Automatic Transfers

STORIS creates an automatic transfer document when:

• the stock location on a sales order delivery line item differs from the ship-from location, or

• the following is true:

- the Inter-Regional Auto Transfers feature (described below) is active on your system,

- secondary stocking locations have been specified for the selected location on an order, and

- insufficient quantity exists at the stocking location to fill the order and sufficient quantity is found at either a secondary stocking location or on an incoming purchase order.

 The Automatic Store Stock Replenishment process also generates automatic transfers.

If you leave the Allow Store to Store (Transfers) field blank on the Inventory page of the Point of Sale Control Settings, the system prevents users from creating transfers for which the main warehouse or the regional warehouse is not either the From or To location.

When determining the date on which to schedule auto transfers, the system references the Auto Schedule Days field on the Inventory page in the Point of Sale Control Settings.

To allow users to change automatic transfer dates so they exceed the delivery date on the linked sales order (and thus allow the transfer merchandise to arrive after the customer's delivery date), use the Change auto transfer date to be greater than delivery date field in the Extended Security settings.

If you re-access an order for which an auto transfer has been completed (for example, for a quantity of 3), the stock location changes to match the ship-from location.  If you then change the stock location back to the original stock location and change the quantity to 5, the system creates a new auto transfer for the entire line item quantity (5).  That is, the system does not subtract the amount transferred on the original auto transfer (3) and create a new auto transfer for the difference (2). To create an auto transfer for the difference (2), enter a new line item.

For auto transfers whose linked order has a delivery status of ASAP, if the Reserve ASAP Sales field in the Inventory Control Settings is enabled, the system schedules the auto transfer for the next day.

For auto transfers whose linked order has a delivery status of CWC, if the Reserve CWC Sales field in the Inventory Control Settings is enabled, the system does not schedule the auto transfer and the delivery date is left blank.

If you activate the Inter-Regional Auto Transfer feature, the system allows auto transfers for SCH (scheduled) orders only, and prevents auto transfers for EST (estimated) orders.

If using Regional Processing, to prevent the creation of automatic transfers that cross regional boundaries, use the Restrict Inter-Region Transfers field in the General System Control Settings. However, the Inter-Regional Auto Transfer feature overrides this field and allows transfers across regions.

The system does not create auto-transfers for non-inventory items.

Auto transfer items received in time for delivery commit to the order, but if the order is on a manifest the system places them on hold.

Inter-Regional Auto Transfers

The Inter-Regional Auto Transfers process has two phases: one in order-entry and the other in the End-of-Day (EOD) process.

Affects on Order Entry

When insufficient inventory exists at the selected stock location on an order, the order entry process back-orders the insufficient quantity.  However, to reduce the number of purchase orders you create for back-orders, you can use the Inter-Regional Auto Transfer feature. This feature attempts to locate the required quantity, either at other stock locations or from open purchase orders, and then creates auto transfers to move any quantities found to the ship location ahead of the delivery date.

If a sales order has a status of SCH, EST, or ASAP with a scheduled/estimated delivery/pickup date, the linked auto transfer must have a date.

Affects on End-of-Day

This portion of the Inter-Regional Auto Transfer feature is itself composed of two parts, each of which runs during End-of-Day. First, a program searches for open purchase orders associated with the ship-from location of open sales orders. If the program finds purchase orders that are scheduled to arrive in time for the delivery date, EOD reserves the merchandise.  

The second part of the process deletes any linked auto transfers that are no longer needed - that is, auto transfers that were likely created by the Inter-Regional Auto Transfer feature but are now unnecessary because either of the following are true:

• merchandise was found on incoming purchase orders, or

• sufficient inventory exists at the ship-from location of the open sales order as a result of the deletion of the auto transfer. That is, when EOD deletes a linked auto transfer, the system reserves the inventory to the line to which the transfer was linked.  

 When searching for auto transfers to delete, EOD does not delete auto transfers if any of the following are locked for an order (that is, being updated by another process):

- the auto transfer

- the linked order

- the PIN (Piece Inventory Number). An internal number STORIS uses to uniquely identify a piece of inventory. PIN can also stand for personal identification number, for example the PIN number you use to access a debit card. record

End-of-Day records a message explaining the reason why the auto transfer could not be deleted.  The message appears in the EOD report called Report Error Message.  

Secondary Stock Locations

Once you activate the Inter-Regional Auto Transfer feature on your system, you must then activate the feature for selected warehouse locations.  For each of these locations, you specify an auto transfer list of secondary locations you want the system to search for inventory to fill orders.  Then, when entering a SCH (scheduled) delivery order, if insufficient quantity exists at the stock location, the system

• checks if any open purchase orders with sufficient quantity are scheduled to arrive in time at the original stock location. If so, the system reserves the required quantity from the purchase order.  If sufficient quantity is not found, the system

• checks for the required inventory at the first location on the auto transfer list for the original stock location.  If found, the system creates an auto transfer to transport the inventory from that first stock location to the ship-from location on the order.  If sufficient quantity is not found, the system

• checks if any open purchase orders with sufficient quantity are scheduled to arrive in time at the first location on the auto transfer list. If so, the system reserves the required quantity from the purchase order. If sufficient quantity is not found, the system

• repeats the process for all locations on the auto transfer list until the order is satisfied.  If sufficient quantity is still not found, the system back-orders the entire quantity.

• Each time you access the order, or each time EOD runs, the process repeats the above sequence, searching for available quantities to fill the order.

Setting Up the Inter-Regional Auto Transfers Feature

Use the following fields and options to set up the Inter-Regional Auto Transfers feature:

• Delete Regional Auto Transfers field (Point of Sale Control Settings) - By entering a number in this field, you activate the Inter-Regional Auto Transfer feature.  

As described above, this feature uses the End-of-Day process to delete auto transfers that are no longer needed because inventory was found elsewhere.  Use this field to enter the number of days prior to the scheduled delivery date you want these auto transfers to remain in the system before the End-of-Day process deletes them.  That is, if the number of days before the delivery date is less than the number of days you enter at this field, the system assumes it is too late to reallocate the inventory.  The system deletes any auto transfers created for these orders and reapplies your original allocation specifications.

• Auto Transfer List option (Warehouse/Store Location Settings) - Use this option at the Actions button on the Merchandise tab to specify secondary stock locations for selected warehouse locations.  

• Auto Reallocation Pad Days field (Purchasing Control Settings) - Use this field to specify the number of days you want to add to the merchandise reallocation days to account for the time it takes to receive items from purchase orders and prepare them for auto transfer to the ship-from location.   

Searching For Available Inventory

When searching for available inventory, the order-entry process

1. first checks stock availability at the selected location.  If available, merchandise is allocated. If not, the system

2. checks open purchase orders to determine if sufficient quantity is expected to arrive at the stock location prior to the scheduled delivery date.  The formula is

acceptable date = scheduled delivery date – delivery lead days

The system calculates the next date on which an incoming purchase order will arrive with sufficient quantity available to satisfy the requirement. If a purchase order quantity will be received by the acceptable date, the order line remains back-ordered.

3. If you have set up additional stocking warehouses via the Auto Transfer List, the system checks each location in succession.  If available, the system allocates the merchandise is allocated, and a message appears indicating the stock location has changed for the line item.  

 "Required" auto transfers are created later by the standard process if it determines that stock and ship locations are different.

4. The system next searches open purchase orders to determine if one with sufficient quantity will arrive at the next location on the auto transfer list prior to the scheduled delivery date.  The formula is

acceptable date = scheduled delivery date – (delivery lead days + auto schedule days)

The system calculates the next date on which an incoming purchase order will arrive with sufficient quantity available to satisfy the requirement. If a purchase order quantity will be received by the acceptable date, the order line remains back-ordered.

5. The system repeats steps 4 and 5 for each warehouse on the list until the line item is satisfied or until all locations have been reviewed. If the requirement remains unsatisfied, the system back-orders the line.

6. The system updates the Order Comments for each line changed by the Inter-Regional Auto Transfer process.

 To process kits, all kit components must be available at the same location.

End-of-Day Process

If Inter-Regional Auto Transfers is active on your system, the End-of-Day process performs a two-step procedure to reallocate pieces on auto transfers in the event the process finds existing purchase orders to cover insufficient quantities on orders with linked auto transfers.

• The End-of-Day process examines all non-scheduled sales orders for which both an EST (estimated) delivery status and reserved merchandise exist. If a purchase order is scheduled to arrive in time to satisfy one or more of these orders, the system releases the reserved A line-item status indicating the system was able to find and allocate inventory to the line item. pieces.  Note that the system does not release assigned A line-item status indicating the system was able to find and allocate inventory to the line item and assign a serial/reference number. pieces.  

• Next, the process re-examines all orders with linked auto transfers.  If the current date is too close to the delivery date, you may not want to reallocate the merchandise.  Therefore, if the following is true for an order, the system removes the automatic transfer from the order and assigns a stock location to match the ship-from location:

- merchandise has become available at the designated ship-from location (for example, from incoming purchase orders) for any of the orders.

- the number of days before the scheduled delivery date is less than the number of days specified at the Delete Regional Auto Transfers field in the Purchasing Control Settings.  

Once the two steps complete, End-of-Day reserves any merchandise still available to the appropriate orders.

Calculating the Next Purchase Order Date

When calculating the next purchase order date for the Inter-Region Auto Transfer feature, the process skips the calculation for any items that

• are the Return portion of an Exchange order.

• are already reserved.

• have different ship-to and stock locations.

• are not a Pickup or Delivery type.

• are a delivery, but deliveries are restricted via the Applies To field on the Auto Transfer List field.

• are a customer pickup, but pickups are restricted via the Applies To field on the Auto Transfer List field.

• are not a SCH (scheduled) delivery or customer pickup order.

• have an as-is A status of inventory. Most inventory is considered "regular" inventory. As-is inventory includes everything other than regular inventory, including floor samples, damaged and clearance items, etc. status.

• are a special-order product A product whose characteristics you can modify such as color or fabric. STORIS lists these custom options in descriptions for special-order products, allowing you to identify individual products based on their unique characteristics..

• are already linked to a purchase order.

• are not within the auto fill days.

 The above process skips hard kit components since they are processed under kit master.

End-of-Day Process to Remove Reserved Merchandise

This process reviews sales order and exchange order lines, attempting to un-reserve merchandise for which incoming purchase orders exist. The process un-reserves lines only if the following is true:

• A value exists in the Delete Regional Auto Transfers field in the Point of Sale Control Settings.

• The line cannot contain any of the following:

- assigned pieces

- as-is merchandise (regular or kit).

- special-ordered merchandise.

• The line cannot already be linked to a specific incoming purchase order.

• The line cannot a hard kit component. The process evaluates hard kits as a whole based on the kit master. All components must conform to all other rules in order for the kit to qualify.

• The delivery date on the order is equal or prior to the delivery requested-by date.

For all eligible lines, the system releases the reserved pieces back into inventory.

End-of-Day Process to Remove Auto Transfers and Allocate Merchandise

This process reviews all sales order lines selected by the Remove Reserved Merchandise process to determine if those with auto transfers can be reserved from the ship-from location, thus negating the requirement for the transfer. It then evaluates the line to determine if the automatic transfer can be removed. This evaluation is based on the following criteria:

• A value must exist in the Delete Regional Auto Transfers field in the Point of Sale Control Settings.

• The line must have an auto transfer attached.

• The auto transfer cannot be linked to a specific incoming purchase order.

• The line cannot contain any of the following:

- as-is merchandise (regular or kit).

- special-ordered merchandise.

• The automatic transfer cannot have a status of assigned.

• Sufficient inventory must exist at the indicated shipping location to completely fill the line.

For all eligible lines, the system removes the auto transfer.

 This process includes only delivery lines for regular sales orders and exchanges.  It excludes multi-ship master records.