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Working with Purchase Demand Queues

Purchase Demand queues organize purchasing by what needs attention. Rather than reviewing every customer order or PO, you can work from a specific purchasing question:

What still needs to be bought?
What has been planned but not ordered?
What is running late?
Where do we have too much or unused purchasing coverage? A line can appear in more than one queue because each queue looks at a different part of the purchasing relationship.

To Buy​

To Buy shows customer demand that still has Unplanned quantity. This means some portion of the customer requirement is not currently:

  • On a Purchase Order
  • On a Master Purchase Order
  • Planned with a vendor This is usually the best queue to start with. For each item, you can expand the row to see the individual customer orders creating the demand. From there you can open Purchase Links and decide whether to: assign the quantity to an existing PO or MPO, plan it with a vendor, or leave it Unplanned until a purchasing decision is made.

Example​

A customer order requires 9 flats. 8 flats are already on a PO. 1 flat is Unplanned. The order appears in To Buy because that last flat still needs a purchasing decision.

Vendor Planned​

Vendor Planned shows customer demand where a vendor has already been selected, but the quantity has not yet been placed on a PO or MPO. A plan means:

We know who we intend to buy this from, but we have not placed the actual purchase yet. This queue is useful when you are ready to begin building vendor POs. You can review all planned quantities for a vendor and then use Add from Order from the vendor's PO to convert those plans into actual purchases. When a planned quantity is added to the matching vendor PO, eGrow uses that vendor's plan first before taking from any remaining Unplanned quantity.

On MPO​

On MPO shows customer demand assigned to a Master Purchase Order. This is useful when you have committed material to a vendor but have not yet released it onto the individual Purchase Orders or loads that will fulfill it. The customer demand is already covered at the Master PO level, so it is no longer considered Unplanned. When the MPO is released to a regular PO, the related customer-order relationships move with the released quantity. Use this queue to review what is still waiting at the blanket-purchase level.

Late​

Late identifies purchasing relationships that may not meet the customer requirement in time. Each customer order line has a Receive By date. A PO or MPO is considered late for that order when its expected date is after the Receive By date. The same PO may therefore be on time for one customer order and late for another because the customers have different ship dates. The Late queue can also identify customer demand whose Receive By date has already passed while quantity is still Planned or Unplanned. Use this queue to answer:

Which customer orders may be affected by purchasing timing? You can then decide whether to use a different PO, buy from another vendor, move the demand, or otherwise address the shortage.

Over-linked​

Over-linked means more purchasing supply is connected to an order line than the customer currently requires.

Example​

The customer originally required: 10 flats You linked: 10 flats to a PO. The customer requirement is later reduced to: 8 flats. The PO relationship is not silently changed. The line now shows: Over-linked: 2 This gives the buyer a chance to decide what should happen to those extra 2 flats. They may remain on the PO as stock, be used for another customer order, or be removed from the relationship. Vendor Plans behave differently because they are still intentions. When customer demand is reduced, plans can be trimmed automatically before firm PO or MPO links are changed. A useful way to remember this is:

Plans can adjust with demand. Firm purchases require review.

Unassigned on POs​

Unassigned on POs looks at purchasing from the opposite direction. Most queues begin with customer demand and ask:

What still needs purchasing? Unassigned asks: What have we purchased that is not currently connected to customer demand?

Example​

A PO contains: 60 each 42 are linked to customer orders. 18 remain Unassigned. Those 18 are not necessarily a problem. They may be:

  • Extra quantity intentionally purchased for stock
  • Quantity available for another customer
  • Quantity whose original customer relationship has changed From the PO line, open Linked Orders or All Open Orders for This Item to see whether other customer demand could use the available quantity. The test workflow specifically treats a PO as able to carry unlinked stock; Purchase Links do not require every purchased unit to belong to an order.

All​

All gives you the overall view of purchasing demand within your current filters. Use it when you are not looking for a specific exception and want to see the complete relationship across customer demand, vendor plans, MPOs and POs. You can still use:

  • By Item
  • Order Lines
  • Column search
  • Saved filters
  • Purchase Links to narrow the list.

By Item vs. Order Lines

The queues can be viewed in two useful ways.

By Item​

By Item groups demand for the same product together. This is useful for purchasing because several customer orders may need the same item. For example: Dahlia Hypnotica Red 25 flats total demand 8 On PO 17 Unplanned Expand the item to see which customers and ship dates make up the 25 flats. This allows you to purchase based on the combined requirement while still retaining the relationship to the individual customer orders.

Order Lines​

Order Lines shows the individual customer requirements directly. Use this when customer, ship date, vendor or timing is more important than the combined item total.

Using Filters with Queues

Queues answer what needs attention. Filters answer which part of the business you want to look at. You can narrow Purchase Demand by:

  • Vendor
  • Item
  • Customer
  • Order type
  • Ship date The queue then works inside those filters. For example: Vendor = Berryhill Queue = To Buy shows customer demand relevant to Berryhill where some quantity still needs a purchasing decision. The vendor filter does not change the coverage numbers. It selects the applicable order lines while continuing to show the complete purchasing relationship for those lines.

A Simple Daily Purchasing Flow

A practical way to use the queues is: Start with To Buy Identify demand that still has no purchasing decision. Review Vendor Planned Turn vendor intentions into actual purchases when appropriate. Review On MPO Release blanket-purchase quantities when they are ready for individual POs. Review Late Address purchasing that may not arrive when the customer needs it. Review Over-linked Decide what to do when firm purchasing exceeds current customer demand. Review Unassigned on POs Determine whether unused PO quantities should cover other orders or remain stock. The queues are not separate workflows. They are different views of the same relationship between:

Customer demand → purchasing intention → purchasing commitment → actual purchase That is the purpose of the Purchase Demand screen: to make those relationships visible according to what needs your attention.