Wrong Quantities in an Order

Order quantities will be wrong if the Stock-on-hand is incorrect, or the sales forecast is wrong. But most order quantities that appear incorrect are a result of RxOne taking into account changes in sales patterns that it has detected.

Checking a 'wrong' quantity.

• Check the Stock-on-Hand (SoH). If wrong in the machine correct it. Wrong SoH will always cause an incorrect order quantity. If many wrong SoH figures appear, it is likely the rolling stocktakes are not being done properly.

• Look at the sales forecast on the stock card. Is the order quantity reasonable in view of the sales forecast for the month, the SoH, the time of month, the seasons? If so, the order is correct, though the forecast might not be. If the forecast seems wrong, consider the sales for earlier months. Usually the forecast is reasonable; it is just that the computer has detected a change in sales patterns before anyone else (which is what it is there to do).

• If the SoH and forecast are correct, look at the order quantity considering the SoH (negative stock to be bought up to zero), any owing on scripts, whether a high season is coming, whether the usage is building up, the time of month and other factors described in detail under ordering philosophy.

There is always room for different opinions as to the correct order quantity, but the computer's suggestions should not be lightly over-written. The computer has a perfect memory, detailed history to work from, and 'RxOne' inherited its ordering formulae from its MS-DOS ancestors where they proved very efficient in several thousand sites over many years. They are not perfect, but they are usually considerably better than even a skilled human buyer when taken over the whole stock.

Order made up on Master is different from order made up on Slave.

The Liquidity Setting setting is probably different on each machine. Set it correctly on all units. Use of different liquidities can be deliberately used to allow a quick method of increasing or decreasing orders.

Making up an order twice

If you create an order, and then immediately create the same order again, you may find that the second order orders small quantities of the same stock items. This will occur where the first order has rounded down some items, or the user has deleted items off the first order.