The purchase planner tool creates a batch of purchase orders based on actual demand, sales forecasts and minimum stock level information. Depending on the available data in the system it can use supplier quotations, manufacturer part data, economic order quantities etc.
The purchase planner is an important tool in business automation and relies on information from many parts of the system to quickly generate purchase orders each to the correct supplier with correct quantities and lead times. It can be used in organisations with multiple buyers responsible for different materials.
Licensing
| Purchase planner | This is the name of the license required for this tool. |
| Supplier quotations | Required if purchases are to be planned on current supplier quotations (rather than preferred supplier data) |
Using
Go to Purchase -> Other Operations and click the button for Automated purchase order generation. The screen below will open.
Select the choices as appropriate to filter the creation of new purchase orders and press Run now. It is required to select at least one source of purchase planning (sales orders and manufacturing needs, tentative orders, comparative forecasts), the method used to select the suppliers (preferred or quotation) and whether materials should be grouped to purchase order lines by week or by month. The other filters and options are optional.
The planner will create a special type of Under construction purchase orders marked as "Purchase plan". These orders still need to be activated before being sent to suppliers. The only difference between a purchase order with a status of Under construction and Purchase plan is that the Purchase plan orders will be removed and over written if the purchase planner is run again.
Note that running the purchase planner does not create any irreversible actions. All purchase orders created by the planner can be deleted.