Answer: Case Lots is a great new feature available to Solid Route Accounting™ - Enterprise Edition clients that allows for the easy sale of parts within a larger package. Products, especially within a C-Store environment, are often packaged within a box and sometimes within even a larger box yet. To make things worse, all three different sizes of packaging each has a separate barcode. This can make invoicing those items a guessing game on which barcode to use and often makes it necessary to open up boxes unnecessarily just to access the needed item's barcode.
Case Lots cuts through all that inconvenience and allows the route salesperson to scan any of those barcodes to add any of the items to the invoice. Simply by scanning any of those barcodes, a list will display, which allows the route salesperson to select which size of package they wish to add to the invoice, and then enter the quantity desired, and then continue invoicing by scanning the next item. To get started with setting up Case Lots:
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In Solid Business Central™, navigate to [Datafile / Inventory / View] and add all the items related to each other, including their barcodes. Setting the 'Units' field appropriately for these items will help later to determine if it's an individual Inventory Record (EA - Each), a case of items (CS - Case), a pallet of cases (PT - Pallet), and so on. Also, consider that since Enterprise Edition doesn't allow for duplicate 'Part Numbers', it's wise to figure out a naming convention that will at a glance tell if the part is an individual unit, case, pallet, and the like.
Example: A single pepperoni stick priced at $1.00 is one Inventory Record called 'Pep50gram' and set with 'Units: EA'. They're also sold in packs of 15 for $15.00, which is another Inventory Record called 'Pep50gram PK' (for pack) set with 'Units: EA' as well since they're also popularly sold by this quantity. Lastly, those packs are contained in boxes that contain 12 packs for $180, which is yet another Inventory Record called 'Pep50gram CS' set with 'Units: CS'. Notice that this setup will work even if multiple items are set to the same 'Units' type.
NOTE: If all the related items share the same barcode, only one of those items needs to have a 'B Code' set for this setup to work, which is typically set on either the most invoiced item or the mid-sized item.
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Once the items have been added, the next step is to navigate to [Datafile / Inventory / Case Lot], where the relationship between these items can be created. As with other program areas, use the [Insert] key to add a new Case Lot Record.
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In the 'Outer part', enter the 'Part Number' of the larger part, such as the 'Case' sized item. In the 'Inner part', enter the 'Part Number' of the smaller part contained within that case. Lastly, in the 'Contains' field, enter how many smaller parts are contained within each case.
- Once set, use [CTRL+END] to save this record and add all other Case Lot relationships.
NOTE: From the example given in step 1 above, there would be three Case Lot Records created:
- Outer part: Pep50gram CS, Contains: 12, Inner part: Pep50gram PK
- Outer part: Pep50gram PK, Contains: 15, Inner part: Pep50gram
Outer part: Pep50gram CS, Contains: 180, Inner part: Pep50gram
This way, any of these three parts can be invoiced, regardless of which item's barcode is scanned.
- After creating all the needed Case Lot Records, navigate next to [Datafile / Cost Center / Mobile] and use [F6 - Update] to display the prompt 'Set price list update flag?'. Use the [A] key on the keyboard to update the price list for all mobile units, and once the 'Reload Prc Lst?' field is set to 'Yes', sync the handheld computers to update them with these new Case Lot Records.