Demand Item

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An item demand requests that an item be held in reserve for a particular work order. Since it's possible that the same type of item is kept in different storage areas, the demand must specify a storage assignment: not just the item you want, but the storage location where you intend to get the item. The storage location may be a storeroom or a temporary storage location. (For more on storeroom assignments, see Storeroom Assignments. For more on temporary storage location assignments, see Temporary Storage Assignments.)

To see the Demand Item editor, click New Demand Item in the Items subsection of the Resources section of a work order. The editor contains the following:

Details area: Provides information about the demand.

Work Order: A read-only field identifying the work order.

Storage Assignment area: Lets you specify the type of item you want to reserve and the storage location where you intend to get the item. The area ends in a drop-down list that lets you choose a storage assignment. Before that are fields that let you shorten the length of the drop-down list:

Only include Items on the Parts list: If you select this option, the "Show Storage Assignments for" drop-down list will only show items from the spare parts list of the unit associated with this work order. For more on spare parts, see Spare Parts.

Show all Items: If you select this option, the "Show Storage Assignments for" drop-down list will show all of MainBoss's items.

Show Storage Assignments for: A drop-down list showing items. If you selected Only include Items on the Parts list, the drop-down list only shows such spare part items. Otherwise, the drop-down list shows all items.

Drop-down list of storage assignments: Shows all storage assignments for the item specified in "Show Storage Assignments for". If you leave "Show Storage Assignments for" blank, this drop-down list will show all of MainBoss's storage assignments.

Read-only fields: The editor window contains a number of read-only fields giving information from the storage assignment record you've selected. If you have the same item in several different storage locations, changing "Storage Assignment" and checking the read-only fields may help you decide on the storage location you want to use for this particular work order.

On hand: The quantity of the item that is actually present in the storage location. This line also gives the cost per unit and total cost of the storage location's stock of the item.

Available: The quantity of the item that is available for use. This takes into account any stock that might be on reserve for use with other work orders.

Via purchase: If there is a price quote for this item associated with the given storage location, then "Via purchase" will provide information from the price quote: how much it will cost to purchase a given quantity of the item. (Note that this line is only filled in if there's an appropriate price quote record.)

Manually Enter Quantity: Select this option if you want to fill in "Demanded" by hand.

Use On Hand Quantity: Select this option if you want MainBoss to fill in "Demanded" with the quantity that is on hand in the specified item location.

Use Available Quantity: Select this option if you want MainBoss to fill in "Demanded" with the quantity that is available in the specified item location.

Demanded: The quantity of the item that you want to reserve. When this quantity is filled in, MainBoss automatically displays the unit cost and total cost, based on the other information you have given.

Already Used: A read-only field giving the quantity of such items already used on this work order. This quantity reflects how much of the demand has already been actualized.

Remaining: A read-only field giving the difference between "Demanded" and "Already used".

Demand from on hand: A read-only field giving the outstanding quantity demanded from the storage location. This value only takes into account the current demand record, not any other demands in any other work orders.

Demand via purchase: If "Demanded" exceeds the quantity on hand in the storage location, "Demand via purchase" tells the item quantity you'll have to purchase in order to meet the stated demand. The line also gives the unit cost and total cost of such a purchase.

Calculated Cost: Read-only fields giving the unit cost and total cost of "Demanded". These figures are based on the unit cost of items in the selected storage location.

Use calculated cost: If you checkmark this box, MainBoss will fill in "Demanded Cost" with the values given in "Calculated Cost". If you don't want to use the calculated cost, leave the checkbox blank and enter an appropriate cost in "Demanded Cost".

Demanded Cost: Can be filled in with a unit cost or a total cost, if different from the "Calculated Cost".

Actual Cost Default: Specifies the default method for calculating costs when someone creates an "actual item" in response to this demand. If the person who records "actual item" information has sufficient security permissions, he or she can specify item costs in a different way. However, if the person who records the "actual item" information does not have permission to specify costs, what you specify on this demand determines which costs MainBoss will use. The possible options are:

Manual entry: If you choose this option, you expect the person recording "actual item" information to have appropriate security permissions to specify the actual cost of the items.

Current value calculation: If you choose this option, the default is to calculate "actual item" costs from MainBoss's existing inventory price information.

Demanded: If you choose this option, the default is to use the "Demanded Cost" in this window as a basis for the "actual item" cost.

Expense Category: The expense category to which this item belongs. For more on expense categories, see Expense Categories.

Actuals section: Records what the work order actually used (as opposed to the preliminary estimates given in the Details section). The Actuals section also lets you correct any mistakes made in previous "actual" entries.

List: The central part of the window is a list of "actual" entries, specifying actual uses of this item on this work order.

New Actual Item: Lets you record an actual use of this item on this work order. For more information, see Actual Item.

Correct: Lets you correct an existing actual entry. For more, see Corrections of Actual Items.

: Lets you edit an existing actual entry. You will not be able to change the cost or quantity specified in the entry; for that, you must use Correct.

View: Lets you view an existing entry in read-only mode.

: Opens a window to search for a particular record.

: Updates the list to reflect any recent changes.

Save: Saves the current record. The editor window stays open in case you want to make more changes to the same record.

Save & New: Saves the current record and sets up the window for you to enter a new record. Fields in the new record will be blank or set to default values.

Save & Close: Saves the current record and closes the editor window.

Cancel: Closes the window without saving any changes you've made to the record since the last time you saved. When you Save the record, the Cancel button changes to Close, indicating that you can safely close the window without losing any changes.

Close: Closes the window. This button only appears after you've saved changes with Save or before you've entered any data at all. Otherwise, the button is labeled Cancel.

For more on resources, see Resources. For more on work orders, see Work Orders. For more on editors in general, see Using Editors.

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