How do I set up item replacements / Or how to make customer items apply to all customers??

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OK I am no expert on this stuff, honestly I am the outside sales guy. We are a small company that sells parts to state Governments. We use GP2015 as our business system, Financial/Inventory.

What is the procedure to set up Item replacements in our inventory. ie. Part # 123 is going to be replaced every time by Part # 456. Customers will still be asking for #123 but I want to sell them #456. We have several thousand line items and numbers and parts get updated all the time. It can be a real nite mare trying to cross #s before entering them into the order screen. There has got to be a better way.

Did I mention I'm the outside sales guy.. Please be specific and don't assume I have a clue what your saying unless your speaking regular English Instead of the computer Genius Language.

Thank You in Advance

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Syrus 4,156 on at

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there is an option in item Master to list another item as substitute to the primary/actual one and can be replaced.

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Community Member on at

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I can't take credit for this, but it is correct:

Mahmoud M. AlSaadi responded on 1 Nov 2013 9:34 AM

I might have a saying in here in order to clarify few issues regarding the "Alternate Items" and "Substitute Items", which are differently handled by the systems Both are used to specify item substitutes, although, the follow are the key differences to consider.

Alternate Items: which can be reached as follows;

Manufacturing > Cards > Inventory > Engineering Data > select an item > Go To button >Alternate Items

Item Maintenance > select an item > Go To button >Alternate Items

You can specify as many substitute items in this window as you want (unlimited number of substitutes). Those substitutes can be categorized as "informational" since they will not be "automatically" used by the system to be alternate original items in any process.

Alternate items are saved in (IVR10100 | Alternate Items) table, (Item Number, Alternate Items).

Substitute Items: which can be reached as follows;

Item Maintenance > Options > Substitute Item (1 and 2)

Substitute Items entered within these fields, are considered as "Alternative Items" that will be suggested by the system automatically when the original item has zero stock. Associated modules that are included in this process: GP Invoicing, SOP and BOM.

Helping Note:

By default, when entering alternate items on the "Alternate Item Window", the first two only will be considered as substitute items (1 and 2), which will be used automatically by the system as explained above.

On the other hand, when you enter "Substitute Items" directly from Item Maintenance > Options, you will get a warning message that "Manufacturing User should enter this substitute item in the Alternate Item Window", and still the substitute are saved in item master only.

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L Vail 65,271 on at

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This is something I have done in the past if I don't want to use the old part number anymore, but I'm still not ready to change the old part number into the new part number (using the PSTL tool). I use kits. If my old part number was 123, I create a new kit by adding a period to the end of the old part number. The new kit part number would be 123. and it would be a kit that contained only part 456. Using kits let's you keep all of your transactions in 456, but gives you a visual cue that the part number has changed. Even using the suggest items and/or substitute items feature, I do not think a list will 'automatically' pop up with a nice list of alternates for you to select from. The 'suggest items' is better because there is a keyboard shortcut (CTRL+I) that will open the window. If you have 'thousands' of items that change regularly, you've got a big job on your hands whichever way to choose to go. Perhaps there is a third party solution out there that will do what you need.

If you have SmartFill from Rockton software, you could put the old part number on the item number line and then program the system to pop open a window and show you every part that has that string sequence in whichever search fields you choose. You'll need to set the software up that way, but given how many items you have, it might be worth the effort. I think that would work anyway, I haven't tried specifically to set it up that way.

Kind regards,

Leslie

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Community Member on at

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Thank you all very much.

The box in the master only works with Manufacturing.

in the end I got Smart Fill configured in a way that works pretty good at sending me to the new #s.

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Bill Campbell 12 on at

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Question - do you still sell 123 to other clients - or is it 'discontinued' and then 456 is the only option?

If so, you can from Inventory >> Cards >> Item - open 123 - click Options and on the second window enter 456 in the replacement line.

At that point when the user tries to sell the 123 item and there are none available it will suggest 456. It is a slower solution as you still have to make many choices - but it works.

By the way, I do like Lesile's solution and SmartFill

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Community Member on at

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We use a lot of our own part #s,, But we also have the OEM options loaded even tho we don't stock them and rarely sell them. We put the OEM number into the short description field and now with the way Smartfill is set if you type in 123 and there is an A class part that has 123 anywhere in the 3 description fields it will pop up a box to select that part. Say that a customer calls in and asks for a 123ABA but you stock the same thing as 456CDC before you just had to know that. Not easy with thousands of parts. Now you type 123ABA and it pops up a selection window with any item that is A class and has 123ABA in the description so you can just select it.

Thank you all for the help. This makes my life so much easier!

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