Information Systems:ASW Warehouse Balance Files

Overview

This page discusses the 4 warehouse files/tables that are often implicated in issues with the weekly out-of-balance reports. It was written after a thorough discussion with Protelo regarding the interface between ASW-DIS and ASW-WHM modules. This page will not have instructions to solve specific problems with these files but instead provide general insight into the matter, which has been validated by a firm that specializes in ASW; explore the categories below to find related articles.

There may already exist articles related to this information. Some reorg may be necessary, but I wrote this so as to not forget this info. -norwizzle (talk)

Files

These 4 files keep track of inventory transactions and balances for all items. There is a pair of item balance/transaction files for ASW Distribution (ASW-DIS), and a correlating pair for ASW Warehouse Management (WHM).

ASW-DIS Files

The ASW-DIS module involves purchase order tasks

SROSRO - Stockroom balance:

SROITR - Stockroom inventory transactions:

ASW-WHM Files

The ASW-WHM module involves tasks related to the movement of items within the warehouse (between locations). Many tasks in ASW-WHM are actually performed through another ASW module: ASW-RFH, and others are accessed through menus in Extensions.

WHOLOC - Warehouse occupancy: Items can be located in several locations within the warehouse. In fact, even users are locations in ASW-WHM, such that when you pick an item for example, there is a transaction representing a move from the shelf location to the user (location), and another from the user to 88-PACKING.

WHOLTR - Warehouse location transactions:

Relationship between files

Logically, ASW-DIS and ASW-WHM are related, so there are of course processes within each module that update files in the other module. The best way to explain this is to consider a particular process - PO reception:

• A purchase order is generated by a buyer, containing a list of items (PO lines). This purchase order exists within the ASW-DIS module. Keep in mind that this purchase order could be received/completed (i.e. brought to status 60) entirely within ASW-DIS (recall how manual orders are received i.e. through a reception note). However, for regular items in inventory, receiving the PO in ASW-DIS would mean that there would be no trace of these items ever entering the warehouse.
• Thus normally, when the warehouse receives a shipment notice for a purchase order, they create an inbound shipment for that PO. An inbound shipment is to ASW-WHM as what a reception note is to ASW-DIS (in fact, an inbound shipment correlates to a reception note). Creating an inbound shipment to receive goods is essentially the only way to receive a PO in the warehouse.
• There are now two documents with a list of the same items to be received - the PO and the inbound shipment. 'This is how the 4 files become involved. That is, tasks associated with receiving goods must update the WHM files and DIS files.
• An RF user doing RF receiving will update the ASW-WHM files and the inbound shipment lines.
• The closing of the inbound shipment will update the PO in ASW-DIS.
• These file updates are triggered automatically upon user action, and software file locks during these processes are what cause these discrepancies, leading to transactions or balance changes made to one set of files, but not the other.

This example was for a shipment containing all the lines from the PO, so there was only one inbound shipment created. In reality, partial shipments arrive at different times, so multiple inbound shipments are created for the same PO. This is the concept of zero-receiving some lines and marking them as back-logged, so that they show up as receivable on a future inbound shipment.

Other notes

DIS-to-FIN

This topic has implications in DIS-to-FIN. When purchase orders and sales orders are received and fulfilled, respectively, those transactions need to be applied to ASW-FIN. This is done during this process.