Introduction

Due to the way the consignment process is set up in our business, there are four different kinds of PO and two different types of location which are outlined below.

Types of location

Retail Locations

These are the classic locations you will know from wholesale vendors such as WA-DC-SYD and 201MAIN. When stock is in a retail location, we own it as we have paid for it. Ideally, we should never have stock from a consignment vendor in a retail location. If you ever do see stock from a consignment vendor in a retail location it will likely be due to an SO having been cancelled or a product being returned or it being transferred from another Business Unit.

SOs are created using normal retail locations and, once they are assigned to a trading PO (discussed later), the stock moves from a consignment location to the related retail location so that it can be "item ledgered" on the SO. This stock will then be invoiced that night and cannot be transferred back to the consignment location.

Consignment Locations (CST Locations)

These are specific locations for consignment vendors and are directly related to the normal locations used by wholesale stock. Winnings and AOL have their own CST locations. For example, PER-WA-CST relates to WA-DC-PER and PER-AO-CST relates to 801WHSE. In order for stock to be assigned to an SO, you need stock in the SO's related CST location. If there is no stock there, the system will flag this as a short and a Consignment PO (discussed later) will need to be ordered. 

Stock in consignment locations is not our stock so cannot be transferred to any location other than another consignment location.

A note on Commercial Locations

You cannot order a consignment vendor's stock into a commercial location and there are also no commercial CST Locations that we work with. If stock is required from a consignment vendor for a commercial order, you must either use the wholesale vendor card (where possible) or the appropriate commercial vendor card. Alternatively, the commercial SO will need to have the relevant line updated to the appropriate retail location.

Types of PO

Consignment PO

These are the POs used to order more stock into the consignment locations.  They do not have values on their PO lines (since the stock is still the supplier's) and are linked to a shadow PO which can be used to reserve stock to a Sales Order.

Shadow PO

These are exact copies of the Consignment POs except that they use retail location codes so that SOs can be reserved to stock prior to arrival in the warehouse. Suppliers cannot see shadow POs but often sales agents will ask a supplier about them because they're the POs they see assigned to their SOs. Always double-check the PO the sales agent is referring to if they flag that the supplier has not received it.

Trading PO

This is a PO that represents all of the received stock in a given consignment location. It is not linked to any other PO and does not provide information as to when stock was received. This PO exists so that SOs can be reserved to stock in the consignment location and allows the stock to move from the consignment location into the retail location. You will know the PO is a Trading PO because it will not be linked to a consignment PO and will be noted as a system PO but will not have "System Done" ticked.

Invoicing PO

This is created from the Trading PO at midnight. Basically, everything that had been reserved from the Trading PO to an SO during the day will be transferred onto an Invoicing PO and automatically sent to the supplier so they can invoice us for the stock we used. Like the Trading PO,  it is not linked to any other PO and does not provide information as to when stock was received. An Invoicing PO will be noted as a system PO and will have "System Done" ticked.

Consignment and Shadow PO Syncing Process

The consignment PO will update its shadow PO everytime the consignment PO is released (it takes 15-60 seconds). If you do not release the consignment PO after making an edit, the shadow PO will not be updated. As a result, we need to delete consignment POs if they are completely zeroed out otherwise the shadow PO will remain live and SOs will be reserved to something that is not going to arrive.

You cannot change the SKU on a line of a consignment PO (amending the quantity is fine). Doing so will cause it to go out of sync with the shadow PO. If a SKU needs to be changed, you must delete its line from the PO and then add the new SKU on a new line.

Quick Reference Table for determing the type of PO: