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Establishing an Initial Inventory

Establishing an initial master inventory is only necessary if you are manually entering and tracking samples. If you are populating your samples inventory from a third-party system, it is not recommended that you establish an initial master inventory.

As outlined in About Scenarios for Managing Samples, either an administrator or an end user may establish an inventory. However, because Siebel Samples Management routes and maintains transactions by Employee ID, only the user who creates an inventory (the initial inventory count) can create or manipulate that inventory.

Before adding products to the master inventory, you must verify that the products are correctly defined for inventory tracking. For more information, see Defining Internal Products paying specific attention to Table 10 and Table 11.

In particular, in the Products form, you must select one of the following fields:

• Orderable
• Either Inventory or the Lot# Tracking

When neither Inventory nor Lot # Tracking are checked, the sample is not tracked in inventory.

For more information, see Defining Internal Products and About Samples Transactions.

NOTE:  End users do not need to perform the procedures described in this section if their initial counts consist only of samples transfers routed to them by their samples administrator. Instead, they should simply acknowledge the receipt of those shipments. For more information, see Acknowledging Receipt of a Samples Transfer (End User). However, end users do need to perform the procedures described in this section if their initial counts contain any records that they entered manually. End users who enter records manually must submit those counts and reconcile the initial inventory period.

To establish an initial master inventory:

• Count products on-hand. Establish an inventory count by physically counting the products currently on-hand. This process creates a list of the products in your inventory and an inventory period solely for your initial count.
• Add products and submit count. Add products to the inventory and submit an initial count. (See To add products to inventory and submit an initial count.)
• Submit adjustments. Create and submit adjustments for the initial count. (See To create and submit initial count adjustments.)
• Reconcile. Reconcile the initial inventory period. (See To reconcile the initial inventory period.)

To add products to inventory and submit an initial count

1. Navigate to the Samples screen.
2. On the link bar, click Inventory Count.
3. In the Inventory Count list, create a new record and complete the necessary fields.

   Some fields are described in the following table.

   Field	Comments
   Count	The amount of your initial inventory.
   Difference	Shows a negative number after you enter a value in the Count field.
   Lot	The lot number for this sample.
   Sample	The name of the sample to be added.

   Repeat Step 3 to create a new record and count for each product in your inventory.

   NOTE:  Records created in this view can be deleted only if the value of the On Hand Quantity field is zero.

4. Click Submit.

   The Difference field is cleared for all records. The application transfers the number you entered in the Count field to the On Hand Quantity field and clears the Count field.

   Once you submit an initial count, the Siebel Samples Management deactivates the inventory period into which you entered your initial counts and creates a new active inventory period.

5. On the link bar, click Samples History.

   The Samples History view appears.

   The inventory period into which you entered your initial counts becomes inactive—a date and time appear in the End Date field, and there is no check mark in the Active field. In addition, a new active period has been opened.

Create adjustment transactions for the period, as described in the next procedure.

NOTE:  You cannot submit an adjustment transaction if the product is not currently active. Siebel Samples Management considers a product inactive if the administrator has made it inactive, or the product does not exist in the inventory count list (it could have been deleted if the on-hand quantity was zero). Inactive products do not display in drop-down lists or dialog boxes, although they may be visible in views displaying products.