Purchasing Rules
Document Version v.3
Document Last Updated 10/30/2023
Software Version Documented v9.9.2

Overview

This document will cover how to use Purchasing Rules in Savance Enterprise. Purchasing Rules is a way to dynamically change inventory settings as metrics change. In other words, these rules will continually be evaluated to automatically adjust settings for inventory items as goods are bought and sold. This allows Savance Enterprise to agilely respond to changes in demand and value, helping to minimize losses and maximize profits.

Purchasing Rules Basics

Because this is such a large and important feature, I will first give the general basics of the feature before going into specific details. To open up the Purchasing Rules window go to **Purchasing > Purchasing Manager > Purchasing Rules.
**

The top section will show a list of all manufacturers that have rules (including “All”, which means that the rule applies to all manufacturers.) Under each manufacturer are the rules that apply to it, which can be shown or hidden by clicking the “+/-” next to the manufacturer’s name. You can view details for any rule by clicking on it and viewing the information below. To add a new rule for a manufacturer, either click the manufacturer or click ‘New’, or change the manufacturer drop down during the creation of the rule.

The middle section in blue shows all items that apply to the selected rule based on a set of criteria. This will be discussed in further detail in a later section.

And finally, the bottom section is the settings that will be changed for all the items that match the given criteria. We will also go into further details in a later section below.

Define the Parts the Rules Apply To

When you are creating a new rule, you will first want to define the items this rule applies to. This is configured in the middle section of the Purchasing Rules window, as seen below:

The possibilities in this section are very powerful due to the multiple combinations possible. You can create very vague rules or very detailed rules based on your organization's needs. You can first choose a manufacturer and warehouse if necessary, or you can select “ All” for these options if you would like the rule to apply across the board. By default, we have two rules already created for you that apply to all manufacturers:

After you’ve chosen a specific manufacturer or all you will want to configure the Group Type by clicking the Add Group button. There are two types: Match All (AND) or Match Any (OR). As the name suggests, this determines whether all corresponding fields need to be matched or whether only one of them needs to be matched. So if you have a Match All (AND) group with 3 fields, all 3 fields must be met in order for the rule to apply. If you have a Match Any (OR) group with 3 fields, only 1 of all 3 fields must be met in order for the rule to apply. You may add a combination of AND and OR groups, and there is no limit to how many groups you can add to the rule.

The Field is the most important part of the criteria to determine what items will apply. These can be added by selecting a group and clicking Add Criteria. A list of all available fields are below, with a description of each:

Once you’ve created the groups and selected criteria for each one you will then need to change the Equality and
Value columns for each field. For example, if you want the field to be “All items with a “Trade Cost” greater than
“50” (see screenshot below), then you would do the following: Set the field to “Trade Cost”, set the Equality to
“is greater than”, and set the Value to “50”.

Alternatively, you can also select values that contain text (such as part numbers that contain text i.e. “1234ARL”)
All items that match these fields will have their settings changes based on what settings are configured in the bottom
section.

Define Which Settings to Change

Once you have decided what items to apply the rule to, you will have to decide what setting will be configured for all matching items. This can be done in the bottom section of the Purchasing Rules window.

All you have to do is click Add Setting, choose the setting that is to be changed, and set the value. A description of all available settings can be seen below. When you are adding a setting, you will see the following window.

All of these values can be found in the Warehouse section of the Item Manager. This section can be seen below.

Configure Rule Priority

In some cases, you may have multiple rules apply to a single item. Example: You have an item “ARL12345” with the manufacturer “ARL'' then you create a rule that applies to all ARL items that contain “123” and a rule that applies to all ARL items that contain “345”. If these rules apply different values to the same setting, which setting will take priority for item “ARL12345” since it falls into both category rules?

If you look near the middle of the Purchasing Rules window, you’ll notice two large buttons:

If you click the “+” button next to a manufacturer at the top, you will be able to view all rules that apply to this manufacturer. Rules at the top of the list will apply first, and rules at the bottom will be checked last. If you would like a rule to take priority over other rules for this manufacturer, select the rule and then click the ‘Increase Priority’ button. The same thing can be done to decrease its priority. This is an important step to take to ensure accurate purchasing settings for your inventory, so be sure you set your rule priorities carefully.

Processing Rules

When you create a rule, it will not apply immediately. Because rules take time and resources to calculate, they are processed after hours every night. If you are an administrator, you can change this task on the server. The default name of the task is ‘Processing Purchasing Rule Calculation’.

If you would like to process all item rules during the day you can click the ‘Process Rules Now' button from the Purchasing Rules window. This will bring up the following warning:

It is not recommended that you run this during business hours, as this may slow your system's performance (depending on how many rules you’ve created.) However, if you need to run this task in the middle of the day for any reason, simply click ‘Yes’ to proceed. Depending on the number of rules this process can take a couple of minutes up to an hour.

Once the Purchasing Rules have been processed, you’re all set. You can come back to the Purchasing Rules window to change these settings at any time.