Understanding Shipment Confirmations

After warehouse personnel pick the items for an order, you must verify that the item and shipping information is correct before shipping the order. You use the Shipment Confirmation program (P4205) to verify that the inventory has left the warehouse. You can verify the location from which the item was picked, the quantity, all item and shipping information, additional charges, and serial numbers before shipping the order. You can also ship on-hold items that have an allowed lot status.

Although you cannot add inventory items to a sales order during shipment confirmation, you can add amounts for nonstock items, such as handling charges and freight, depending on how you set the processing option.

When you confirm an order, the system advances the order to the next status. For example, an order with a status of 540 advances to 560 after you confirm shipment.

If the shipment quantity is less than the order quantity, you can adjust the shipment quantity on the sales order. If the system cannot fill a quantity of items, it processes the order depending on how these options are set:

• Options for the P4205 program are set to backorder, cancel, or ship available items.

• Customer billing instructions allow backorders.

  Settings for the branch/plant constants, item branch, and item master allow backorders.

In the P4205 program, you can enter the Actual Ship Time value when confirming an order line. The system also accepts an actual ship time from the Transportation Shipment Confirmation (P49645) and Transportation Load Confirmation (P49640) programs.

You can confirm the shipment of kits in these ways:

• Confirm shipments manually.

  Set a processing option to display all kit components. You can ship confirm at the parent kit line item or confirm one or more of the components individually. When you process components individually, the system displays a warning message and flags the parent kit item to not allow certain updates to the line, like quantity changes.

• Use the Carton Reorganization program (P4620) to confirm shipments.

  You can correct carton data if the line-level reconciliation fails or a change is made to the quantity shipped during shipment confirmation. You can use the Shipment Confirmation Carton Status and the Reconcile Carton Detail to Shipment Detail processing options on the Carton Detail tab to ensure that cartons have passed the necessary edits before you confirm shipment. You can use the Row menu on the Shipment Confirmation form to access the Carton Reorganization program (P4620) and make corrections.

  For example, after all the labels have been assigned to the shipment, you can change the carton status to indicate that carton detail has been reconciled to shipment detail. If all cartons for the shipment are not at that status, the system cannot confirm the shipment. This process is optional, because you can leave the status blank to proceed without checking the carton status. You can also perform this function using the batch version of the Ship Confirm Batch Application program (R42500). The batch version retrieves the processing options of the interactive version that is specified in its processing options.

• Confirm shipments automatically.

  Set a processing option to prevent the display of kit components. The system confirms the components and balances the remaining quantities for each component in the kit.