Issue with creating IFs in Netsuite for Special Order Items when Kits are involved

Integrator.io
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Hi all,

We're presently writing flows for integration with a 3PL.

So here's the scenario:

  1. We receive an order, with each of the order items (SKUs) being pushed from our e-commerce platform (and sometimes B2B platforms).
  2. All of the SKUs, including Kits, are unique, and are Special Order Items in Netsuite (the Kits' member items are all Special Order Items also).
  3. Netsuite converts the Sales Order into a Purchase Order, which we write to a Saved Search for periodic collection by Celigo, following which is converted into CSV for placement on our 3PL's FTP for collection at their end.

So here's where the fun begins.

Firstly, all of the above works perfectly, no issues whatsoever.

When our 3PL fulfills the order, they create two files, as follows:

  1. A Delivery Note, which is used for us to receipt in stock via the native Item Receipting system in Netsuite.
  2. A Shipment notification which is used to trigger Item Fulfillment via the native Item Fulfillment system in Netsuite.

So here's where things get tricky and what we would like some advice/assistance on, from anyone that may have encountered and resolved similar issues.

When a Special Order Item Purchase Order is transformed from a Sales Order into a Purchase Order by Netsuite's internal processes, if there is a Kit on an order, the Kit SKU is converted into the sum of it's parts on the Purchase Order.

e.g. ABC123 is a kit made up of 2 x AB123 and 3 x AC345 Inventory Item SKUs.

So per the above, someone has ordered a few standard Inventory Items and 1 x ABC123 Kit.

Our order when it gets converted into a Purchase Order no longer contains the Kit SKU at all, only a list of Inventory Item SKUs.

When we process the Item Receipt, which is done when our 3PL has our order in basically "Packed" status, just before being consigned for shipment, we receipt the stock into Netsuite via the Item Receipt, which works fine (keeping in mind that Item Receipts are receipting against the original Purchase Order), so this step works beautifully and everything is rosey.

So, we have the items "in stock".

Now when we receive the second file to trigger our Item Fulfillment flow, add our consignment information, carrier, tracking links and shipping cost, this is where things diverge into two different pathways:

1. Item Fulfillments for standard Inventory Items, since they're on the original Sales Order that came from our e-commerce platform as the same SKU as that which appears on the Purchase Order that was sent to the 3PL, functions fine and will process without any issues.

2. Item Fulfillments for kits are erroring in Celigo as the SKU on the original Sales Order is not available in the PO that was sent to the 3PL (all they're aware of is the kit member items, given there's no nesting of items on the PO in Netsuite to denote which items are kit members, nor does it seem to pass the kit header SKU).

So, my questions:

1. Does anyone know of a way of, or setting, to include the header/Kit SKU as part of the conversion process of a PO generated from a Sales Order as a Special Order in Netsuite?

2. Does anyone know of a field in the Netsuite that can be sent in addition to the standard PO information to show which items are part of a kit?

With our existing flow it is processing Inventory Items without an issue, though when attempting to process kit item components, we're getting the following error message coming back from Netsuite:

"Failed to create, update/transform record because You cannot create an inventory detail for this item."

I'm assuming this is because what we're passing back to create the IF is realistically the wrong SKU, given we should really be passing back the Kit SKU since that's how it was ordered on the Sales Order (and the IF wants to follow suit), yet when we're attempting to pass the information we're sending the individual kit member item SKUs.

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Any clues on how we can tackle this would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Christian

2

Just to clarify the entire underlying question here, what we really need is an example of the format of creating a multi-line Item Fulfillment and how to do so with kit items, given how Netsuite handles them in comparison to Inventory Items is a little different.

3

@christianbannard in my experience, this would require a somewhat complex flow and script. You would need a flow that looks something like this:

  1. Shipment notification from your 3pl
  2. NetSuite lookup step to get the sales order lines, item types, quantity, already fulfilled quantity if doing partial fulfillments
  3. NetSuite lookup step to get the kit definition of line items that are kit type (maybe could get #2 and #3 here on one lookup depending on how you make the search).
  4. Post response map script on the last lookup to convert your 3PL payload of component items back into kit format.
  5. NetSuite import step to fulfill items.

You basically have to take the kit definition of NetSuite, then rebuild the kit in your lines array from the 3PL. Hopefully that makes sense.

4

@christianbannard it could get even more complex if your 3pl consolidates lines where kits share common components. For example, if you have kit A with components X and Y and kit B with components X and Z, NetSuite would have 4 order lines on the PO. When you send those 4 lines to your 3pl, some 3pls will consolidate lines with the same sku. Now you would have 3 lines instead of 4 and would need to count quantity of components fulfilled between each kit definition.

5

@christianbannard OR if you never partially fulfill and always fully fulfill an order, you could make it easy and just have a lookup to the sales order to get the SO lines, then import the item fulfillment with the array of that lookup vs using your 3pl data.