Katana provides dynamic statuses for sales item availability, which is crucial for managing sales orders (SOs) efficiently. The system automatically updates the inventory status to reflect live data from both manufacturing and stock levels. This feature assists in prioritizing orders and planning production or procurement accordingly, ensuring optimal inventory management and customer satisfaction.

Sales items availability shows whether the required product(s) for a sales order are In stock, Expected, or Not available. Sales items availability is an automatically calculated field in Katana and cannot be manually changed by the user.

You can find the Sales items availability either on the Make screen → Sales orders tab or by opening a specific SO.

When manufacturing products in Katana, you can produce either Make-to-Order (MTO) or Make-to-Stock (MTS) manufacturing orders (how to create a Manufacturing Order). Sales items availability will be calculated differently depending on the approach.

If you create a manufacturing order (MO) for all the products required by an SO, the Sales items availability status shows Expected. If products are expected from an MTO Manufacturing Order linked to an SO, the Sales Items availability status won't depend on the SO priority.

If you haven't created an MTO manufacturing order for an SO, the Sales items availability is calculated based on the priority of the sales orders.

The Sales items availability status indicates whether the product is available for a particular SO. If an SO doesn't have a linked MTO manufacturing order, the Sales items availability status only considers the SO priority level (if an SO does have a linked MO, it won't be affected by priority). Priority can be changed by moving the SO up or down in the Sell screen.

Even if you have some of the required products In stock, the Sales items availability may still show Not available on a SO if another SO for the same product has a higher priority. Changing the priority order of sales orders can also change the Sales items availability for a SO.

A SO will check to see if there are enough products In stock to complete it. If not, it will check if there are open manufacturing orders or open outsourced purchase orders (OPO) to make or deliver the product.

If you're using multi-locations, you can choose a different location for each item on an SO, and the availability will correspond to the chosen location.

If you open an SO and click the sales item status of an item, an Inventory Intel window will open that displays additional information about the inventory level of a specific product.

You can check the In stock, Expected, and Committed quantities and see the sales orders connected to the product. In the window, sales orders are sorted by priority with the current SO in bold. You can adjust priority from the Sell screen.

Since products can also be subassemblies in Katana and used in manufacturing, the same product can be required for a SO and MO at the same time. Both sales orders and manufacturing orders take part in the Sales items availability calculation for this type of product and are displayed in the Inventory Intel window.

This means there aren't enough products available in the inventory for the SO and that you aren't expecting the product from manufacturing (i.e. a MO hasn't been created for the required amount of product for this SO) or outsourcing.

Recommended option 1: Create a MO by clicking on the + Make button in the Production column in the Sell screen and selecting Make to Order or Make in Batch. This adds a relevant MO to the Make screen's Schedule tab.

Recommended option 2: If the SO is low priority and has some products in stock and needs to fulfill this SO quickly, you can try adjusting the SO's place to give it a higher priority for reserving In stock or Expected products.

Recommended option 3: Create an OPO by selecting Outsourced purchase order in the Global + symbol and adding the required quantity of products to the order.

This means there aren't enough products available in the inventory to fulfill the SO, but you have an open MO or OPO for the required amount of product.

The date connected to the Expected status indicates the Production Deadline for the connected MO or Expected arrival date of the connected OPO.
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Products can be expected from either MTO or MTS manufacturing orders or outsourced purchase orders.

Recommended action: No immediate action is required, but we suggest checking for conflicts between the SO delivery deadline and the sales item's expected date. If there are conflicts, you could re-prioritize your Schedule tab.

You have enough products available in inventory to fulfill this SO.

Recommended action: No action required. Proceed with SO delivery.

Sales item availability will change to Picked if the Delivery status is changed to Packed or Delivered. The In stock and Committed quantities for those products will then decrease in the inventory.

This status is given to all service items as they're non-physical and always available.

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