Companies frequently
discontinue inventory items. Perhaps an item's sales volume is too low,
it has been replaced with a new model, or the item is no longer
available from a supplier. By default, in Dynamics GP, discontinued
inventory items can still be sold. The reasoning is that companies would
still want to sell these items and clear out inventory if the
opportunity arose but they don't want to purchase more of a discontinued
item.
The problem comes when companies need to prevent the
sale of discontinued items. There could be a safety or health issue
contributing to the importance of not selling a particular item. The
typical advice in cases like this is to write off the discontinued
inventory to prevent the sale. However, this removes visibility to
inventory that might be returnable for credit in the case of a safety
recall. Additionally, in the event of a health issue the inventory may
need to be retained for inspection or proof of proper disposal. Writing
the items off or moving them to a different item number may not be
appropriate in these cases.
There is a mechanism to
reduce errors by preventing the sale of discontinued inventory. In this
recipe we'll look at how to do just that.
How to do it...
To prevent Dynamics GP from allowing sales of discontinued inventory:
1. Select Sales from the Navigation Pane. Select Sales Order Processing under the Setup section on the Sales Area Page.
2. Click on the Options button.
3. In the bottom grid, scroll down and deselect the Allow Sale of Discontinued Items checkbox. Click on OK to Finish:
When a user enters a discontinued item in Sales Order
Processing the system presents an error message asking the user to
select an active item as a replacement.
How it works...
Preventing the sale of
discontinued inventory items is easy but since the setting is buried in
Sales, not Inventory, most administrators never find it. One important
point about this setting is that it is universal for a company. If the
sale of discontinued items is prevented, it's prevented for all
discontinued items. There is no per item control.
