How to Use Approved Vendors and Manufacturers

 

You can assign multiple vendors and manufacturers to inventory items, along with vendor and manufacturer item numbers for cross-reference purposes.

Vendors assigned to item numbers can be used for reference purposes only or can be designated as approved vendors, meaning that items can only be purchased from approved sources.

The use of approved manufacturers only affects purchase order comment lines and therefore are  for reference purposes only.

Using approved vendors

The use of approved vendors can be controlled globally and at the item number level.

Global settings for approved vendors are maintained in SD-C  Purchase Orders Defaults.  You are given three choices: not to check vendor approval status, provide a warning but allow unapproved vendors, or prohibit unapproved vendors altogether.

You can override the global settings at the item number level in IN-B  Enter Inventory by setting the Approved Vendors in PO? field to 0 (do not check), 1 (warn but allow) or 2 (prohibit unapproved vendors).

The assigning of vendors to items can be done in IN-B  Enter Inventory, or via PO-L  Assign Vendors to Items.

For advanced control of approved vendors, meaning that you can designate approved vendors for specific customers and/or parent bills of material, use BM-K  Enter Approved Vendors

Using approved manufacturers

In addition to vendors, the system allows you to designate approved manufactures.  Manufacturers are strictly for reference purposes.  When you enter a purchase order line item that has an approved manufacturer, the manufacturer name and item number automatically come into the order as comment lines.

Approved manufacturers can be assigned in IN-B  Enter Inventory or via BM-L  Enter Approved Manufacturers  which also allows you to designate manufacturers at the customer, and/or parent item number level.