's Inspection Tab page, inspection procedure, inspection report format,etc. If Inspection Required is yes then the system allows Inspwction after Goods Receipt.
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What is the exact procedure for Inspection?
Answer. In Item Definition in the Inspection Tab page - Tick the Inspection Required if the item requires an inspection. Inspection of an item is also available at the time of Goods Receive but here with this Inspection Required option, the system forces the user to do inspection of this particular item even if the Goods Receive document don't need inspection. Here select the Inspector for the inspection.
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RFQ

What is an RFQ?
Answer. A request for quotation (RFQ) is an inquiry raised to a vendor asking for the prices he charges for the product/products and his terms & conditions, if any, for the supply of a material.The RFQ specifies the materials required, quantity required of a material, and the time duration of the supply of the same.
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What all features does Reckoner provide for the RFQ in the system?
Answer. A request for quotation (RFQ) is an inquiry raised to a vendor asking for the prices he charges for the product/products and his terms & conditions, if any, for the supply of a material.The RFQ specifies the materials required, quantity required of a material, and the time duration of the supply of the same. In addition, it also has the submission dates and the closing date for sending the quotations but these are optional. Every Product in the RFQ contains the reference of the Vendor to whom the RFQ is sent. Thus one RFQ can be sent to the multiple Vendors. User can raise an inquiry against an Indent Ref. No. or independently (ie. without an Indent). If Quotation already exists against items mentioned in inquiry then one can directly raise a Purchase Order from there. Archiving/Deleting RFQ: - The User can archive the RFQ for certain time interval or he may delete the RFQ from the database.
Prerequisites: User can raise an Inquiry against the authorized indents only.
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In Reckoner what is the RFQ Entry in system?
Answer. In the RFQ entry screen the User Selects the R.F.Q. Type from the tree. On selection of the type the system gets all the items which have the stock group types that are associated with the selected R.F.Q. The products drop down in the RFQ detail data window is filled-up with these Items. The system also stores the serial no. type and whether indent reference is required for the later use. This information is fetched from the RFQ definition. If with the selected RFQ the Indent reference no. is required the user can select from the list of the Indent Nos. This list contains only the authorized Indents. On selection of the indent no. the system gets all the items requested in that indent and select the common items from the selected indent and RFQ type which were filtered at the time of selecting the RFQ type. The Products Drop down finally gets filled-up with these common items. On saving, the system checks for the validity of the mandatory columns. User just enters items and its quantities to be purchased. Quantity can't be(-)ve. One item can't be entered twice. On saving, system changes the status of that indent to "Inquiry raised" in Indent Detail Data Store. And generates the RFQ no. The user can select the Vendors/Suppliers to which this RFQ is to be sent from the supplier user object which will be attached as the second tab page.
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How does Reckoner map the process of RFQ creation for Indents?
Answer. Here, while raising RFQ, system will prompt user for information of Indent no. And accordingly the following details of Indent of the selected Indent gets filled up in the user object of Indent entry and attached as the third tabpage.
Indent Date
Indent Initiator
Item Name
Quantity
Unit
Required Date
Supplier
Justification
Remarks
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What do you mean by an Indent?
Answer. An Indent is a Document that defines a need for a material or service. It is a request to the Purchase Department for buying a specified quantity of the required material within a specified time period.
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Against which all documents Indent can be raised?
Answer. An Indent can be raised with reference to the item requisitions from the Inventory but reference of the requisition(s) is optional and depends upon how the Indent Type is defined in the system. However, it is always relevant to create an indent in reference to an item requisition, for the purpose of MRP. System always, considers item requisition as a demand in the system, whereas indent defines the supply aspect of it, which is confirmed when an indent is approved or a PO [Purchase Order] is raised against it, Although, system can always, compute net requirement position, even if indent & item requisitions are not linked, but it will always, provide meaningful data. Also, with the help of this information, system can reserve the material being purchased for the requester that was specified in requisition. This linkage should always be maintained in order to purchase non-stock materials or materials to be consumed directly without their inventory visibility.
It is not necessary to link every indent with item requisition.
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When does an Indent gets automatically closed?
Answer. When the Indent ordered qty for all items is included in the Purchase Order then the Indent can be considered as 'Closed'.
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How can the Indent be raised?
Answer. The indents can either be directly used to raise the Purchase Order Or can go through the Proper sequence of Requesting of RFQ from different Vendors then Rating the Quotations received from different Vendors and then raising the Purchase Orders. All the indents can be directly used to raise the Purchase Order except the Indents whose status is 'Closed'. Many Requisitions can be clubbed together to raise an indent.
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Can all Indents be directly used to raise the Purchase Order?
Answer. All the indents can be directly used to raise the Purchase Order except the Indents whose status is 'Closed'.
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What is the process to proceed when a User recongnises a need for any material?
Answer. For any material requirement user raises a item requisition stating the issue purpose, required material and quantity.
System sees this as a demand and will try to fulfil from the available stock.
If stock is not available the required material need to be purchased/ produced. If the user raising requisition can identify the non-availability & wants to purchase the material also, he may raise an indent at the same time (which is the case of 1 indent for 1 requisition). Here requisition no. will be stored in indent by system.
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What relationship does Reckoner system establishes between the Item Requisition and the Indent?
Answer. System treats indent as demand fulfillment/ supply of materials. By linking with a requisition, system can establish a relationship between demand & supply.
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Can we reserve the Materials in advance owing to the prospective demand of Material in future?
Answer.Yes, if item requisition for the required material is raised, the Item is booked for the department raising requisition. The demand & Supply are integrated together and material is committed for the item required.
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What if the User doesn't raise the Indent?
Answer. If user doesn't or can't raise an indent, it is for the MRP or the purchase manager to fulfill the demand. To fulfill the demand, both MRP as well as purchase manager will create indents. In both cases, indent will not have info about item requisitions. MRP will estimate the requirement by looking at the current stock, safety stock and requisitions in hand. It will raise 1 or many indents for the balance requirements. Similar to MRP, purchase manager or some other user, can create indent manually looking at the current requisition, or if they just feel like purchasing something, even without an item requisition. In this case, they will either convert existing requisitions or can enter an indent manually. MRP will define, how system, knows, which all item requisitions are covered by system for materials availability.
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