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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 Scenarios for Managing Samples, either an administrator or an end user can 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 11 and Table 12.

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 Managing Samples Transactions.

NOTE:  End users do not need to perform the procedures described in this topic 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 Full Receipt of a Samples Transfer.
However, end users do need to perform the procedures described in this topic 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. Add products to the inventory.

  For more information, see Adding Products to an Inventory.

• Submit count. Submit an initial count.

  For more information, see Submitting an Initial Count.

• Submit adjustments. Create and submit adjustments for the initial count.

  For more information, see Creating and Submitting an Initial Count Adjustment.

• Reconcile. Reconcile the initial inventory period.

  For more information, see Reconciling the Initial Inventory Period.

Adding Products to an Inventory

The following procedure shows you how to add a product to an inventory.

To add products to an inventory

1. Navigate to the Samples screen, then the Inventory Count view.
2. Create a new inventory count record and complete the following fields on the form that appears:
   1. Sample. Select a product from the Sample list.
   2. Lot #. (Optional) Select a lot number from the Lot # list.

Submitting an Initial Count

The following procedure shows you how to submit an initial count.

To submit an initial count

1. Navigate to the Samples screen, then the Inventory Count view.

   The LS Pharma Inventory Periods list applet should display only the currently active inventory period.

2. Click Closeout Count.

   This button may be disabled if there are no quantities present in the Physical Count column.

3. Click the History tab.

   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.

4. (Optional). Create adjustment transactions for the period, as described in Creating and Submitting an Initial Count Adjustment.

   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 the product inactive
   • The product does not exist in the inventory count list (product might have been deleted if the on-hand quantity was zero)
   • The product does not have an active allocation period

NOTE:  Inactive products do not display in drop-down lists or dialog boxes, although they might be visible in views displaying products.

About Establishing an Initial Inventory Count

End users only need to establish an initial inventory count when their initial counts contain records that they manually entered into Siebel Samples Management. If that is the case, they must set up an initial master inventory, make adjustments, and then reconcile it as described in Establishing an Initial Inventory.

If their initial counts only contain samples routed to them by their samples administrator, they simply need to acknowledge the receipt of those shipments. For more information, see Acknowledging Full Receipt of a Samples Transfer.