Prefixes

At each site, you can specify prefixes for these types of records:

  • Applicant
  • Builder invoices
  • Builder purchase orders
  • Builder vouchers
  • Container
  • Co-product mix
  • Current job
  • Customer
  • Customer order
  • Customer order contract
  • Delivery order/BOL
  • Drop Ship number
  • EDI order
  • EDI order acknowledgement
  • Employee
  • Estimate
  • Estimate job
  • Estimate project
  • Export document
  • Job
  • Lot
  • Maintenance ID Prefix (on Resources form)
  • Office
  • PO contract
  • Point-of-sale customer order
  • Point-of-sale service order
  • Position
  • Production schedule
  • Project
  • Purchase order
  • Purchase order requisition
  • RFQ
  • RMA
  • Schedule ID
  • Serial number
  • Transfer order
  • Transfer/Project BOL
  • Vendor
  • Vendor-created PO
  • Vendor-created PO requisitions

For example, if you specify CO as the prefix for customer orders, the default customer orders created in this site will be CO00000001, CO00000002, CO00000003, and so forth. If you do not enter a value in the Order Prefix field, the default customer order numbers used in this site will be 1, 2, 3, and so forth.

A prefix can consist of numeric and non-numeric (letters and symbols) characters. However, the prefix should end with an alphabetic character to ensure that the system increments order numbers correctly.

When you reach the field's character limit, the system prompts you with a warning message. You must start a new prefix sequence. In the CO example, when you reach CO99999999, you must begin a new customer order prefix.

Using a site indicator in the prefix

For some types of records, you might want to include a site indicator as part of your prefix, to avoid duplication between sites, and to provide a larger pool of transfer order numbers.

For example, you have a site located in Dallas that uses 'TD' as the transfer prefix, and another site in Columbus that uses 'TC' as the transfer prefix. By default, SyteLine then creates transfer order numbers at the Dallas site with a prefix of 'TD', for example TD00000001, TD00000002, TD00000003, etc.

When you create a transfer order in Dallas that will be shipped to the Columbus site, the next default transfer order number for Dallas is used, for example TD0000000321. The system also automatically creates a complementary record in Columbus with the same transfer order number, TD000000321.

The creation of the complementary record provides you with a way to track a transfer order between two sites. In this example, both Dallas and Columbus will recognize 'TD000000321' as the same transfer. Besides avoiding duplication, another benefit of using a meaningful transfer order number prefix is that you can determine which site originated the transfer order.

Be aware that adding a prefix limits the number of digits available for the record number. If you use a long prefix, you will have a smaller pool of numbers available.

Also be aware that prefixes are only used when you allow the system to auto-generate new records.

Lot and serial prefixes

Lots and serial numbers can use "intelligent" prefixes. The prefix can include information such as the date or job number, reference information or a site ID.

For more information about intelligent prefixes, see the online help.