Understanding the Shipping Business Process
Once you have completed the picking stage of order fulfillment, and (optionally) the packing stage, then you can move forward to the shipping stage. Keep in mind that you only need to complete the shipping stage if it is required by your environment. If you do not require a separate shipping step, then use the auto-processing options or direct processing to ship and deplete orders from any previous fulfillment state.
In the shipping business process, you:
Move demand lines from the unfulfilled, releasable, released, or confirmed state to the shipped state to confirm orders for shipment by assigning demand lines to a shipping ID, entering or changing shipping information, generating backorders, and creating the necessary shipping documents.
Move demand lines from the shipped state to the depleted state by running the Deplete On Hand Qty process directly or from another process or page.
The depleted state indicates that you have physically shipped the orders and the system adjusts on-hand inventory quantity balances to reflect the shipment.
To move orders to the shipped and depleted states, you can use any of the following methods:
Shipping/Issues component: Use this online component to manually assign demand lines to shipping IDs, enter or change shipping information, and set the demand lines to the shipped state.
When you save the Shipping/Issues component, your entries are applied directly to the inventory demand tables. Any needed backorders are created at save time. Also, you can launch the Deplete On Hand Qty process from this component to set the demand lines to the depleted state. When a shipment is canceled, this component can also be used to unship demand lines, that have not yet been depleted.
Ship and Invoice process page: Use this process page to select demand lines that have been picked, process them to the depleted state, and create invoices in PeopleSoft Billing for the shipped stock.
This process is only available for intercompany transfers and sales orders from PeopleSoft Order Management.
Fulfillment Workbench: Use this online component to enter requests to move the selected demand lines from one fulfillment state to another; for example, to move demand lines from the confirmed state to the shipped or depleted states, or to move demand lines in the shipped state to the depleted state. On the Fulfillment Workbench, you can enter or change shipping information for the demand lines.
The fulfillment transaction requests generated by the Fulfillment Workbench are placed in the staging tables where they are processed by the Fulfillment Requests process and applied to the inventory demand tables. If the auto-process options is turned on for the Fulfillment Workbench, then the fulfillment request is kicked off automatically without going to the Fulfillment Requests process page.
Front End Shipping Request process page Use this process page to move the selected demand lines from the unfulfilled and releasable states to the shipped state. This process page enables you to enter or change shipping information before confirming the orders for shipment. In addition, you can use the auto-processing option to process the demand lines passed the shipped state to the depleted state.
Shipping Request process page Use this process page to move the selected demand lines from the unfulfilled, releasable, released, and confirmed states to the shipped state. The process page enables you to enter or change shipping information before confirming the orders for shipment. In addition, you can use the auto-processing option to process the demand lines passed the shipped state to the depleted state.
Inventory Front End Shipping EIP: Use this service operation to move the selected demand lines from the unfulfilled and releasable states to the shipped state. This service operation enables you to enter or change shipping information before confirming the orders for shipment. In addition, you can use this EIP to create a new material stock request in the shipped state or to create new demand lines for an existing MSR in the shipped state.
Inventory Shipping EIP: Use this service operation to move the selected demand lines from the unfulfilled, releasable, released, and confirmed states to the shipped state. This service operation enables you to enter or change shipping information before confirming the orders for shipment. In addition, you can use this EIP to create a new material stock request in the shipped state or to create new demand lines for an existing MSR in the shipped state.
Note: Both the process pages and the EIPs are useful when dealing with a large number of orders. The fulfillment transaction requests generated by the process pages are applied directly to the inventory demand tables, the staging tables are not used. The fulfillment transaction requests generated by the EIPs are processed into PeopleSoft using the PeopleSoft Integration Broker and then placed in the staging tables where they are processed by the Fulfillment Requests process and applied to the inventory demand tables.
Occasionally, an order or demand line is not eligible for shipping. Depending upon the situation, the system responds in one of these ways:
Creates a backorder or cancels the demand line if a demand line is short shipped.
The create or cancel backorder decision is based on the backorder rule for shipping or the Cancel Backorder check box on the demand line.
Excludes the order from the search results of the pages and processes, if:
All order lines have been canceled.
All order lines have been shipped.
All order lines are on hold.
(Shipping/Issues component only) The order does not allow partial shipments and not all order lines have been selected.
(Shipping/Issues component only) The order is a single shipment order and not all order lines are being shipped together.
Issues an error message when you attempt to ship the order from the Shipping/Issues component, if:
All scheduled and earliest allowable shipment dates are in the future and you have selected the Verify Ship Date and Verify Ship Time check boxes on the Setup Fulfillment component.
If the Ship Prior to Schedule Date check box is selected on the order, then the early ship date and early ship time would also be used to determine when shipping was allowed.
The order is for a product kit but does not contain a complete kit.
The order is packed into a shipping container and not all lines in the shipping container have been included in the shipping ID.
Printing Shipping Documents
PeopleSoft Inventory gives you the ability to add the Shipping ID to a demand line in any fulfillment state except for Pending or Cancelled. This enables you to print shipping documents at any time in the fulfillment cycle, including prior to shipment. You can review your shipping documents before the material actually leaves your premises.
The delivery management and freight calculation features in PeopleSoft Inventory enable you to group items for shipment and apply freight charges. Freight charges can be applied on the Shipping/Issues component or in the shipping processes. The freight feature applies only to sales orders and quotes from PeopleSoft Order Management.
Freight charges can be applied to an order using:
Integration to Third-Party Freight Provider: Using PeopleSoft EIPs you can send delivery IDs to a third-party freight provider and receive back freight charges into PeopleSoft. There are multiple ways to configure this interface.
Internal PeopleSoft Freight Calculation Using arbitration plans, freight rules, and freight breaks within PeopleSoft Order Management, you can design PeopleSoft to calculate and apply the freight costs to sales orders.
Manual Entry of Freight Costs Using the Freight Amount field located on several pages and process pages within PeopleSoft Inventory, you can manually enter freight changes for sales orders.
See Understanding PeopleSoft Delivery Management and Freight Calculations.
To ensure that an entire order ships at one time, use the single-shipment order restriction feature provided by PeopleSoft Inventory and PeopleSoft Order Management. This feature, which is available only for sales orders generated in PeopleSoft Order Management, enables you to group order lines and schedules into a logical unit that must ship together using the same shipping ID.
Identify single-shipment orders during order entry by selecting the Single Ship Flag option on the Order Entry Form-Order Header page. (You establish default values on the Buying Agreement Header - Terms page or on the General Information - Sold To Options page, but PeopleSoft Inventory uses the value specified on the order header.) Once an order is identified for single shipment, all lines and schedules for the order must have the same scheduled shipment and arrival dates, inventory business unit, carrier, ship via, and freight terms. If you change any of these attributes, you must change them for all lines in the order.
After order entry, your ability to change the single ship flag is determined by the settings for the Single Shipment Flag (SINGLE_SHIP_FLAG) on the Demand Change Configuration page or the Setup Fulfillment-Demand Change Configuration page. Any changes affects all lines associated with the order. The rules for changing the Single Ship Flag are:
In the Order Entry Form component, you can make this change only at the header level, not at the line or schedule level.
You can always deactivate the option.
All lines become available to be shipped separately.
You can activate the option as long as no lines or schedules associated with the order have been shipped.
PeopleSoft Inventory ensures that the order does not ship until all lines are picked and assigned to the same shipping ID. If all lines have already been confirmed, the system also updates the order's fulfillment status, indicating that it is ready for shipment.
You can continue to reserve quantities for individual order schedules associated with a single-shipment order, but you cannot ship the schedules until the entire order is ready for shipping. Similarly, you can add order lines to a shipping ID on an individual basis, but you cannot identify any of them as Shipped until all lines have been included in the shipping ID. When shipping a single-shipment order using the auto-processing options, PeopleSoft Inventory processes the order only when all lines have been picked, confirmed, and assigned to the same shipping ID.
If you unship one line of a single-shipment restricted order, you must unship all lines associated with the order. You can cancel individual order lines at any time before the order has been shipped. When you cancel the last remaining line, either on the Cancel/Hold Stock Request page or in the Order Entry Form component, the order's fulfillment status changes to Canceled.
In most cases, you ship the same amount that you picked. Occasionally, however, you may need to short ship, or ship less than the picked quantity. There are a variety of reasons for short shipping: for example, your truck is not large enough to transport an entire shipment and you want to reassign some of the stock to a different shipping ID, or a customer changes an order at the last minute.
Note: You can only short ship if you have selected the Partial Qtys Can Ship (partial quantities can ship) option for the demand line.
You can record the short shipment in several places:
To enter the quantity shipped for a specific demand line, use the Shipping/Issues - Order Details page.
The system automatically applies this quantity to the picked lines in sequential order until the demand has been fulfilled, then returns the under-shipped quantity to the storage location from which it was picked.
If the demand line contains a lot- or serial-controlled item, or if you want to control how the extra stock is handled, use the Shipping/Issues - Picking Feedback page.
To record a short shipment on a fulfillment engine shipping transaction request, create a detail segment containing the exception quantity.
Use the Demand Lines link on the Fulfillment Workbench component to create a short shipment exception on either the Front End Shipping Request or Shipping Request transactions. In addition, you can identify which pick to short ship by specifying the location/lot/serial information on the LLS segment.
PeopleSoft Inventory offers two options for handling the under-shipped stock that was previously picked from a storage location. The stock is either putaway or scrapped based on your entry in the Short Ship Opt field. This field is located on the Shipping/Issues- Picking Feedback page and on the Fulfillment Workbench. The short ship options are:
Scrap the stock.
The Deplete On Hand Qty (Depletion) process depletes the entire picked quantity and then creates a scrap adjustment transaction for the difference.
Return the stock to the storage location from which it was picked.
The system either puts the stock away automatically or stages it for putaway, depending upon the putaway option selected on the Setup Fulfillment page. If you put the extra stock away, the Deplete On Hand Qty (Depletion) process depletes only the shipped quantity. You can also put the stock into a different storage location by staging the quantity and then using the Review Plan page to select a new location. The Complete Putaway process then adjusts the business unit and storage location quantities as necessary to account for the return of the short-shipped stock.
Note: When you use the Review Plan or Stockroom Feedback component to put stock away into a storage location other than the one from which it was picked, the system inserts a Transfer transaction (060) into the Transaction History table (TRANSACTION_INV). No transaction occurs if the stock is put into its original location.
If stock has been placed into a shipping container or assigned to a shipping serial ID, you must release the association before short shipping the order line.
Once you have short shipped a demand line, the unshipped quantity creates a backordered demand line or a canceled demand line based on the Backorder Rule for shipping. If no rule exists, then the system looks to the Cancel Backorder option on the demand line. You can override the Cancel Backorder option on the Shipping/Issues - Order Details page.
Financial Sanctions Screening (FSS) in the Order to Cash business process is performed by validating customer names and addresses with a variety of national and international security lists. For U.S. based companies and their foreign subsidiaries, a federal regulation from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) requires that customers be validated against a Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list. You can use the Screen For Denied Parties process (SCM_FSS) to screen material stock requests with a request type of:
External Order.
Interunit Transfer for VMI transactions only.
The Screen For Denied Parties process does not validate material stock requests with the request types of Internal Issue, supplier Returns, or Interunit Transfer not related to VMI transaction.
In order to screen material stock requests, you must complete the following setup steps:
Select the value of Enable at Business Unit or Enable at Install for the Order to Cash field on the Financial Sanctions Options page within the Installation Options-Overall component.
If the value of Enable at Business Unit was selected on the Installation Options component above, then you must enable financial sanctions screening for each inventory business unit by selecting the Screen Customer Stock Requests check box on the Inventory Definition - Business Unit Options page.
Define one or more hold codes to be used by the financial sanctions screening feature using the Hold Codes page.
Add a default hold code to the Installation Options-Inventory page.
This hold code is automatically applied to any material stock request that fails to pass the Screen For Denied Parties process. The default hold code must be entered here in order for material stock requests to be screened.
To screen material stock requests for denied parties:
Before shipping, run the Screen For Denied Parties process (SCM_FSS).
This run control is located in the Inventory, Order Management, and Billing menus. The Screen For Denied Parties process can review external material stock requests and VMI interunit transfers. If the customer on the stock request does not pass the screening, then the default hold code is automatically applied to the stock request. A hold code prevents a stock request from shipping.
Use the Financial Sanctions inquiry component to review the stock requests put on hold.
The Screen For Denied Parties process only identifies potential matches to the SDN list. You must review the matches and verify with OFAC. You can use the Cancel/Hold Stock Requests page to add or remove hold codes.