National Program processing

Through an industry concept known as a national account program, a manufacturer can offer special deals or pricing to a dealer. The Distribution SX.e application offers a National Program functionality that allows you, a Distributor, to sell products to your Customer [Dealer], such that the customer can participate in a qualifying national account program.

With this National Program functionality, Distributors sell and ship products to their Customer [Dealer] with a zero-price. The Distributor then invoices the vendor [Manufacturer]. The Manufacturer credits the Distributor based on the National Program reimbursement cost. This reimbursement may include a commission. The Manufacturer then invoices the Dealer for the National Program product cost.

You must enable the National Program functionality first in SA Administration-Administrator Options-Products-National Program. After you enable this functionality, National Program options, fields, and grid column headings are available for setup in related modules. You can also select levels of program types, such as by customer, group, price type, or product. After setup is complete, you can begin selling National Program products, and managing processing for accounts receivable, accounts payable, general ledger.

Planning and coordination is required to set up the data, such as product, customer, vendor, warehouse, pricing, and taxing data. After setup, you should modify your workflow so your procedural tasks reflect how you will use the National Program functionality. Because of the flexibility of this feature, the more effort you put into planning and setup, the more successful you will be in effectively using the National Program functionality.

Use the National Program functionality to:

  • Qualify National Programs in a hierarchical manner, similar to existing Distribution SX.e functionality and concepts used for Rebates and Customer Pricing. Use SA Administrator Options-Products-National Program to set the levels of pricing available in the PD Pricing Setup-National Program [PDSN] price record list.
  • Select one or more levels: Product, Model, Brand, Product Category, Product Line, Product Price Type, Product Rebate Type/Sub Type, or All Products.

    Select for: Customer/ShipTo, Customer Master Group, Customer Price Type, All Customers. The function PD Pricing Setup-National Program drives the hierarchy.

  • Define valid product model numbers in SA Table Code Value Setup.
  • Identify Customers [Dealers] participating in a National Program.
  • Identify line items and kit components on Customer [Dealer] orders in Sales Order Entry that qualify for a National Program. National Program line item prices on Customer [Dealer] sales order are forced to zero.
  • Use the Product Warehouse Product Setup ARP vendor as the vendor for matching PD Pricing Setup-National Program records.
  • Run invoice processing to re-qualify existing National Program line items and kit components. Orders with any existing National Program lines or components that do not currently qualify for any National Program are reported as an exception and are not invoice-processed. The Distributor must address these exceptions manually.
  • Run invoice processing to create vendor claims for National Program line items. Claims are created as Correction (CR) type orders that do not affect inventory.
  • Create indicators of National Program line items for order entry document print streams on Customer [Dealer] orders and invoices.
  • Add National Program data to invoice output streams to support transmitting vendor claims electronically.
  • Support inbound EDI Invoice and accounts payable processing to apply vendor issued claim credits against pending vendor claims.
  • Re-qualify copied orders. If you copy an order that has National Program product or customer data, the data is re-qualified by the system to ensure the program data is valid, or has not expired. If the data has expired or is not valid, the copied data is priced normally, without a zero price.

Limitations:

  • Each vendor AP credit/invoice applies to one and only one National Program claim; an order entry Correction (CR) type order.
  • Sales revenue and margin values associated with National Program lines are understated until Customer [Dealer] orders are invoiced and the corresponding National Program claim orders are generated.
  • Sales margin and cost are not accurately reflected when looking at specific National Program claim orders because the Distribution SX.e system does not carry product costs on order entry Correction (CR) type orders.
  • Any one Customer [Dealer] order must have fewer than 500 National Program line items for the same Vendor [Manufacturer]. This prevents exceeding the 999 line number limit on claim order entry Correction (CR) type orders because each National Program line may generate two claim line items.
  • Customer and Vendor on-sale rebates associated with National Program lines on Customer [Dealer] orders cannot be calculated based on actual price or margin because these lines are priced at $0.00.
  • Some fields were added to certain document data streams and outbound EDI transactions. Work required to place those fields on generated document forms or in EDI transactions sent to trading partners is out of scope.
  • National Program functionality applies to direct sales order lines, except for direct lines for non-stock products without an Product Setup record.
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