|
Life Sciences > Inventory Period
Inventory Period
Use the Inventory Period pages to create, update, and track inventory periods. An inventory period is a defined period within which all movement of samples or promotional items (sample drops, receipts, transfers, and inventory adjustments) can be tracked. The inventory period is defined by the samples administrator for the customer company. It is used to organize the sales force through planning and evaluating metrics.
Samples administrators and sales representatives perform all initial counts, interim audit counts, final audit counts, and reconciliations within the inventory period:
- Initial Count. The initial count is performed by the sales representative upon receipt of a new inventory. Sales representatives must physically count all samples that they receive and acknowledge that the items are in their possession. For more information, see Acknowledging Receipt of the Sample Inventory.
- Interim Audit Count. The samples administrator can request an interim audit count at any time. It is a request to count the inventory and report on it. An interim audit count is often performed as a special case audit where potential fraud activity has occurred, or there appears to be a process issue with tracking the inventory. It acts as a checkpoint for the samples administrator. For more information, see Requesting an Interim Inventory Count.
- Final Audit Count. The samples administrator requests the final audit count. In this case, the inventory period is coming to an end, and all samples must be accounted for. The sales representative must count and log the final physical count for each sample, and submit the final audit report. To create an audit report, the sales representative can go to the Inventory Audit Report Homepage, and create a new inventory audit report. The sales representative can also trigger the automatic creation of the final audit report, for more information, see Closing Out an Inventory Period.
- Reconciliation. When the final audit count is complete, the sales representative must reconcile the inventory. For this reconciliation, the tracking of internal, sample transactions is compared with the final physical count. Any discrepancies are logged. If no discrepancies exist, the reconciliation is successful, and the inventory period is marked as reconciled. For more information, see Correcting Physical and Electronic Count Discrepancies and Reconciling an Inventory Period.
NOTE: Your company administrator determines which tabs are available to you. If your job responsibility does not include tracking inventory period information, the Inventory Period tab might be excluded from your setup.
Types of Inventory Periods
Because reconciling samples inventory can happen as often as once a month, Oracle CRM On Demand Samples Management allows you to reconcile as often as the samples administrator requests you to. It provides three types of inventory periods for maximum flexibility.
The following table describes the types of inventory periods.
Inventory Period
|
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 are adjusted accordingly.
|
Inactive
|
A past, unreconciled period. It shows an end date, but it has not been reconciled yet. You can enter any type of samples transaction, except new products to the inventory. The inventory counts are affected accordingly. The default configuration for Oracle CRM On Demand provides one inactive period.
|
Reconciled
|
A past, inactive period. It shows an end date and has been successfully reconciled. You cannot perform transactions on this locked-down inventory period.
|
The default configuration in Oracle CRM On Demand for samples management provides for three unreconciled periods: one active period and two inactive periods. You can have multiple reconciled inventory periods, but only one active inventory period open at any time.
|
