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Creating a Consignment Inventory Group for a Supplier

The first steps in setting up inventory are the definition of your inventory groups, warehouses, and valid warehouse-inventory group combinations. It is easiest to define your inventory groups first. The valid warehouse-inventory group combinations can only be defined after both the warehouses and inventory groups have been defined.

Defining Inventory Groups

An inventory group allows you to define specific information about a group of items in inventory. You can indicate that items are either owned by your organization or consignment inventory. For consignment inventory groups, you must identify the consigning supplier.

You must have at least one inventory group in the system, typically, the group for your regular, owned inventory. This inventory group is used to track inventory purchased under normal purchasing agreements; that is, inventory purchased at the time of receipt.

To track consignment inventory, you must also create an inventory group for each supplier with whom you have a consignment agreement.

Inventory groups are not used on their own but must be linked to warehouses to create warehouse inventory groups.

This topic explains how to create an inventory group for a consignment supplier.

To Create an Inventory Group for a Consignment Supplier

1.	On the site’s Resource Management view, select the Settings tab. Select the Inventory Settings node in the tree.

Tip: You can also select the site’s Administration menu, Resource Management Settings, and then Resources. The Resource Management Settings dialog appears.

2.	Select the Inventory Groups tab. This tab shows a list of the inventory groups in the system.

3.	Click New. The Inventory Group dialog appears.

4.	Enter the inventory group settings:

Setting Name

Description

Inventory group

The name of this inventory group. Usually, this name describes how this inventory group is used (regular or consignment inventory), and the consignment supplier (if applicable).

Inventory group type

The type of inventory this group is used for. Usually, you will have one regular inventory group, and one consignment group for each supplier with which you have a consignment agreement.

Sorting sequence

You can use this box to enter a numeric sorting sequence for your inventory groups.

Material can be returned to this inventory group

If this inventory group can accept returns, select this option. If this option is not selected, you will not be able to create return transactions or warehouse transfers to this inventory group.

Number of days returns are accepted

If material can be returned to the group, you can enter the number of days during which returns will be allowed. For example, if you enter 10 days for this group, and six of resource “A” were issued five days ago, and two were issued 12 days ago, you will only be able to return six “A”s to the inventory group. This setting is only applicable to consignment inventory groups. The system enters 1 day as the default.

5.	If the inventory group is for consignment inventory, you must select a supplier. Click Browse, select the appropriate supplier, and click OK.

6.	If you have not yet set up warehouses, you can link the inventory group to the warehouse during the warehouse setup procedure. Skip to step 8.

7.	If your warehouses are already set up, you can choose which ones this inventory group should be linked to. To select a warehouse click New. The Warehouse Inventory Group dialog appears. Select the appropriate Warehouse and click OK.

To link this inventory group to all of the warehouses in your system, click For All Warehouses.

Note: If this inventory group will be the default group for the warehouse, you must open the Warehouse window and enter this setting in the Properties dialog.

8.	When you are finished entering information, click OK. APM creates a new inventory group and adds it to the list.

9.	Repeat steps 3 to 8 for each inventory group that you want to create.

10.	If you have not yet set up your warehouses, see **Setting up Warehouses.

11.	If you have finished setting up warehouses and inventory groups, you can now select the resources that the supplier will provide and enter consignment prices for each resource. See Defining Consignment Resources and Prices for a Supplier.