As purchase orders for warehouse shipments are received into your warehouse locations, the system records the receiving transactions and it updates the purchase orders and the inventory items which are being processed.
The receiving program also calls the inventory allocation program at the end of the receiving process. The Inventory Allocation program is used to allocate or assign the newly received inventory items to any sales or shop order lines that are waiting for the product.
The Allocation program goes thru the items that were just received, and it first checks the Auto_Allocate flag for each item in the Inventory Master file. If the Auto_Allocate flag is set to N, the item is not allocated (i.e. it must be allocated manually). If the Auto_Allocate flag is set to Y or is blank, the system will attempt to allocate. The quantity that can be allocated is the new on hand quantity for the item, less any quantity already allocated for the item, less any safety stock defined for the item (safety stock must be allocated manually).
The allocation for the item is based on the schedule dates of the order lines waiting for the item.
As each item is allocated to a sales order or shop order line, the system updates the allocated quantity in the item and it updates the allocated quantity and the status (if required) in the sales or shop order lines being allocated to.
The system will also do a credit and a schedule date check on the sales orders that are being allocated to (this is done to make sure the customer is not over their credit limit when backordered product is available or to give you a chance to call the customer and see if they still want the product when the item is received after the schedule date for the order line.