The Issue:
In factories that process a large quantity of parts, it is too difficult to maintain the various levels of safety stock manually. The solution described here allows you to calculate safety stock for each part in a controlled automatic manner. The calculation is performed on the basis of actual material usage during a defined period, and includes the possibility of adding coefficients or manually revising recommended quantities.

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The Solution:
Priority provides a form that displays the usage of raw materials during the desired period, and recommends the appropriate level of safety stock on the basis of this data, as well as various coefficients. Usage data are taken from issues to the plant floor, warehouse transfers and customer sales.
You can manually revise the recommended safety stock after approving the results displayed in the form. You can also perform a general update of the safety stock on the basis of the form data.

Billing customers on the basis of a sales order, before goods are shipped, while checking the customer's current credit balance

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To bill a customer for an order prior to shipment, while checking the current credit balance, in a manner that allows you to later open a customer shipment document linked to the sales order:

• Open a multi-shipment invoice and link it to the sales order. The order remains open and the usage of customer credit is transferred from the order to the invoice.
• Open a customer shipment document for the customer to a consignment warehouse, on the basis of the order. The order is closed, and the shipment does not use the customer's credit, since it is recorded to a consignment warehouse. This allows you to easily track the goods that were "shipped" but not supplied to the customer, according to the contents of the consignment warehouse. It also prevents any duplication in the balance sheet - both for the customer debit and for inventory - since the consignment warehouse is not flagged for inventory valuation.
• After payment is received from the customer, open a second customer shipment document based on the first. This document, which will not be flagged as billable, transfers the goods from the consignment warehouse to the customer.

Supporting an OEM's End Customers, When They Are Not Defined as Customers in the System

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If a certain dealer purchases from the company and resells to end customers that are not company customers:

• Open a customer record for the dealer.
• Define each end customer that purchases from the dealer as a contact for that dealer.
• Open service contracts in the dealer's name, and specify the end user as the dealer's contact for service calls.

In companies that provide service to private homes, most of the receipts are generated at the customer's home by field technicians.
These technicians work with computerized service calls, which provide a description of the malfunction and its recommended solution, and issue manual receipts to the customers.
When the technicians return to the office at the end of the workday, over-the-counter invoices are recorded in the system based on the service calls performed.

Using the electronic data interchange (EDI) module, you can maintain a continuous dialogue with branches of a chain store. A set of interfaces have been developed based on standard requirements of food chains. The module enables you to manage separate part numbers and packing units for your own company and for the chain branches.

Priority's Delivery Scheduling module enables you to:

• Set up distribution routes and arrange order delivery by date and route
• Manage a fleet of vehicles, defining weight and volume capacity
• Automatically assign vehicles by date and distribution route, controlling for weight/volume limitations
• Prepare order picklists according to distribution route
• Produce sales invoices and shipping documents per distribution route

Priority's Customer Service module enables you to manage technicians by their area of expertise, the geographic regions in which they operate on any particular day of the week and their availability in respect to customer needs. You can then use the system's graphic interface to schedule technicians for service calls.

Priority enables you to define product assemblies that include different quantities of assorted products in various combinations. The list of products can be transferred automatically from one sales document to the next (price quote, order, packing slip, and shipping document), and quantities adjusted as needed, enabling quick and efficient delivery of the entire product set to the customer.

Priority enables you to set up and maintain consignment warehouses, where inventory that has been loaned to a customer is maintained. The customer reports usage on a regular basis, and is invoiced accordingly.
Priority allows you to track returned goods and equipment from the customer warehouse (for example, in the event that goods in the consignment warehouse have expired).

Receiving Orders & Shipping to One Customer when Billing a Different Customer: For example, an order is received for a certain branch of a firm, while billing is handled by the firm headquarters.
In Priority, you can define a billing customer for each customer when opening customer accounts in Financials. You can also assign a billing customer for a specific invoice.

The bonus system in Priority enables you to offer customers bonus parts when they order a certain quantity of a specific part or parts belonging to the same part family. There are two types of bonuses:

• Regular bonuses are given upon purchase of a certain part by some or all customers.
• Special bonuses are defined for specific customers and are given to those customers only.

You can define progressive bonuses based on quantity purchased, so as to increase the customers' incentive to purchase large quantities.

Automatic Scheduling of Part Delivery via Distribution Routes
Priority includes a program for automatic assignment of sales orders to distribution routes. The Schedule Deliveries program assigns sales orders to distribution routes based on the order supply date, delivery routing, delivery days defined for the customer, and the company's working hours. For an order to be included by the Schedule Deliveries program, it must have a status flagged in the Schedule Deliveries column of the Statuses for Orders form.

MRP

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Material Requirements Planning (MRP) for Distributors enables the planning of required issues for sales orders and forecast orders (without addressing BOMs or production/assembly operations of any kind).
Such planning "explodes" requirements for the assembled product to the next level down in the BOM. For instance, it will generate purchase requisitions for the component parts of a bicycle.

Priority enables you to record blanket purchase orders, which offer special pricing terms in exchange for a commitment to purchase a specified quantity of parts within a set time frame. The blanket order acts as a basis for the production of multiple purchase orders. The system provides a means of tracking the remaining quantity in the blanket order, as well as the monetary value of the order balance.

Priority's Special Offers module enables users to offer incentives to customers that purchase a designated amount of goods within a defined period.
In the first stage, you assign a name, start and end dates, and Priority to the offer (i.e., if two offers are defined for the same part or part family, the offer Priority determines which one will be attached first to invoiced sales when the campaign is over). Later on, you can define a target quantity for the part, which the customer must purchase in order to be eligible for offer benefits. Alternatively, you can define a target sum; customers who purchase target parts equaling this sum during the defined offer period will be eligible for benefits.

Customer compensation can be according to any one of the following models:

• Offered Products: Select a part number and quantity to which the customer will be entitled if they meet the offer target.
• Credit in Percentage of total purchases during the offer period: Determine the credit % which the customer will receive.
• Fixed Monetary Credit for purchases made during the offer period: Indicate the amount of credit which the customer will receive.

Priority enables you to link a warehouse to each technician.
When the technician's "warehouse" (usually his/her truck) takes parts from the company warehouse or issues parts to the customer's warehouse, inventory transactions are created to or from the technician's warehouse.

Priority's Sales Forecast module enables you to create annual forecasts for internal and external sales reps. Forecasts can be defined in terms of monthly sales, and broken down by part family or individual part, including quantitative data. There is also the option of defining forecasts for specific customers. You can perform continuous tracking of actual versus forecasted performance and of the degree to which targets are met by each sales rep, and create updated forecasts for the remainder of the sales period.

Priority enables you to define and manage the company's branches. Each branch can be linked to an area, enabling sales analysis by branch and by area. Each branch can be linked to the branch warehouse, and its inventory can be managed by the desired inventory levels, as defined for the branch.

Each employee is linked to the branch in which they work. Document numbering can be defined separately for each branch.
You can produce reports summarizing sales by branch (at the order, shipping document, or invoice level), determine separate numbering patterns for each branch's documents, and attach a separate logo to printed documents for each branch.

System & access can be limited by user branch, so that each user can access only data related to their own branch or to other branches for which they have been given privileges.