Bookshelf v7.5: Inventory Reconciliation

In the United States, pharmaceutical companies may request that sales representatives perform an inventory reconciliation from one to twelve times a year to remain compliant with the Prescription Drug Marketing Act (PDMA). (Sampling regulations vary significantly in North America, Europe, Asia, and Latin America.) If sales representatives' physical sample inventories do not match their disbursement and transaction histories, they may perform inventory adjustments to justify the discrepancies. For more information, see Reconciling an Inventory Period.

It is also possible to create sample products by lot numbers and to disburse samples to contacts by lot numbers and yet not reconcile by lot numbers. For more information, see Reconciling an Inventory Period.

PDMA Compliance and Lot Numbers

Companies in the United States may need to perform additional tasks to meet PDMA requirements. According to the Food and Drug Administration's Final Ruling of December 3, 1999 (21 CFR Part 203 and 205), samples must also be tracked by lot number to the level of disbursement. Siebel Samples Management provides additional functionality that allows you to meet this lot number tracking requirement. For more information on using lot numbers, see How a Samples Transaction Works.

Inventory Periods

Since samples inventory reconciliation can happen as often as once a month, Siebel Samples Management allows you to reconcile as often as you like and provides three types of inventory periods for maximum flexibility. These period types are described in Table 7.

Table 7. Samples Inventory Periods
Period Type	Description
Active	The current period; it shows no end date and it is not reconciled. You can enter any type of samples transaction, including adding new products; inventory counts will be adjusted accordingly.
Inactive	A past, unreconciled period; it shows an end date but has not been reconciled yet. Except for adding new products into inventory, you can enter any type of samples transaction; inventory counts will be affected accordingly. The default application configuration provides one inactive period, but can be configured for multiple instances.
Reconciled	A past, inactive period; it shows an end date and has been reconciled. Although you can enter samples disbursements for a reconciled period, the inventory counts for the active period will not be affected.

The default Siebel Samples Management configuration provides two unreconciled periods: one active period and one inactive period. The Siebel administrator can control the number of unreconciled periods allowed. For more information, see Reconciling an Inventory Period.