About supplier catalogues

To create supplier catalogues, you use the Supplier inventory (PO201000) window.
On this window, you can select a supplier and supplier location and create a list of items your company can purchase from this supplier location.

For each item, you can specify the following information, some of which may be specific to the supplier location:

• The supplier item ID, which is the identifier used by the supplier for the item.
  This alternative item ID can be assigned to the item.
• The unit of measure (UoM) used by the supplier as the sales unit for the item at this location (defined as the item's purchase unit in your organisation).
• The economic order quantity, which represents the quantity of this item that minimises the costs of ordering from this supplier location.
• The Shipment lead time (days) (if any) for the stock item purchased from the supplier.
  The system uses the additional shipment lead time to schedule the purchases from the supplier and calculate the promised date.
  The system automatically calculates the promised date by adding the lead time and additional lead time (if any was specified for the item) to the requested date.
• The purchasing information, which is used in automated replenishment:
  • The minimum frequency of orders.
  • The lot size defined for the item if it is tracked by lot numbers.
  • The minimum and maximum quantity that window the range in which the order quantity must fall

You cannot enter the prices in the Last supplier price column.
The column is populated and updated automatically by the prices that were last used for the items.
For details on setting up automatic price updating, see the following section.

Instead of entering all the items for each supplier and location, you can populate the supplier catalogues by creating a list of possible suppliers for each stock item by using the Supplier details tab of the Stock items (IN202500) window and for each non-stock item by using the same-name tab of the Non-stock items (IN202000) window.
Then, when you open the Supplier inventory (PO201000) window and select a supplier, you can view the stock and non-stock items that the supplier sells and modify this list if needed.

You can update the supplier catalogues manually at any time by replacing any changed data, such as alternative item IDs, economic order quantities (EOQs), lot sizes, and minimum and maximum quantities, with the newer and more correct data.
However, the last used prices in the catalogues cannot be entered manually; the system updates these prices automatically from prices quoted on supplier documents.

You can set up automatic updating of the last used supplier prices in the supplier catalogue based on the entry or release of specific supplier documents.
To do this, in the Purchase order preferences (PO101000) window, in the Supplier price update field, select one of the following options:

• On purchase order entry
• On receipt entry
• On receipt release
• On purchase invoice release
• None

When the event specified by the Supplier price update option (purchase order entry, purchase receipt entry, purchase receipt release, or release of an purchase invoice that is linked to a purchase receipt or order) occurs, the item's unit price from the document replaces the last price of the item with the same UoM in the supplier catalogue.

If the UoM of the last price is the same as in the document, but the currency differs from the document's currency, the item's unit price in the document currency replaces the last price.
If the UoM in the document line differs from the UoM of the last price, the system adds a new line to the supplier catalogue.

The system does not keep the history of price changes in the supplier catalogue.

If you do not want to maintain information about the last used prices in the supplier catalogues, select None as the Supplier price update option and the last used prices will not be updated.
Note that in this case the last supplier price may be updated on release of a invoice that is not linked to any purchase order document.

If you regularly receive suppliers' price lists for all or most of their items, you can maintain supplier prices with much more flexibility by using the Supplier prices (AP202000) and the Supplier price worksheets (AP202010) window. You can import the price lists, and calculate the updated prices by applying specific percentages.

Maintaining supplier prices through supplier catalogues can also be useful for items for which the prices do not change often or information about prices is not available in advance.

Once the system populates the Last supplier price column for items in the supplier catalogues, the system uses these last used prices as the default prices for the corresponding items on new purchase orders as follows:
When you create a new purchase order in the Purchase orders (PO301000) window or receipt in the Purchase receipts (PO302000) window, if there are no prices listed for the item in the Supplier prices (AP202000) window, for each item, the system inserts the last price from the supplier catalogue as the supplier's default price (Unit cost in either window).

If you are browsing the supplier catalogue in the Supplier inventory (PO201000) window in order to select a supplier for a specific item, you can view this supplier's current item prices by clicking the Supplier prices button on the table toolbar and navigating to the Supplier prices (AP202000) window.

You can override the default catalogue prices on a purchase order or purchase receipt if the actual purchase prices for stock items are different from those listed in the supplier catalogue.
In this case, the new prices that you enter will automatically appear in the supplier catalogue as the last used prices; the particular event triggering this update depends on the option selected in the Supplier price update field.
The new prices will then appear on a new purchase order when a user creates it.

However, if the Volume pricing functionality is enabled in your system, and you purchase different volumes with different prices from your suppliers, consider whether you need to maintain price updating in the catalogue, taking into account that you will not know what volume the price listed in the catalogue corresponds to.