Just in time inventory for distribution can be handled with direct delivery process in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations (D365FO).
Items that are big, bulky or very costly to manage in a warehouse are all great candidates for direct delivery to your customer or project. Once you have made the decision to direct deliver these products, you can setup and manage the process in D365FO. It will insure that you have accurate costing and invoice your customers in a timely fashion.
You can setup items in your inventory to be direct delivery all the time, direct delivery items to your customer as a cost saving, or increase the time of delivery. To setup the item you need to set the following two fields on the released items.
Navigation: product information management > products > released product
- Setting the vendor will insure that you direct delivery from the vendor that you want to use.
- Setting the direct delivery will insure that all the sales will be direct delivered.
- If you leave the direct delivery turned off, it's optional to direct deliver.
Your sales force won't have to worry about managing the product either. When you add the item to the sales order, the purchase order will be created automatically and the customer service will be given a message.
Navigation: procurement and sourcing > workspaces > purchase order receipt and follow-up
Managing direct delivery form the purchase order receipt and follow up workspace allows you work from a central location to manage all your purchasing tasks not related to your warehouse management system (WMS).
Pro Tip: add a tile to your workspace to know when you have direct delivery orders to be confirmed.
Use the direct delivery link on the right of the workspace to open the direct delivery workspace.
Click on the confirmation tab and confirm you purchase order, then send to the vendor.
Once your vendor has sent you the advance shipping notice you can use the delivery tab to do the receiving of the purchase order.
Click on full product receipt, there's no need to add a packing slip number from the vendor. The system will auto generate a packing slip ID, so you can move this process forward faster and bill your customer.
If you want to record the vendor packing slip or partially receive the purchase order, use the partial product receipt option. In the window that opens record the product receipt, update the qty field if needed and click OK.
Your accounting department or nightly batch process would invoice your customer now because their order will have been shipped. They can review the process by using the shipped but not invoice sales order in the customer invoicing workspace.
Navigation: accounts receivable > workspace > customer invoicing
Now imagine this process automated with electronic data interchange (EDI) functionality. This is just the beginning of a better way to manage your inventory and increase customer satisfaction.
