Dispatch Planner

---

Managing outbound goods often requires an overarching view of business operations ‘as-a-whole’ – looking across all sales accounts, orders and products. We’ve given users the power to do this via SQLWorks Dispatch Planner.

Dispatch Planner gives order managers and warehouse teams a comprehensive dashboard to maximise visibility and control over orders. Dispatch Planner is accessible within the Stock Ledger, and (by default) loads a comprehensive list of all outstanding customer sales Orders with key information about each order.

Double clicking on an order allows a drill-down to the exact order, meaning shopfloor teams don’t need to access individual customer sales accounts to understand workloads and even check line-level detail.

Simple ‘traffic-light’ statuses indicate whether the required stock quantity is available for each order to be shipped in full. By selecting an order, dispatch managers can also view the same information for each order line of the order – with the same status indication based on free stock availability. Orders will only be considered ready to ship in full once every line on that order is available to ship.

When ready to ship, dispatches can be sent to dispatch and invoiced (and emailed automatically to the customer) in one smooth workflow, removing the outstanding order from the Dispatch Planner list.

High volume companies may lengthen or shorten the time horizon of the viewed orders, or filter by warehouse. Where goods are not ‘Ready to Ship’, SQLWorks will make the user aware of why an order is delayed – for example, showing Purchasing Delays.

For companies that use Delivery/Dispatch Notes prior to invoice, the Dispatch Planner will also allow the generation of new delivery notes from here, list any valid delivery note numbers for each order for cross-referencing, and require the user to select an existing delivery note before invoicing a previous dispatch.

Dispatch Planner shows the real power of SQLWorks: as the ability to cross-reference stock control and ordering globally across the business allows you to manage operations quickly, efficiently, and with confidence.

 

You can find more detail about how to use Dispatch Planner here

SQLWorks calculates a number of different stock quantities for measuring how much stock you have.

These allow you to measure how much of each stock item are at different stages of your stock control process, and can be found displayed in the Stock Ledger for each stock item as follows. Scroll down for more information about each.

---

Actual

‘What I own now’

• Actual Stock is the quantity of an item you currently own within your warehouse(s.)

 

 

---

Pending

‘What I own which is temporarily unavailable’

• Pending Stock is the quantity of an item you currently own which is not to hand – for example Stock you own which is in ‘Transit’ internally, or stock currently waiting in ‘Make’ Bins for manufacturing.*

*The exact nature of Pending stock may vary between individual SQLWorks companies, and may represent stock dispatched but not processed, if this setting is applied – please contact your account manager to clarify.

---

Allocated

‘What’s been sold to a specific customer’

• Allocated Stock is the quantity of an item you currently own which has been reserved to fulfil a specific customer’s order.

---

Free

‘What’s really in hand’

• Free Stock is your Actual Stock minus any stock currently Pending or Allocated. This count typically represents the amount of stock you own that’s on hand, and does not include anything currently in transit, or already allocated to fulfil specific sales orders.

---

SOP

‘What’s been ordered’

• SOP stock is the quantity of a stock item which is wanted by your customers (currently outstanding on your sales orders.) This includes any Allocated stock already reserved to fulfil specific sales orders.

SQLWorks can be configured to exclude Forward Orders from this number.

---

Available

‘What would I have left’

Available stock is your Actual Stock minus your SOP. This count represents the maximum quantity of a stock item you own which could still be sold if all your sales orders were fulfilled.

---

WoP

‘What’s needed for parts / to be made from parts’

• WoP Stock is the quantity of an item currently listed on outstanding works orders – to be made from other stock items, or used to make other stock items.

---

POP

‘What’s on order’

• POP stock is the quantity of an item currently listed on outstanding purchase orders. This is stock you are expecting to be delivered by suppliers.

SQLWorks can be configured to exclude Forward Orders from this number.

 

---

Potential

‘What I could have’

• Potential Stock is all your potential stock added together. This count represents the maximum amount of stock you would have if you fulfilled all outstanding customer orders, received all outstanding purchase orders and build all outstanding works orders.
• If you are using SQLWorks MRP, the Potential stock is the quantity that will be compared to your re-order level for each stock item (within your chosen time horizon) to inform whether additional stock needs to be purchased or manufactured.

---

Stock Quantities Overall:

 

For help and advice on SQLWorks’ Stock Control capabilities, please contact our team today.