RFQ: Ship To issue

[sse450]

It is normal to specify "Ship To" address when sending a RFQ to a supplier. Currently, the only way to define an address is to press Ship To button at the bottom of the page and fill the address lines. However, we have a warehouse which has already been defined in SL. But, there is no way to select a warehouse on RFQ page or on the Ship To page. It would be much convenient to select the warehouse from, say a drop down list instead of writing full address for every RFQ.

[Tekki]

I don't know why the dropdown for warehouses is missing in RFQs. But then, I've no idea where the address of the warehouse is of any use.

[sse450]

Suppliers always want to know where the products will be shipped to. Most of the time, suppliers pay for the cargo. For example, we have head office and workshop are in different cities. So, invoice and delivery addresses are different. Workshop is designed also as a warehouse.

[Tekki]

I meant: where in the program this address is of any use. The real-world use case is clear to me.

[sse450]

In SL:
Vendor Invoice, Purchase Order, RFQ need address.

For Purchase Order and Vendor Invoice there is Warehouse drop down is available. But, Ship to doesn't get address from System --> Warehouses. You have to press Ship to and enter the address manually. As normally, we get the goods to our warehouse, we need to find a way to define warehouse address in an easy way.

I use this script in sub print of io.pl:

# Only fetch and override if a warehouse is selected AND manual Ship To is empty
  if ($form->{warehouse} && !$form->{shiptoname} && !$form->{shiptoaddress1}) {
      my ($warehouse_description, $warehouse_id) = split /--/, $form->{warehouse};
      
      if ($warehouse_id) {
          my $dbh = $form->dbconnect(\%myconfig);
          my $query = qq|
              SELECT address1, address2, city, state, zipcode, streetname, buildingnumber 
              FROM address 
              WHERE trans_id = ?
          |;
          my $sth = $dbh->prepare($query);
          $sth->execute($warehouse_id);
          my $ref = $sth->fetchrow_hashref("NAME_lc");
          
          if ($ref) {
              $form->{shiptoname}           = $warehouse_description;
              $form->{shiptoaddress1}       = $ref->{address1};
              $form->{shiptoaddress2}       = $ref->{address2};
              $form->{shiptocity}           = $ref->{city};
              $form->{shiptostate}          = $ref->{state};
              $form->{shiptozipcode}        = $ref->{zipcode};
              $form->{shiptostreetname}     = $ref->{streetname};
              $form->{shiptobuildingnumber} = $ref->{buildingnumber};
          }
          $sth->finish;
          $dbh->disconnect;
      }
  }

This way, I can pull warehouse address (95% of the time) to the latex document automatically provided that no manual entry (5% of the time) by pressing Ship to

However, there is no Warehouse drop down in RFQ. So, this doesn't solve the issue on RFQ.

I would appreciate if you implement a solution for this.

[Tekki]

However, there is no Warehouse drop down in RFQ. So, this doesn't solve the issue on RFQ.

I would appreciate if you implement a solution for this.

To add this dropdown isn't a big thing. But I can't add anything from your script to the code, because this works in your situation, but not for companies with a single shipping point. We need a more flexible solution for that. And then it seems to me it adds the warehouse address to a sales order too.

This shipping address functionality seems to be made for sales, not for purchase. When I add a shipping address to a purchase order, it gets related to the current supplier. But he doesn't send the goods to one of his own addresses, he sends it to my company, doesn't he? This means for an order to another vendor, the same address or list of addresses should be available immediately.

[sse450]

but not for companies with a single shipping point.

My understanding is that "shipping point" and "ship to" are two different things. Shipping point is where the goods are shipped from, like city, country etc. It can be combined with shipping terms, like FOB, CIF etc. On the contrary ship to is destination point. Where will the goods be delivered to. I could be wrong but at least this is my understanding.

This shipping address functionality seems to be made for sales, not for purchase.

It is definitely needed for sales. Different invoice and delivery addresses of a customer is a common thing. But, shipping (=delivery) address is also very useful for purchase as well.

But he doesn't send the goods to one of his own addresses, he sends it to my company, doesn't he?

Of course, the vendor sends to the delivery address (=Ship to) I specified in the purchase order as the buyer.

Perhaps, there is a confusing about what a "shipping address" is. For me, it is "ship to" or in another term "delivery/destination" address.

OK. Let's scrutinize this in sales and purchase settings.

Sales: On Sales Order, we need to specify Ship To address based on the agreement with the customer. Sometimes customer wants us to send the goods to a different location. Be it customer legal address or a different one, in each case, we need to write the address details every time by pressing Ship to button.

Purchase: "Ship to" address should be where we expect to receiving goods.

Currentlyi be it sales or purchase related, there is no an easy way to define delivery address. Even, we cannot retrieve our company address specified in System -> Defaults in an easy way. The only option is to write the all address details by pressing "Ship to" button.

What I would like to have is freedom of picking any customer address (already defined in customers page) and warehouse address (already defined in System -> Warehouses) automatically. If the address, be it sales or purchase order, is different than the addresses already defined in SL, then user should use "Ship to" button at the bottom of pages and enter the address details manually. Also this approach is inline with database normalization concept as well.

You are the one managing/improving architecture of SL. So, it is OK for me whatever you decide.

[Tekki]

My understanding is that "shipping point" and "ship to" are two different things.

I only speak about the addresses on the second screen.

Sales: On Sales Order, we need to specify Ship To address based on the agreement with the customer. Sometimes customer wants us to send the goods to a different location. Be it customer legal address or a different one, in each case, we need to write the address details every time by pressing Ship to button.

If you check the recurring button, the address is stored and you don't have to write it again for the next order.

Purchase: "Ship to" address should be where we expect to receiving goods.

Excactly, and this is one of our own addresses, not one of the supplier's.

What I would like to have is freedom of picking any customer address (already defined in customers page) and warehouse address (already defined in System -> Warehouses) automatically.

For this a completely new search screen for addresses inside the order/invoice would be needed. For the moment, I don't see another solution than to make the "Ship to" screen on the purchase side more useful.

[sse450]

If we can't bring Warehouse address automatically, no need to create a warehouse drop down on RFQ page. We can manually enter using recurring checkbox on the Ship to screen. Your approach is OK with me. No need to spend time on this. We have more urgent/important issues anyway. You may close this issue.

[Tekki]

If we can't bring Warehouse address automatically, no need to create a warehouse drop down on RFQ page.
It's already made on our development server. We can publish the change or not, it's your decision.

For a next improvement step, my opinion is that we should change the shipto functionality in this way:

• vendors have no shipping address
• all shipping addresses added on the purchase side are considered to be 'our own' addresses
• 'our own' shipping addresses marked as recurring appear in all the documents on the purchase side

[sse450]

It's already made on our development server.
Thank you.

vendors have no shipping address
Of course, yes. No need for vendor's shipping address on purchase side

all shipping addresses added on the purchase side are considered to be 'our own' addresses
Surely, yes.

'our own' shipping addresses marked as recurring appear in all the documents on the purchase side
In this case we should be able to define one of our addresses as "recurring" Our address marked recurring will appear in the documents. If so, perfect.

Thanks.

[Tekki]

In this case we should be able to define one of our addresses as "recurring" Our address marked recurring will appear in the documents. If so, perfect.

There is maybe a misunderstanding here. Shipping addresses and the addresses entered anywhere else (customers, vendors, employees, warehouses) are stored in different database tables and not related to each other. With the change I proposed the only thing that would change would be that we only have one pool of addresses for all the vendors instead of individual pools for each of them. Instead of separating shipping addresses for vendor A and vendor B, an address marked as recurring in an order to vendor A would be appear on the list of available addresses in a RFQ for vendor B.