Sales Order Sourcing

Hello list,

When we have a customer place an order, we prefer to service them from the closest warehouse - one of the reasons being so we have the proper warehouse to get credit for the sale.

Occasionally we may be out of a part, but a warehouse not too far away (~200 miles) may have the part.

In the past, we have been having our clerks save the order as a back order, and then go into inventory processing and enter in a warehouse transfer. After the item arrives at the proper warehouse, they will go back into the order and complete it.

This is adding extra steps and causes confusion, especially for new employees.

We would like to use OE and source the item out of the nearby warehouse, but if we had a magic wand, the item would ship to the customers' default warehouse first, and then the item can be delivered to the customer. We'd like to keep the order warehouse to be the customer's default warehouse, so that our reporting will give the credit for the sale to the default warehouse for that customer.

I just recently discovered "sourcing rules access" in the inventory module. The documentation is vague, but it implies that rules can be set up to accomplish exactly what I want. However, when I do this in our test company, nothing seems to happen. I don't know if I am not setting it up properly, or perhaps I am not placing the order properly, or maybe a nightly process has to run.

Does anyone use this feature? Does it generate a warehouse transfer request? Do I order the item from the customer's default warehouse and let it go on back order, or do I go ahead and source it from another warehouse, and then the "magic" happens?

I realize there's a lot set up and information I may be leaving out, I'm just wondering in theory if it creates a warehouse transfer automatically.

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

Randy Rasp

System i Manager
AER Manufacturing
www.aermanufacturing.com