The purchasing department starts the IFT process. A P/O is created for the location that will receive the product, using the P/O Recommendations report and the Purchase Order Entry and/or the Requisition Management programs. The P/O Recommendations report is used to determine which locations need product and whether or not these needs can be met by inventory surpluses in other locations. The P/O Recommendations report also allows the operator to optionally create P/O Requisitions for the items that are needed in each location. The requisitions are created using the "recommended quantity" determined by the report based on the current inventory item status and reorder information. The P/O Requisitions created by the report can be edited, assigned to a special type of vendor and used to create IFT purchase order records. Once the operator has reviewed the P/O Recommendations report and/or requisitions created by the P/O Recommendations report, they can initiate an Inter-Facility Transfer using a single process that creates both an out-bound sales order, which is inserted into the shipping facilities normal order processing operations, and a purchase order to track the in-bound goods at the receiving facility.
The transfer process may be started from the Purchase Order Entry program or from the Requisition Management Screen. This flexibility allows the operator to simply enter a P/O for the items to be transferred, or to take advantage of the more automated purchasing methods that the system provides. In either case the operator creates a purchase order in the destination location for the items to be transferred. The vendor used on the P/O is a special type of vendor record (an "IFT" vendor).
When an IFT vendor is selected in either the Purchase Order Entry or the Requisition Management program, the system recognizes that an IFT transaction is being processed. The system then displays a list of the valid Inter-Facility Transfer destination addresses which have been set up in the system. The operator selects the destination address for the shipment (location that the product should be shipped to) from the list and finishes entering the P/O. As the purchase order is saved, the system creates both a purchase order and a sales order record for each item entered.
The Purchase Order created by the system is used to track the in-bound shipment at the receiving facility. The quantity being transferred is added to the "On Order" quantity in inventory in the destination location to allow sales people in this location to see that product is in-bound. The existence of the in-bound purchase order in the destination location also affects the Purchase Order Recommendations report so that operators can correctly determine inventory requirements in the destination location.