The distinction between a Standard item, Build To Order Kit (BTO) item, and Stock Kit item is confusing to those Acclamare clients that previously used software applications which used those terms.
In Acclamare, an item is designated as a Standard, Service, or Misc Credit item type. There is no designation of Stock, BTO Kit, or BTO Assembly.
An item may be pre-defined with Kit Components from within the "Kitting" menu of the item's File Maintenance interface. Defining these components does not change what "type" of item it is. Defining the components is simply defining the components in the event you wish to acquire this item via the Kit Order process (or Kit Disassembly).
In an item's Stocking interface, the field "Reorder Source" controls the default manner in which this item will appear in Replenishment. You may set to Purchase, Assemble (ie Kit Order), Transfer, or Rework. Once an item is retrieved into Replenishment, the item's Source can be changed on-the-fly as needed. ** Note: If you decide to set an item's Reorder Source to "Assembly" it is highly advisable that you pre-define the Kitting components for this item.
ANY Standard item can be kitted via Kit Order entry or during Sales Order entry, regardless of whether the item has pre-defined components or of the setting of the Reorder Source. Once an item has been placed onto a Sales Order, the user has options of how to fulfill the demand for this line. If no action is taken by the user, the item will appear in Replenishment as dictated by the Reorder Source; or in the case of a Virtual item, the item will appear in Replenishment as a "Special Order". The user has the ability to directly fulfill the demand for the line through the Sales Order's menu named New Details. A few of the options from New Detail are: Purchase Order, Kit Order, and Build to Order Kit (there are other options as well).
Purchase Order: This purchases the item from a vendor.
Kit Order: This creates a Kit Order for the item. The Kit Order is comprised of the pre-defined components that exist from Item File Maintenance. Secondarily, a user may alter the Kit Order from the Kit Order interface.
Build to Order Kit: This creates a Kit Order for the item and immediately displays the Kit Order interface. The Build to Order Kit process provides these additional capabilities:
- Immediately edit the kit components of the item. If the item had pre-defined components, the components will appear and user can add, delete, and edit those components. If the item does not have any pre-defined components, the user would add the components here. Note: Add, delete, and edit of components is ONLY affecting this specific Kit Order. It does not change the pre-defined components within the Kitting list.
- If the Item's List Price = $0, this enables the Price Roll-up feature. Under this scenario, the price of the Sales Order line item is derived from the sum of the component line prices.
- While the Kit Order is displayed, the user can optionally Post the kit order, thus making it immediately committed to the Sales Order line and ready to ship. This essentially builds and completes a kit order on-the-fly.
Summary:
- There is no distinction between an item that is not a kit or is a kit.
- Any Standard item can be acquired via a Kit Order.
- Whether or not you stock an item is determined by the reorder setting from the item's Stocking interface.
- Components can be predefined for an item.
- During Sales Order, the user can acquire the item via Kit Order or as a Build to Order Kit method.
- The Build to Order Kit method provides the user with additional editing and posting features.
Disassembly of Kits
Acclamare provides a means to disassemble kitted items. This comes in handy for two main scenarios.
- You have previously kitted an item internally and now need to disassemble it. This can simply be from excess stock that you have on hand or from a Customer Return.
- You purchase an item from a vendor as a complete item composed of multiple items (components). The cost of the singular item is less than the sum of the components if you purchased them separately. After you receive the item, you desire to disassemble the item into individual components into your stock.
Disassembly is performed from Transaction - Inventory - Kit Disassembly interface. There are two methods to disassemble a kitted item using this interface.
- If you input an item number into the "Kit" field, you will be disassembling the item based upon it's pre-defined components as currently listed in the item's Kitting screen.
- Alternatively, you may select "Add Kit Order" from the Action menu and input a specific Kit Order #. With this method, the item will be dis-assembled based upon the specific list of components associated to that Kit Order.
Component items are placed back into inventory at a calculated unit cost. This cost is based upon each item's cost ratio to the master item being disassembled. This necessitates that each component item has a non-zero value for it's Last Cost. If one or more component item has a $0 Last Cost, the posting of the Kit Disassembly will fail.