Inventory depletion is a critical process in the PeopleSoft Inventory and Order Fulfilment cycle, where demand is reduced from available stock. Cost Management and Billing account postings are subsequent downstream processes generated after Inventory depletion.
In many organizations, especially during busy month-end fulfillment cycles, the priority is on shipping, to fulfill demand. In some cases, it may be desirable to hold the costing and billing processes for any of the following reasons:
- Completion of certain internal or regulatory procedures.
- Preparation of required export documentation, preparation of statutory documents required for shipments to various countries.
- Terms of Acceptance requiring a confirmation of material receipt at the shipping destination after goods are received .
PeopleSoft’s Defer Depletions option enables an organization to hold or postpone the depletion process, enabling tasks associated with the shipping process to be completed before proceeding with the actual reduction of inventory. This enables the user to cost and bill the transaction after the material has been physically moved, especially if it is shipped to an exporter or a 3rd party shipping service. Selecting the Defer Depletion option in the Setup Fulfilment configuration enables this capability.
Setting the default Defer Depletion to Y – Shipped demand lines will be deferred for depletion by default.
Setting the default Defer Depletion to N – Depletion of shipped demand lines can be deferred manually by the using the Defer Depletion transaction.
Do not use this feature – Shipped demand lines will not be deferred and hence eligible for depletion by default.
The Allow Defer Depletion Override check box, helps the user decide whether to defer the depletion or not, at each demand level, in real time. Fulfilment transactions such as Picking Feedback, Picking Confirmation, Shipping [inclusive of Shipping Request and Front-end Shipping transactions], Material Issue and Fulfilment Workbench pages will provide the option to override the defer depletion flag, if Allow Defer Depletion override is enabled.
Once all the shipment, statutory, audit-related & other non-system tasks are completed, the deferred demand lines will have to be cleared from deferred status in the Defer Depletion transaction. This will enable the deferred demand lines to be depleted, costed and billed.
While this may not be a regular practice in organizations, when needed, Peoplesoft provides the capability for a flexible alternative to manage inventory fulfillment processing.
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