Although a PO might be fully confirmed, the supplier could decide to deliver the confirmed items in several steps. In this case, you will partially process the Incoming Shipment to register the delivered items/quantities (but keep a back order for the missing ones).
If an Incoming Shipment is partially processed, the system will automatically create a new Incoming Shipment (in state “Closed“) on which the received items/quantities will be registered, while the original IN will stay in state “Available” with the remaining items/quantities on it (the back-order). The original IN will stay open (in state “Available“) as long as all the items have not been received.
Note that several partial receptions could be received on a single IN. In this case, the system will repeat the process described above: create a new IN for the received items (in “Closed” state) and update the original IN (in “Available” state) to keep only the items in back order on it.
Go to:Warehouse / Warehouse Management / Incoming Shipments
Click on the Incoming Shipment you wish to receive.
Click on the “Process” button.
For the items that you are currently receiving, enter the received quantity using the pencil icon and save the line using the floppy icon located at the right of the line. Note that you may have to enter and BN or an ED according to the product received.
Partial reception on an Incoming Shipment
4. Once all product lines currently being received have been updated, click on the “Process” button at the bottom of the screen to register the reception. Since the “Direct to Requesting Location” checkbox is ticked by default, the products will be moved directly to their final destination. However products received for external customers will be received in the “Cross docking” location.
Partial reception on an Incoming Shipment
6. Because there are still some products/quantities outstanding on this Incoming Shipment, these are considered back-order (Bo). The system will give to the reception you have just processed the next sequential reference number (i.e. the system will create a new “IN” in state “Closed” for the received items), and the original reference of the Incoming shipment will be updated and remain in state “Available” for the remaining products/quantities to be processed when they will be received.
New Incoming Shipment in state “Closed” created for the received items
Original Incoming Shipment in state “Available” is updated to keep the items in back-order
In the export pdf of the IN, note the calculations of the QTY columns:
Qty Confirmed = Qty that was confirmed in the PO Qty Backorder = Qty confirmed minus qty received from all IN lines linked to that line of the PO/IN from scratch). Qty Received = Qty received specifically in that IN
The field “Back order of” on the original IN shows the reference of the partial reception already processed. This information is also displayed on the “Search: Incoming Shipments” screen.
“Search: Incoming Shipments” screen with information related to back order
Note that if additional partial receptions are processed, the same behavior will be repeated and the back order information will be updated accordingly on the different INs.
Additional partial reception processed on an Incoming Shipment
New Incoming Shipment in state “Closed” created for an additional partial reception
Original Incoming Shipment in state “Available” is updated to keep the items in back-order
“Search: Incoming Shipments” screen showing the back order relationships
Once the Incoming shipment has been fully received (this may be after several partial receptions), the last processed partial reception won’t trigger the creation of a new IN in “Closed” state, but will simply close the original IN.
Last partial reception processed on an Incoming Shipment
Last partial reception processed on an Incoming Shipment
“Search: Incoming Shipments” screen with an IN fully received after several partial receptions
D. How to create an Incoming Shipment from scratch
Most of the Incoming Shipments will be generated automatically after confirmation of the related PO (or PO-line). This is the standard process so that continuity can be kept between the different transactions.
However, UniField offers the opportunity to create Incoming Shipments from scratch for specific cases.
Go to: Warehouse / Warehouse Management / Incoming Shipments
Click on the “New” button.
Enter an “Expected Receipt Date“.
If relevant, enter a “Partner” (supplier) or the “Ext. C.U.” , Note that this field is only editable for IN from Scratch.
Enter the IN’s name or if you have any info to explain the creation of the IN in the “Details” field, More detailed explanations can also be entered on the “Notes” tab.
Check the “Reason type” and if necessary change it. (e.g Return from unit )
Note: three Reason types are available for incoming from scratch:
1 Internal Supply
4 Return from unit
5 External Supply
Incoming Shipment created from scratch
6. Select Order Category .The default value is empty, and the user can select one of the following options: Logistic, Medical, Service, Transport, or Other.
7. Add the products lines using the “New” button located on the top of the “Stock Moves” table (alternatively, you may use the “Add multiple lines” button to insert several lines at once).
If a product does not correspond to the selected category, the user will receive a non-blocking warning message.
8. Enter product and quantity on the “Stock Moves” screen. The system warns you if the product is managed by batch number and/or expiry date.
9. Enter source and destination locations if needed.
10. Click on the “Save & Close” (or “Save & New“) button.
11. Repeat the steps from 6 to 9 for all the products that you wish to include in the Incoming Shipment.
Inserting a new line on an Incoming Shipment
12. Confirm the Incoming Shipment by clicking on the “Confirm” button located at the bottom of the main IN screen.
Confirmation of an Incoming Shipment
13. After confirmation, the Incoming Shipment switches to the state “Available“.
Incoming Shipment in state “Available“
Note:
The Reason type field is mandatory to be filled in the Incoming shipment from scratch, In case user chooses “Return from Unit” as a Reason type, Ext. C.U becomes mandatory to be filled, this is to be consistent with check already done if products are added via import.
In case of the returns from external consumption units, there is a specific button for this import, and before the file can be imported, the header fields “Ext CU” and “Reason Type” and of course “Expected Receipt date” fields must be filled, Reason Type must be “Return from Unit”. The import file has a specific format, but the same checks are made as for the original import lines functionality. below screenshot showing the mandatory field to be filled and the bottom of Import Return from Unit.
An Incoming Shipment can be exported to PDF (and printed) by selecting the option “Reception” in the action menu (under “Reports”).
It can also be exported to Excel (XML Spreadsheet 2003 format) by selecting the option “XMLExport” in the action menu (under “Reports”) although this will only be possible for “Closed” Incoming Shipments.
Exporting an Incoming Shipment to PDF
Incoming Shipment exported to PDF
Note: On the PDF, “Cancelled” lines will not be displayed.
By default, when an Incoming Shipment is created following the confirmation of a PO (or PO-line if the PO was partially confirmed), you will always see on the IN the expected products and quantities (corresponding to what was confirmed on the PO). However, you will have to encode the quantities that you are actually receiving when you will process the Incoming Shipment (i.e. when you will actually receive the goods).
Note that if an IN is created following the partial confirmation of a PO, this IN (in state “Available”) will contain the lines which have been confirmed on the PO. If later on, additional lines are confirmed on the PO, they will be added on the “Available” IN. As long as the IN has not been fully received, it will stay open (in state “Available”) and subsequent confirmations on the corresponding PO will be added on this IN. If the IN is fully received, it will turn to the state “Closed” and a subsequent confirmation on the PO will trigger the creation of a new IN (in state “Available”).
Unifield also enables to the user to split lines at project level on Incoming Shipments from an “InternalPartner”. Feasible for IN Available Shipped (from Synched flows) flow, enabling the possibility of splittinglines and adding different batches.
Go to:Warehouse / Warehouse Management / Incoming Shipments
You reach the screen “Search: Incoming Shipments“. By default, the system only shows INs which have the state “Available” (filter activated). Incoming Shipments appearing in black are still within the agreed lead time while the ones appearing in red are not on time (delivery confirmed date from the PO is already passed).
Available Incoming Shipments
2. Click on the line corresponding to the Incoming Shipment (in “Available” state) that you wish to receive.
3. The IN is opened. Check if the products and the quantities match with what you are actually receiving.
Available Incoming Shipment
On the IN header you find, among others, the reference of the Incoming Shipment in the field “Reference“, the delivering Partner (the supplier) in the field “Partner“, the reference of the PO and origin document (IR or FO) in the field “Origin” (if any), the Customer in the field “Customer”/ “Customer ref”.
On each line of the IN, you can see the product code and description, the quantity, the UoM, the destination location, the state (which should be “Available” until processed). Some checkboxes indicating if the product is managed by batch numbers, by expiry dates, should be kept cool (KC), is a dangerous goods (DG) or is a controlled substance (CS) are also available. The “Error” column indicates if the product has been deactivated (the checkbox should be blank in order to process the product).
4. Click on the “Process” button at the bottom of the screen to register the reception.
Processing an Incoming Shipment
5. When you process an Incoming Shipment, you have two main options:
If you received exactly what is on the “Available” IN (i.e. no back-order), click on the “Copy all” button located on top of the screen to process the full quantities for all items of the reception.
If you received only partly what is on the “Available” IN, click on the pencil for each line that you are receiving, enter the received quantity in the “Quantity to process” field and save the line by clicking on the floppy disk icon on its far right (sometimes hidden!) or by pressing “Enter” on your keyboard. Repeat the operation for each received item.
If you are processing an IN created by the confirmation of a PO (or PO-line) which was either created from scratch either created following the sourcing of an IR (with Location requestor = Stock, Intermediate Stock or Internal Consumption Unit) on order, the checkbox “Direct to Requesting Location” will appear on this screen and be ticked by default. This means that goods will not stay in the “Input” location but will be moved directly to their final destination. For POs created from scratch, products will be moved directly to the stock (MED or LOG depending on their nomenclature). For POs created from an Internal Request (via OST) the goods will be sent automatically to the “Location Requestor” entered on the IR (if this Location Requestor is an Intermediate Stock or an Internal Consumption Unit). In both cases, an internal move is automatically processed, moving the goods from the “Input” location to their final destination.
Note that if you untick the “Direct to Requesting Location” checkbox, goods will be received in the “Input” location and you will have to process manually an Internal Move (created automatically) to move the received goods from the “Input” location to their final destination.
If you are processing an IN for goods which should be sent to a customer (related to a PO created by the sourcing of an FO on order, or related to a PO created by the sourcing of an IR whose Location Requestor = External Consumption Unit), the checkbox “Direct to Requesting Location” won’t appear and goods will be received in the “Cross docking” location, ready for dispatch.
6. Click on the “Process” button to actually receive the goods (in the system) and close the Incoming Shipment or on the “Save as draft” button in case you haven’t finished updating all your lines but wish to save what has already been encoded without processing.
Note that the “Cancel” button (with the red cross, located at the bottom of the “Products to Process” window) will simply close this window and return to the main IN screen. A “Reset” button may also appear at the bottom of the “Products to Process” window. It resets all data encoded so far on this window.
Note that on this “Products to Process” window, you may always decide to change the destination of the goods. This can be done by ticking/unticking the check box “Direct to Requesting Location” or changing the “Destination Type“. As such changes can have important consequences, the system will warn you accordingly.
Changing the destination of the goods when processing an Incoming Shipment
Warning given by the system if you try to receive goods in cross docking while stock was planned
Warning given by the system if you try to receive goods in stock while cross docking was planned
7. Once the Incoming Shipment is processed, it turns to the state “Closed“.
Incoming Shipment with the state “Closed“
As we will see later, if an Incoming Shipment is only partially processed (i.e. partially received, with some items in back order), a new IN will be created in state “Closed” to register the received products while the current IN will be updated and will stay open (“Available“) to receive the back order in the future.
We will also see later that if products managed by batch numbers (BN) and/or expiry date (ED) are received, the user will have to encode the BN/ED details at this stage (i.e. when processing the IN).
Note as well that the product cost can be changed when processing an Incoming Shipment. However, this change will only affect the average price of the product (on the PMD sheet) but it will have no impact on the PO or on the supplier invoice (if any). This feature was developed in order to be able to answer to situations when a supplier is delivering the products but also informs you at this point that prices have changed.
Please also note that change of price will not be possible for IN with status “Availableshipped” (except via Import).
In case the product price is changed when processing the IN, a icon will be displayed on the “Closed” IN and the details of the change will be visible if you click on the icon.
Closed Incoming Shipment with details of the price changed during reception
If the “Direct to Requesting Location” checkbox was left ticked, the products are now stored in their final destination. An Internal Move between the reception location (“Input“) and the final destination of the goods was automatically created, processed and closed.
Internal Move from “Input” to “MED“
If the “Direct to Requesting Location” checkbox was unticked, goods are now stored in a transitional location called “Input“. They should be moved manually to their final destination (after quality check) via the processing of an Internal Move (created by the system) from “Input” to this final destination.
See LU-SU4101“T. How to move received products from the Input location to a stock (destination location)”.
Let’s assume that an IR was sourced on order (PO).
a) If the “Location Requestor” field from the IR is a stock, an Intermediate Stock or an Internal Consumption Unit, the goods will be sent automatically (or manually if you untick the check box “Direct to Requesting Location“) to the “Location Requestor” indicated on the IR (via the automatic/manual processing of an Internal Move from “Input” to this “Location Requestor“) after processing the Incoming Shipment.
b) If the “Location Requestor” field from the IR is an External Consumption Unit, a Delivery Order (OUT) in state “Confirmed” will be generated (together with the Incoming Shipment) when the PO (or one of its line) will be confirmed in order to prepare the delivery to the customer. The state of this OUT will turn to “Available” once the IN is processed and goods are received in cross docking. The OUT will finally be processed to deliver the goods from the source location (“Cross docking“) to the destination location (ECU indicated as Location Requestor on the IR). The OUT will never be processed automatically.
In short, Internal Moves (INT) are used when delivering goods to internal locations while Delivery Orders (OUT) are used when delivering goods to external locations (also called partner locations).
At this stage, the below table can already help to understand how INs are created when a PO is confirmed and what are the consequences when INs are processed. Note that we will come back in details on this when the related topics will be introduced.
PO
Destination location on IN
Final destination location
Document for second step
PO created from scratch
Input
LOG/MED (according to product’s main type)
INT (1)
PO created from IR sourcing (with Location Requestor = stock, intermediate stock or ICU)
Input
Location Requestor from IR
INT (1)
PO created from FO sourcing
Cross docking
Partner
PICK (2)
PO created from IR sourcing (with Location requestor = ECU)
Cross docking
Location Requestor from IR
OUT (2)
(1) Automatically processed if checkbox “Direct to Requesting Location” is left ticked.
(2) Must be manually processed.
If your IN is related to a PO addressed to an internal supplier (another instance) there is an extra state possible for Incoming Shipments: “Available Shipped“. Incoming Shipments whose partner is another instance should not be processed in state “Available” but only when they are in state “Available Shipped“.
This state means that the supplying/sending instance has validated/sent the shipment (i.e. it is in “Closed” state) and synchronization has been done on both sides.
After synchronization, the state of your Incoming Shipment has changed from “Available” to “Available shipped” and the information of your Incoming Shipment (quantities, batch numbers, expiry dates, packing list…) have been updated according to what was shipped. Also, the field “Ship reference” will be automatically populated with the reference of the shipment from the sending instance (SHIP or OUT document).
“Ship Reference” Field will be updated also when this value is filled in IN/EPacking Vertical Integration (VI) file. This will not impact how this field displays for INs which are updated by synch. there is also a filter on “Ship Reference” at header level for the IN list view.
If you try to process such an IN while it is still in state “Available“, you will get the below warning.
Warning when processing an IN which is not yet in state “Available Shipped“
Note for DPOs:
if the incoming shipment is linked to a direct purchase order (DPO) (in another instance), despite product lines not being updated (sent) from supplying instance, INs related to a DPO from a coordination will have their state updated to “Available shipped” once the DPO is confirmed on the coordination side and synchronization is performed on both sides.
If user decides to receive or cancel the related IN with status of (available shipped) in project, Status changes will be updated in the DPO in coordo level after synchro, and that will trigger changes for Finance in both commitment voucher and supplier invoice.
In the case that the customer of the FO is an External Partner, and if this (FO) is sourced to an external supplier through (DPO), there will not be an (IN) to receive, in this case the button to “Validate the reception” in the Confirmed (DPO) should be accessible. If this button is used, this action of confirming the (DPO) will confirm the goods have been received and close the supply flow.
For the DPO Flow coming from FO from external customer is source to an ESC or external supplier, it’s possible to confirm the reception at line level (and so close the line)
The Cancel & Resource functionality is not available for this specific case, but warning message is displayed to explain this.
An overview of changes done on Incoming Shipments by the synchronization is available in Synchronization / Monitoring / PO/FO/Shipment Logs.
Destination locations of INs have already be explained in details. If an IN is created following a PO (or PO-line) confirmation, the source location will be “OtherSupplier” if the PO was addressed to an external supplier or an ESC; it will be “MSF Supplier” if the PO was addressed to another UniField instance.
Incoming Shipments (INs) refer to all deliveries that you expect from a partner which can be internal (coordination or a project), external (a supplier), ESC (an MSF European Supply Centre), inter-mission (a coordination instance from your section) or inter-section (a coordination instance from another section). An Incoming Shipment is usually created automatically (in state “Available”) following the confirmation of a Purchase Order (or a PO-line in case of partial PO confirmation) in order to prepare the reception, even if goods could only be delivered by the supplier in some weeks/months. The initial Incoming Shipment document will have the same information (products, quantities, supplier, expected receipt date,…) as the corresponding confirmed PO (or PO-line).
Note that an Incoming Shipment can also be created manually (from scratch) but this is not the normal process and it will only be done in exceptional circumstances.
Products received through Incoming Shipments are often received in the “Input” location (which is a location where quality analysis of received products should be performed) and then transferred to another location (where the products are actually expected). By default, the system will do this automatically in a “one step” process, unless the user activates the “two steps” reception process by anticking the “Direct to Requesting Location” checkbox (and in this case, the user will have to process the second step manually through the processing of an Internal Move (INT) from the “Input” location to the final destination location).
Another option is to receive the products in the “Cross docking” location and transfer them to another destination (internal partner or external consumption unit) via another movement.
An Incoming Shipment is actually a movement from a source location to a destination location. Source location will usually be “Other Supplier” or “MSF Supplier” while the destination location will be “Input” or “Cross docking“.
An Incoming Shipment is very often associated to an Internal Move (INT created automatically and processed either manually either automatically) which is actually another type of movement. The source location of this movement will be “Input” while its destination location will be the final destination of the goods (stock, ICU,…).
An Incoming Shipment can also be associated to a Delivery Order (OUT created automatically but always processed manually) which is another type of movement. The source location will be “Cross docking” while the destination location will be the final destination of the goods (ECU, “MSF Customer”, “Other Customer”).
Finally, an Incoming Shipment can be associated to a Picking Ticket (PICK created automatically and processed manually) which is another type of movement. The source location will be “Cross docking” while the destination location will be the “Packing” location, used to prepare parcels to be shipped to other instances.
This chapter covers all the necessary functionalities related to warehousing. It is divided in three parts: deliveries (inbound and outbound), stock management and reporting.
The deliveries part deals with the reception (IN) and the delivery (OUT) of products in UniField. This includes receiving partial deliveries, receiving alternative goods, processing goods with expiry dates and batch numbers, picking products, packing products, processing outgoing shipments, … The system offers a wide range of functionalities to process these types of warehouse related operations.
The stock management part explains all the necessary functionalities needed to manage a warehouse with UniField. This includes moving goods from a location to another, addressing a claim to a supplier, recording the consumption of products, managing kits, creating inventories, …
The reporting part focuses on reports which are available in UniField to allow traceability, consumption analysis and stock analysis.
Receptions and deliveries are actually movements from one location to another. As we will see, many transactions used in warehouse management trigger the creation of a movement. A movement always has a source location and a destination location.
Stock management in UniField can be compared to a double-entry system in accounting. The stock levels (or stock quantities) do not appear and vanish magically within the warehouse, they are just moved from one location to another and, just like accounting, the double-entry system offers a big advantage for tracing missing stock or inaccurate counts, as you can trace a product’s movements and search for source and destination locations.
In UniField, the inventory management of stocks is based on a hierarchical locations structure, from warehouse to intermediate stocks and consumption units (depending on the warehouse set up). UniField has the capacity to manage batch numbers and expiry dates so as to ensure compliance with the traceability requirements.
The warehouse is designed to reflect physical and non-physical locations from which you can deliver products to the customers and into which you can receive products from suppliers. Furthermore, as stock locations are hierarchically organized, you can carry out analysis at various levels of detail.
UniField also introduces the concepts of “virtual stock” (which can be understood as “future stock”) and “available stock” (which can be understood as “non-reserved” stock). These concepts are very useful to have an overview of products availability analysis and projection in the supply chain.
Throughout this chapter, you will find many acronyms. They are mostly used to shorten English words but can be used in the English manual or the French manual (i.e. you may find the acronym PPL in the French version of the manual). In the below table, you find the main acronyms used in this chapter with their meaning.
French acronyms, such as the names of the documents in French in a less extend, are barely used. English acronyms and documents names are usually preferred. In the software, references of documents are often built with the English acronyms of the documents (e.g. 18/HQ/MW101/PO00045, PPL/00033-01, OUT/00028,…), independently of the language in which the software is used.
The language in which UniField is developed is English. The software is then translated in French. That’s the reason why, even if you are connected in French, you could still find some English terminology (on screens, in messages…) while working on UniField. The translation of the software in French is a work in process and some improvements are still needed on this side.
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icon and save the line using the floppy 
icon located at the right of the line. Note that you may have to enter and BN or an ED according to the product received.
for each line that you are receiving, enter the received quantity in the “Quantity to process” field and save the line by clicking on the floppy disk icon 
on its far right (sometimes hidden!) or by pressing “Enter” on your keyboard. Repeat the operation for each received item.
icon will be displayed on the “Closed” IN and the details of the change will be visible if you click on the icon.
