Priority Packing // Box Confirmation
This article explains the features that can be found on the box confirmation page.
The goal of this module is to give full transparency, based on priority, on the order fulfillment/compliance status, of each box.
For efficiency, UNOSOF reflects the confirmation status on S3, and only the confirmed status allows printing box stickers. That basically means: only when flowers are processed, a box can be packed. In our opinion, it does not make sense to print out a box sticker and look for flowers, that do not exist at the packing location.
It's recommendable to only allow invoicing after all boxes are confirmed. That secures that all flowers are processed and that the digital invoice which your customer receives (JSON file) shall match all the content. Any change made after invoicing is inefficient and makes you look unreliable as a provider. UNOSOF prevents this situation, by controlling the invoice status with a 100% box confirmation.
The route is the following:
Home / Customers / Sales / Search Purchase Orders
How to confirm boxes?
The first step is to use the available filters to narrow down your search.
By reducing our search range, the time it takes to load the page becomes shorter so management of POs through the page becomes more effective.
As you can see in the image, the filter of Confirm? is set to always display the UNCONFIRMED ALL option. Thus, we can only see the orders that we need to confirm instead of those that have already been confirmed.
Even though this page loads any date range, however, in most farms you can only confirm POs up to two days in advance.
The most important filter in this section is the "CONFIRM?" filter.
To see all boxes, confirmed and unconfirmed, select the "All" option.
After selecting the filters, click the "Search" button to continue.
To confirm the box, click on the white box (highlighted in the red squares) inside the "CONFIRM" column.
Recommendations:
Please, make sure the box labels such as the Customer Box Label and Box Name are set before they get confirmed.
There is a risk that the box sticker gets printed without these information, if the messages are set after the confirmation.
Note that once a box is confirmed, the box is available in S3 to print the box sticker and pack it. Once the box sticker is printed, the box is no longer visible in the confirmation page.
After confirming the box, the packers can now proceed to scan the bunches and pack the box.
How to un-confirm a box?
When a box is already confirmed and we want to make changes to that box, we must first un-confirm it. Otherwise, the system will not allow us to make any changes to its composition or price.
To un-confirm a box, the first thing we must do is locate the Confirm filter? on the ALL or CONFIRMED option.
Once we have found the box we want to un-confirm, we click on the box that contains a check mark.
Once a box has been packed, it is no longer possible to visualize it in this module with any of the available filters.
If the box has already been packed, the correct process would be to unpack the box in the station 3 module, un-confirm it in the box confirmation module, and continue with the box modification from the order creation page.
Confirmation Logg File
Any confirmation status gets logged.
Usual Supply Distribution Method
Before getting into this topic, give priority management a thorough revision.
Unosof normally applies ALL inventory from top to bottom, via priority management rules. That means that the top boxes get processed, completed, confirmed, packed, and shipped first.
It's important to understand, that we don't manage supply on this page. Supply is processed inventory and the goal is auto-apply supply to the demand. Demand is boxes of flowers that we list from top to bottom. Anything up in the list is more important than on the bottom of the list.
In this module, we manage the DEMAND position (priority) of each box, line item, or SKU amount. It's possible to shift up or down demand, which makes that the inventory (supply) gets applied in a different order.
Supply (inventory) always gets applied from top to bottom.
Example:
Demand: 3 boxes that require 10 bunches of FREEDOM 100CM PT1 20ST ML each, 30 bunches total. Supply: 15 bunches processed in total. Result: Unosof would distribute all of that inventory (supply) to the 1st box, then to the 2nd box, and last to the 3rd box.
Equitable Distribution Method
It's possible to set up exceptions to the Usual Supply Distribution. As explained, normally UNOSOF applies ALL inventory (supply) to the 1st box, then to the 2nd box, etc. all the way down till there is no more inventory (supply) left to apply. However, that means that the top boxes always receive ALL inventory. It's possible to make an exception and set the application method differently, in which we distribute one by one bunch (supply/inventory), box to box (demand) from top to bottom. That results in an equitable distribution across all boxes (demand).
Example:
Demand: 3 boxes that require 10 bunches of FREEDOM 100CM PT1 20ST ML each, 30 bunches total. Supply: 15 bunches processed total. Result: 3 incomplete boxes, each having 5 bunches of inventory (supply) applied to its demand.
Configure Distribution Exceptions
We do this in the Product Management module.
The path is as follows:
Home / Production / Production Data / Product Inventory
In the drop-down menu of the Product Management module, we will find two options:
1. Priority Override Commercial Name
In this option we give the instruction to the system to apply the equitable distribution to the VARIETIES we want, we should set it as 1 if we want this variety to be equitably distributed or the number 0 if we want the normal distribution to be applied.
2. Priority Override SKU Name
In this option we give the instruction to the system to apply the equitable distribution to the SKUs we want, we should set it as 1 if we want this SKU to be equitably distributed or the number 0 if we want the normal distribution to be applied.
If we apply the number 1 to a particular variety, all the SKUs that have that variety as a compound will also be automatically assigned the number 1 (unless we indicate otherwise by placing the number 0 in the Priority Override SKU Name menu).
Withdraw inventory already distributed to a box
On the box confirmation page, it is possible to "free" the inventory that has been distributed for a particular box.
Let's return to the example of the 15 bouquets generated in inventory and the 3 boxes pending confirmation that we mentioned earlier.
By clicking on the small box located in the upper right part of the product name, we completely remove the bunches that had been previously assigned to that box, and this inventory completes other boxes that are waiting to be confirmed.
As we can see in the image, the 10 bunches previously assigned to box 1000173, after clicking on the white box the inventory went to box 1000171, which can now be confirmed.
Record of Changes (LOG) in Order Confirmation
Confirmation Status Log
In the first column of the confirmation table, we can find two small green icons.
For example, when a box is confirmed, the log is shown as follows:
Withdraw Inventory Log
Give priority to a box
If we want a box to have priority over the others, we can use the Priority column, in which a small box is shown that, when selected, moves the order to the top of the box priority and becomes the first order to be assigned inventory (taking into account the type of distribution we have chosen, equitable or not).
Below we can see an example of how this confirmation tool works:
Once we have checked the box in the priority column, box 1000172 has priority over box 1000173 (which was previously in the first place to be confirmed).
CRM Tool
The column Client shows the billing (on the first line) and the shipping client (on the second line).
A useful tool that can be found when clicking on the client name is the CRM tool.
When we click on the client's name, a pop-up window with the CRM for the selected client will appear.
This tool is especially useful when deciding on swapping options by looking into the client's buyer patterns which in turn allows the commercial turn to make better and well-informed decisions.
Swap Box
On the priority confirmation page, it is also possible to modify boxes by swapping (exchanging) a (or more than one) product for another one.
For instance, if we are unable to confirm a box because we are missing ONE bunch out of the 5 bunches demanding, we can swap that product for another one that is actually available.
Another situation where this tool becomes useful arises when we have enough inventory for one box, but we want to "free" some of this product to use it for another box.
The benefit of using the swap option from the priority confirmation page instead of editing the PO from the PO creation page itself is that whenever we modify a box in the PO page, this box loses its position on the confirmation page as it gets a new box id assigned.
For instance, we have two boxes demanding the same product however only one of them can be confirmed with the available inventory. By using the swap option for the "completed" or "confirmable box" we can distribute this available inventory between the two boxes, and partially change both boxes with available products, instead of just one of them.
Below we can see that the products of a confirmable box can also be swapped.
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