Portion Cutter
Unique Stock Tracing Component Only
The Portion Cutter utility can be used when stock items that have been assigned the portional pricing property or have the Permit Cutting option ticked. This requires that the Unique Stock Tracing Component be installed.
The Portion Cutter utility allows you to specify a total number of portion units and have CAPITAL automatically allocate which portions are to be invoiced to the customer.
Rather than use the term "portion units" which is somewhat ambiguous, the remainder of this topic will use the more concrete term "metres". Keep in mind, however, that any unit of measure can be used with portional pricing, such as inches, cm's, kilos, square metres, etc.
The Portion Cutter only works with stock items assigned the Portional Pricing property. To assign the Portional Pricing property to a stock item do the following:
From the main CAPITAL menu select Section|Stock Control.
Press the button to locate the product you want to assign portional pricing too.
Select Tracing, Assign Properties from the menu. The following dialog box will
appear:
Double-click on Portional Pricing.
From the menu select Tracing|Manage Properties.
Press the button to add the varies sizes and quantities of each size (or dimension) available.
Using The Portion Cutter On Transactions
The use of the Portion Cutter is best explained through an example. Consider that the stock items you are invoicing are steel rods. These come in one length only: 3 metres. You need to supply a 2 metre steel rod to your customer so you wish to invoice a "cut" portion.
Open an invoice transaction. From the main menu select Transaction|Invoicing.
Click on the tab button to move to the stock entry input screen.
Enter a product code on the transaction that has a portional pricing property assigned to it.
Enter a quantity in the Qty column. The exact quantity does not have to be entered. Any quantity will do, so enter 1 and press .
The
following input window will appear:
Select the 3 metre length from the list. If there is only one size presently in stock, the 3 metre length would already be selected. (In this case there are also several 2.4 metre lengths of previously cut steel in stock.)
Press Alt-C or click on the button to activate the Portion Cutter.
The Portion Cutter utility will display the portion you have selected (in this example 12 metres) and the total number of such portions in stock. You might, for example, have ten 12 metre rods in stock.
CAPITAL
will now prompt you to enter the total number of units that the customer requires. A unit, in this example,
is a metre. In the following picture a 5 metre length has been specified.
CAPITAL will calculate how many steel rods are required to make up this length. In this case one rod would be required. The off-cut would be 7 metres (12 - 5 = 7).
If what you have entered is correct, press the button again and CAPITAL will accept the cut request. Otherwise press Esc to cancel the request.
CAPITAL will remove one 12 metre rod from stock, and place a 7 metre rod in stock and allocate the 5 metre rod to the invoice for sale.
If you make a mistake or the customer changes his mind, return to the list of portions (where you previously pressed ) and press the button.
You
cannot undo once the invoice is totalled.
Consider a second example:
The customer which is to purchase 17 metres of steel rods in 6 metre lengths. This will be made up of 2 6 metre rods (2 x 6 = 12) plus a 5 metre rod. So one of the 6 metre lengths will have to be cut by 1 metre.
Use the arrow keys to select the 6 metre length from the list of available portions.
Press the button to activate the Portion Cutter.
Enter 17 which is the total required length and press the button.
CAPITAL will calculate that 3 x 6 metre rods will be involved (18 metres in total) and a one metre off-cut will result. To see the calculation press the button.
CAPITAL will do the following:
Allocate 2 rods from the available 6 metre lengths.
Deduct one 6 metre rod from the quantity of available rods.
Add one 5 metre rod to the list of available rods. This 5 metre rod will be allocated for sale.
Add one 1 metre off-cut to the list of available rods.
Remember,
if you make a mistake you can press the button to undo everything that
has just been done. If you wish to undo, you must do so before totaling the invoice.
The
Portion Cutter Is Not "Smart"
It should be noted that the Portion Cutter does not make assumptions about which portions should be cut. It assumes the operator knows what he or she is doing and will follow those instructions exactly. For example, if a particular cut will result in a 5 metre off-cut, and a 5 metre off-cut already exists, the Portion Cutter will not use the existing off-cut. It will still cut whatever was requested to be cut.
Consider that you have 2 steel rods in stock, both 10 metres in length. Plus one 5 metre rod. If you instruct the Portion Cutter that 15 metres is required in total, and you have selected your 10 metre stock, then one 10 metre rod will be used and the second 10 metre rod will be cut into two 5 metre lengths. One of which will be allocated, and the other added to the existing 5 metre stock. (For a total of two 5 metre lengths.)
If you did not wish to cut the second 10 metre rod, you should have specified that only 10 metres of the 10 metre rod was required, and allocated the 5 metre rod that was already there.
Strictly speaking, the above example is so trivial that the Portion Cutter need not have been involved. The operator could have selected one 10 metre portion and one 5 metre portion from the existing list of portions. The point of the example was only to emphasize that the Portion Cutter makes no attempt to use existing portions if they are already there.
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