About Receiving

See Flags That Affect Receiving Functions for details on how company settings affect receiving processing.

In addition, the default location, grade standard, and shipment method for purchased goods is set in the General Company Setup (STCOMP), General tab. For goods received with defects, the default code standard is also set there.

Receiving has these main objectives:

• It adds material to inventory
• It records the Genera Ledger transaction for the value of the inventory received
• Until inventory is received and checked, the invoice for the PO that ordered the materials should not be paid

The receiving menu contains 6 functions:

1. Enter Receipt
2. Enter Consumable Receipts
3. Enter In-Transit Inventory
4. Enter Mill Heat Info
5. Receipt From Consignment
6. Confirmation Receipt

Each of these functions is described in the associated Links

Receipt Types

Receipts of the following types can be generated:

• Purchase Order (receiving material purchased through a PO)
• Customer-Owned Material (receive material owned by the company and received for internal processing or storage)
• Customer Return (receive material sold to a customer as part of a sales order and currently has a claim against it)

• Miscellaneous (receive material for internal purposes such as physical inventory count or opening balance
• Transfer – receive from another company location

Receipt Structure

All receipts have the same structure regardless of order types.  Certain pieces of information may, however, differ or be optional depending on the receipt type. There are also some differences in the way SEMS handles each type of receipt.

Each receipt has a header and one or more line items. The header contains information that applies to all line items. Each line item includes information regarding a single steel product or single consumable item being received.

The Claims Module

Image via Wikipedia

Use the Claims module to create and maintain customer claims issued by a customer and vendor claims issued against a third party and/or vendor. Use it to create and maintain credit memos and debit memos once a particular claim has been issued.

When claims are disposed of, a disposition letter is sent to the customer. The Employee Definition form determines which employee this letter comes from.

Site setup contains a number of flags that affect how claims are processed: see the Claims tab of Site setup.

Working with Claims

Use the Customer Claims form to create, maintain, and modify claims that are filed by the customer against the present company. Use the Supplier Claims form to create, maintain, and modify claims that are filed by the company against a supplier. Claims can be created against a specified sales order and/or invoice(customer claim) or supplier (supplier claim), which will automatically associate all relevant data from those items.

Each claim is given a state that keeps track of its progress and governs the functionality that is available at that level of progress.

Every claim also has a type that influences the way each claim is processed and ultimately completed.  These types are Steel Problem, Order Error, and Invoice Error.

At the detailed level, each claim has one or more corresponding claim item(s).  Each item is identified with the tag number of the material being claimed by the customer/supplier.

For each claimed item, details such as quantity and the grounds for making the claim are specified to clarify that the claim is legitimate.

Each claimed item also has its own state.  These claim item states are used to keep track of the investigation progress on the item to confirm that it is a valid claim.

Claim States

The sequence of claim states is illustrated below:

Each of the five claim states shown maintains its own set of rules that regulate the functions available to the claim at its state of progression:

• Open: Each claim begins in an Open state. This means that no information has been entered against this claim as of yet. An open claim cannot be approved or closed.
• Under Investigation: Once any information is entered against the claim, the state of the claim will automatically change to Under Investigation. While the claim resides in this state, changes can be made to the to claim level and item level information. The claim can also be changed to the Approved or Rejectedstate. For supplier claims, this state is reachable only if all claim line items have completed their investigation, and all  claim line items have been returned (i.e.Material Returned checkbox is checked for all items).
• Approved: At this state, the claim in no longer editable. All information has been finalized and the claim is now ready to be closed.  If changes are required, change the claim to the Under Investigation state and make the changes. For customer claims, this state is reachable only if all claim line items have completed their investigation, and all  claim line items have been returned (i.e. Material Returned checkbox is checked for all items).
• Rejected: Once the claim has reached the Rejected state, it can no longer change to any other state. The claim and all of its contents (including the claimed items) are discarded.
• Closed: This state confirms that the claim has been approved and can now be filed as closed. No further transactions against the claim will be made.  This will render all claim functions for this claim inoperable.

Depending on Site Setup, items may be able to be returned before a claim is approved.

Claim Types

Claims can be one of three different types:

• Steel Problem:  The claim in question is for a problem with steel material that the customer or company has purchased.
• Order Error:  The claim in question is for incorrect material specified on the sales order for a customer or given to the company.
• Invoice Error: The claim in question is for incorrect material specified on the invoice for a customer or given to the company.

About Shipping

The Shipping Management application includes the functions that are required for managing shipments:

• create a load for shipment,
• add material to the load that has a Shipment Status of “Ready”,
• print the shipment documents
• maintain carriers and carrier freight rates,
• maintain customs brokers, and
• maintain customs duties.
• ship the load, relieving inventory of the material shipped.

See Flags That Affect Shipping for details on how company settings affect shipping processing.

In addition, the default FOB point for customer. pickups is set in the General Company Setup (STCOMP), General tab.

Documents to be produced on shipping are set up as part of your company information.

Glossary Entries

Shipment Status

Shipment Status denotes that inventory material is ready to ship or not.  There are two values Not Ready and Ready.

Shipping Documents

Shipping Documents includes; Bill of Lading (BOL), Invoice, and Shipping Tags.

Bill Of Lading

The Bill Of Lading (BOL) document is issued by the shipping department and specifies the material that is being shipped on the load.

Invoice

The Invoice document is a bill issued by the seller to the buyer indicating the quantity of material provided to the buyer.

Shipping Tags

The Shipping Tags are barcoded tags attached to each piece of material shipped on a load.

Load

A Load is a single shipment on a single vehicle (truck, ship, rail car, etc).  Each load has one or more Bill Of Ladings.  A load can be created for any routing step that has a process code with a category of Transfer Instruction or Shipping Instruction.

Process Code

A Process defines the transformation of material that changes or adds properties to the material.  Process Codes define the capabilities of a company to transform material.  Each Process Code has a category of; Manufacturing Instruction, Packaging Instruction, Shipping Instruction, or Transfer Instruction.

Routing

The sequence of process codes (steps) required to produce a product.  This is in addition to the current glossary definition that is for BOM only.

The SEMS 4.5 version extends and enhances the Shipping Management capability by providing: