Different Vendor Items for UOM

If you aren't purchasing the item in the different UOM's then I would suggest you use the manufacturer number tied to the Buy UOM on your item master and item location and vendor item (PO13) records.

Are they two separate item numbers? I've seen "MFG item already exists" but it's always been a soft stop - it has never prevented the item from being added. But I've also never added it directly to PO13. We tend to upload to PO25.6 with FC B (Both) and have Lawson add the PO13 automatically.

I think the soft-stop occurs when you are adding a completly new record. In this case it is like adding an additional line on PO13.3 which I believe is a hard stop.

Hi David, This issue is arising more from the EPIC interface. We are getting requests to catalog an item a second time because of the vendor number. I am curious how others get around the issue with Medline. Using specials in CM has worked but for EPIC items we need a Lawson number to assign a charge code.

As David said I would only add a PO13 record at the purchase UOM. But if you do need to purchase at multiple UOMs for these items you could build two MFG Codes/Divisions for the same manufacturer and use one for the EA UOM and one for the BX UOM. It might muddy your MFG data a bit but it will allow you to add two PO13 records for the same item with the same mfg#.

However, in testing the requisition process, I found that Lawson doesn't seem to be able to differentiate between the two vendor items based on the UOM being ordered. The line keeps defaulting to the vendor item for the default buy UOM regardless of the UOM used on the req line. Ordering the alternate UOM leads to an error saying "Entered UOM is different than existing vendor item UOM". Even if tied to an agreement the correct cost pulls in but it doesn't pull in the vendor item associated with that agreement line (for that UOM and cost).