Overview of Inventory Transactions

A transaction is an item movement into, within, or out of inventory. A transaction changes the quantity, location, planning responsibility, and cost of an item.

Oracle Inventory supports a number of predefined and user-defined transaction types. Every material movement has a corresponding set of accounting transactions that Oracle Inventory automatically generates. All transactions validate the various controls (revision, locator, lot number, serial number and secondary unit of measure) you enable for items.

INVENTORY TRANSACTIONS

You can perform the following inventory transactions:

•        Receive items into your organization from a general ledger account number.

•        Issue items from your organization to a general ledger account number.

·         Transfer items from a subinventory in your organization to another subinventory in the same organization.

•        Transfer items directly between organizations.

•        Transfer items between organizations by way of intransit.

·         Reserve items for a specific account or temporarily prevent the release of items onto the shop floor.

INVENTORY TRANSACTIONS WITHOUT DOCUMENTS AND REQUISITIONS

•        You can perform Inter-organization transfers without using an internal requisition or internal sales order.

•        You can use miscellaneous receipts to receive material without a purchase order number.

•        Use miscellaneous issues to issue material without approvals or a document number.

•        Use subinventory transfers to transfer the location of material without a document number.

INVENTORY TRANSACTIONS WITH DOCUMENTS AND REQUISITIONS

You can use internal requisitions and internal sales orders as an approval mechanism and to provide a document to track when you transport material between warehouses or transfer material across inventory organizations.

Within a single warehouse or inventory organization:

•        Use move orders with a Move Order Issue transaction type to approve a transaction and to provide a document to track the issue of the material. Previously, sales orders with approvals in the order cycle were used to issue the material and track the movement.

•        Use move orders with a Subinventory Transfer transaction type to approve a transfer and to provide a document to track the transfer of the material.

CONTROL OPTION AND RESTRICTIONS

We can set the following options and restrictions before performing an inventory transaction

•        Locator Control

•        Lot Control

•        Serial Number Control

•        Revision Control

•        Subinventory and locator Specific restriction for an item

•        Dual UOM control

MISCELLANEOUS TRANSACTIONS

Miscellaneous Transactions enable you to issue material to individuals or projects that are not in inventory, receiving, or work in process. These could include a research and development group or an accounting department. You can also make manual adjustments to the general ledger by receiving material from one account to inventory, and then issuing that material from inventory to another account.

With miscellaneous transactions we can:

•        Load items when you implement Oracle Inventory.

•        Scrap items by issuing them to scrap accounts.

•        Issue items to individuals, departments, or projects.

•        Receive items that were acquired without purchase orders.

•        Enter adjustments and corrections to system quantities due to theft, vandalism, loss, shelf-life expiration, or inaccurate record keeping.

SUBINVENTORY TRANSFER

We use this subinventory transfer to transfer the item between two subinventories of one organization or between two locators of a subinventory.

Use subinventory transfers for:

•        Transferring between asset and expense subinventories.

•        Transferring between tracked and non-tracked subinventories.

Inter-Organization Shipment

There are mainly two types of Inter-Organization shipments

•        Inter-Organization Direct Shipment

•        Inter-Organization Intransit shipment

Inter-Organization Direct Shipment

We use direct Inter-Organization transfer to move inventory directly from a shipping organization to a destination organization.

The validity of a transfer transaction depends on the controls you have defined in both the shipping and destination organizations for the items you want to transfer. For example, you can transfer item A from organization X to organization Y, even though item A is under lot control only in organization X (you can specify the lot numbers for item A in organization X during the transfer transaction). You cannot however, transfer item B from organization X to organization Y if item B is under lot control only in organization Y (you cannot specify lot numbers for item B in the destination organization because you are performing a direct transfer).

Unit of Measure Conversions

When you transfer items under dual UOM control between organizations, the system honours the UOM conversion of the destination organization. Consequently, the system could potentially recalculate the secondary quantity for the item if the conversions differ between the shipping organization and the destination organization. The system always processes transaction quantities in the primary UOM. You must define UOM conversions in both the shipping and destination organization before the system can process the transaction.

Inter-organization Intranist Shipment

You usually transfer material to intransit inventory when transportation time is significant.

When you perform the transfer transaction, you do not need to specify the delivery location.

You only need to enter the subinventory you are shipping from, a shipment number, the freight information, and, depending on the inter-organization transfer charge that applies between the organizations, a percentage of the transaction value or a discrete amount that Oracle Inventory uses to compute transfer charges.

If the FOB point is set to Receipt in the Shipping Networks window, the destination organization owns the shipment when they receive it. If it is set to Shipment the destination organization owns the shipment when the shipping organization ships it, and while it is intransit.

While your shipment is intransit, you can update shipping information such as the freight carrier or arrival date in the Maintain Shipments window.

At the time of shipment, you must define your receiving parameters for the destination organization. You can receive and deliver your shipment in a single transaction or you can receive and store your shipment at the receiving dock.

The validity of a transfer transaction depends on the controls you have defined in both the shipping and destination organizations for the items you want to transfer. For example, you can transfer item A from organization X to organization Y, even though item A is under lot control only in organization X (you can specify the lot numbers for item A in organization X during the transfer transaction). You can also transfer item B from organization X to organization Y if item B is under lot control only in organization Y (you can specify lot numbers for item B in the destination organization when you perform the receiving transaction).

Unit of Measure Conversions

When you transfer items under dual UOM control between organizations, the system honours the UOM conversion of the destination organization. Consequently, the system could potentially recalculate the secondary quantity for the item if the conversions differ between the shipping organization and the destination organization. The system always processes transaction quantities in the primary UOM. You must define UOM conversions in both the shipping and destination organization before the system can process the transaction.

MANAGING RECEIPTS

You can receive both internally and externally sourced shipments and deliver material directly to inventory, shop floor, and expense destinations. You can also satisfy the following receiving business needs:

•        Increase receiving process control.

•        Streamline receiving throughput.

•        Increase transaction visibility and traceability.

•        Provide a common process for all receipt types

Entering Receipt Information

To process receipts, select the items to receive and enter the receipt quantities. If you change the unit of measure, the system adjusts the receipt quantity to reflect the new unit of measure. You can override this value if you are recording a partial receipt or are receiving more than the expected quantity. The quantity received on the corresponding purchase order or return material authorization (RMA) is updated to reflect the received quantity.

Substitutions

You can receive predefined substitute items when you allow suppliers to ship alternatives to the items that you order. For example, you assign different internal item numbers to mountain bikes of the same model number but different color. You have an agreement with your mountain bike supplier that allows him to ship white bikes in place of blue bikes.

Specifying Substitute Receipt Details

You can select a substitute item in the Lines region based on the following restrictions:

•        You must allow substitute receipts for the shipments you receive.

•        You have defined substitutes for the items you receive.

When you query in the list of values for the item, the system displays all valid substitutes for the item you want to receive. All subsequent receipt processing is identical to other standard and direct receipts.

Supplying Handling of Substitute Items

When you receive a substitute item, the system removes the purchase order supply for the original item.

•        If you perform a standard receipt, the system creates receiving supply for the new item.

•        If you perform a direct receipt, the system increments on-hand balances for the new item.

Express Receipts and Receiving Transactions

The express function is a quick method of entering receipts and receiving transactions. You can use an express receipt when the physical receipt quantity equals the expected quantity.

You can:

·         Create a new receipt or add to an existing receipt for the supplier who shipped the items you want to transact.

•        Specify the supplier for new receipts.

•        Click Express to select either the final destination or the default receiving location.

·         Omit individual shipments that you do not want to process by selecting the Omit action in the Receipt Lines region.

·         Any receipts that cannot be transacted with an express receipt will remain in the Receipt Line region after you save your work.

In order to enable the Express button, the system must be able to derive the supplier either by specifying the supplier or a PO number.

Direct Receipt

This enables to receive the shipment and deliver to the final destination in a single transaction.

Standard Receipt

This happens in 2 steps

1.       Received into a receiving location in first transaction

2.       Then deliver to the final destination in a separate transaction

Inspection Receipt

This happens in a 3 steps process

1.       Receive into an Inspected location

2.       Inspect the details

3.       Deliver to the final destination location

MOVE ORDERS

Move orders are requests for the movement of material within a single organization. They formalize the process to request the movement of material within a warehouse or facility for purposes like replenishment, material storage relocations, and quality handling. Move orders are generated manually or automatically depending on the source type used.

Move orders are restricted to transactions within an organization. Transfers between organizations require an internal requisition.

Move Order Requisitions

A manually generated request, available for subinventory and account transfers.

These requests can optionally go through a workflow based approval process before they become move orders that are ready to be sourced and transacted.

Move Order Requisition Process Flow

Move orders can be created manually or automatically. Oracle Order Management automatically creates them to support the staging of Picking Waves.

Move Orders can be one of the following three types:

•        Requisition Move Order: To relocate material or adjust perpetual inventory records

•        Inventory Replenishment Move Orders: To refill depleted inventory locations

•        Pick Release Move Orders: To replenish forward pick locations

Move orders will be manually or automatically generated, depending on the source of the transaction.

Move orders must be assigned detailed source and destination locations, or used to identify shortages for further action. This process is called Allocating, and must occur for all move orders.

If the material could not be fully sourced because of a lack of available quantity, the Move Order is in backorder and the unsourced balance can be re-released at a later time.

Move instructions can now be issued for available quantities either through printing of a paper pick slip or transmission to a mobile device through Move Order APIs.

Move Order Approvals

If approvals are required on Move Order requisitions, Oracle Inventory manages the approval process through Oracle Workflow.

When the requisition is created, the workflow approval process sends a notification to the item planner that a move order requisition line is awaiting approval.

Timeout Period is an organization-level attribute that determines the number of days the order can wait for an approval action. After one timeout period, if the order is still not approved or rejected, a reminder notice is sent to the item planner. After another timeout period the order is automatically approved or rejected depending on the move order timeout action you determine at the organization level.

The Move Order Timeout Period and Timeout Action are both inventory organization parameters. These inventory parameters do not override any periods set up by Oracle Workflow.

The Item Planner is an item attribute. If no planner is specified for the item, the requisition line is automatically approved.

If no approvals are required in your organization, set the Timeout Period to 0 and the timeout action to Approve Automatically.

Once the order line is approved, notices are sent to a notification list that is attached to the source and destination subinventories to let the subinventory planners know that material will be moved to or from their areas.

Note: Replenishment and pick wave move orders are pre-approved.

Move Order Type	Source/Purpose	Process
Move Order Requisition	•        Account Transfer •        SubInventory Transfer	•        Manually Generated •        Optionally Approval Processing
Replenishment Move Orders	•        Kanban •        Min Max •        Replenishment Count	•        Automatically Generated •        Pre-Approved •        Transaction Ready
Pick Wave Move Orders	•        Sales Order Pick •        Internal Orders Pick	Pre-Approved print pick slip
WIP Issue Move Orders	•        Backflush Transfer •        Component issue	•        Automatically generated •        Pre-approved

Move Order Components

Move Order Header

The move order header contains the move order source type. This refers to the entity that created the move order. An order could be a pick wave for sales order picks, a replenishment type move order, a requisition for subinventory transfer, and so on. The move order header also contains the default source and destination if available, the order number, and the requested date.

Move Order Lines

Move order lines are the requests on a move order. They contain the item, requested quantity, the completed quantity (if the move order has been partially fulfilled), and a source and destination, if known. The move order lines also include any project and task references, if the organization is project-manufacturing enabled. You can also enter specific serial or lot numbers on the move order lines.

Move Order Line Details

The line details are the inventory transactions that will occur to fulfill a particular request line (move order line). If the material is locator, lot, or serial controlled, this information is filled in at the line detail level. These details are automatically filled in by Oracle Inventory using the inventory picking rules and the item-transaction defaults for destination locators or you can manually fill in the details. You can edit these details prior to transaction.

Generating Move Order Requisitions

You use the Move Orders window to create move order requisitions by specifying item, quantity, source, destination, locations, and other order information. For each move order, an order number is required. A number is defaulted for you if you leave the field without entering a value.

In the Default region, you can set up values that default to the lines. Default fields are not required. You can set up a default transaction type of either Subinventory Transfer or Move Order Issue. A Move Order Issue is the same as an account issue. You can specify the Move Order Issue for accounts and account aliases. You can define a default source subinventory, destination subinventory or account, for Move Order Issues, as well as the requested delivery date (date required) for the material.

The lines are the actual material requests for the move order. In the Item tabbed region, you can specify the item, revision, and quantity, and you can update the delivery date for that item. A move order requisition manually requests subinventory transfers or Move Order Issues. These requests can optionally go through an approval process before they become move orders that are ready to be sourced and transacted. The approval process does not include dollar amount constraints.

Defining Project and Task Information

If the organization is a project manufacturing-enabled organization, you specify the project and task in the Project and Task tabbed region.

Defining Source Information

You use the Source tabbed region to specify the subinventory from which to draw the material. This field defaults from the header-level default block but can be overridden if necessary. You can also specify the locator, lot, and serial numbers if known to use for the transactions. Only the subinventory field is required. If you do not know from where the items should come, the On Hand button takes you to an on-hand inquiry window for that item to locate the material within your organization.

Defining Destination Information

You use the Destination tabbed region to specify the subinventory or account for Move Order Issues that the material should be delivered. This field defaults from the header-level default block but can be overridden if necessary. You can also specify the destination locator for subinventory transfer move orders if known.

Defining Control Information

You use the Control tabbed region to request a subinventory transfer or Move Order Issue at the line level by selecting a transaction type. This field defaults from the header-level default block but can be overridden if necessary. You can optionally specify a reason and reference code on the inventory transactions.

Allocating Move Orders

Allocating is the process in Oracle Inventory that uses picking rules and item transaction defaults to suggest move order line details to fulfill a move order line. The line details are the inventory transactions that must be fulfilled to complete the move order allocation. You can consider the allocating process as a sourcing process. Allocating occurs when you click the Allocate button in the Transact Move Orders window.

Suggesting Sources

Oracle Inventory uses the picking rules you set up at the organization or organization-item level to suggest source locators, revisions, and lots to source the material in order to fulfill a move order allocation.

You can optionally use the Select Available Inventory Window to manually select material. This window displays available inventory that meets the demand the move order requires. It displays only material that satisfies the picking rules that are in effect, and presents the material in order of the sort criteria on the picking rules. You can then manually select the material to allocate against the move order, and the system creates the allocations.

You can modify or delete existing allocations, as well as create new allocations. If you choose to create new allocations, the system checks whether the new allocation criteria drives the lot balances negative or whether the lot is indivisible. The system honors lot-specific conversions, process manufacturing quality matches, material status, and preferred grade if you set the profile option INV: Target Preferred Grade to Yes. The information that appears on this page is available according to the picking rules you define, and sorted in the order defined on the allocation rules.

Suggesting a Destination

The picking rules only suggest source locations. If the destination subinventory is locator controlled and no locator is specified on the move order line, Oracle Inventory generates a suggestion based on the item subinventory locator default you set up for move orders. You can set up a default locator for each item that you want to move around the warehouse on a move order. This is not the same default type that you would use for receiving or shipping.

You have two choices in transacting the move orders to transfer the material to the destination location:

•        Automatic Pick Confirmation: The move order is transacted instantly after the order is allocated without any further human intervention. On-hand inquiries will show the material in staging. You can then perform ship confirmation.

•        Manual Pick Confirmation: You can confirm the pick of the move order allocation. You can also update any picking details such as the source locations, lots or serials and to report shortages or inventory inaccuracies and allow the system to generate more pick suggestions. Reporting inventory inaccuracies enables you to request a cycle count in the inventory area where the material was not found if so desired.

Oracle Shipping

Oracle Shipping provides two choices for when and how you can fill in the line details. These choices are made by setting up an organization parameter but can be overridden at pick release.

•        Auto allocate: The allocating process is done at pick release instantly after the move order is created. No more human intervention is needed and the pick slip can be printed automatically.

•        Pick release only creates move orders but does not fill in the line details. You must navigate to the move order form after pick release and click on the Allocate button. This option allows warehouse managers to determine when to release the pick to the floor and might be a better solution for implementations running a global order entry with distributed warehouse management and/or shipping. In these cases, orders can be released to regional warehouses from the central order management location in advance and individual warehouses can schedule picks closer to actual ship time.

Transacting Move Order Lines

Use the Transact Move Order Line Allocations window to view, allocate, transact move order allocations, view the move order line details, and transact move order allocations. Transacting move orders will post all movement activity immediately for the selected move order line and its related details. You can save and exit the move order line details without transacting if you need to print a pick slip report. This enables you to transact each detail line before or after picking the material.

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