Gain discount or free freight with Simple MRP and Direct Replenishment

This article explains how to use the direct replenishment worksheet in Business Central together with simple MRP and the reverse planning worksheet. You use it when you want to top up a purchase order to a vendor to reach free freight or a discount level, even when nothing else is critical to buy.

You run simple MRP first to plan critical items. Then you use direct replenishment to add more items from the same vendor up to their reorder point plus reorder quantity. This lets you fill up an order you are placing anyway.

The key setting is the “Skip if already planned” checkmark on the direct replenishment template. It prevents the job from deleting lines you already have in the reverse planning worksheet.

You can export the planning lines to Excel to check the total quantity, amount, volume, and weight before you commit. When you carry out the action messages, Business Central creates one combined purchase order for all selected items for that vendor.

Why you want to add lines beyond critical items

When you run simple MRP, you typically calculate for critical items across all locations and all low levels. The result lands in your reverse planning worksheet as lines with the action message “New”, ready to be carried out. These lines often cover many different location codes and vendors.

In real life you rarely carry out every line as a separate order. You look at the orders per vendor first. The problem is that the critical demand alone may not be enough to reach free freight or a discount level with a particular vendor. You want to buy more from that vendor while you are at it, even though nothing else is strictly critical.

Reviewing what you already plan to order per vendor

Start in the reverse planning worksheet and filter on the vendor you want to look at, for example vendor number 88000. You might see three items for that vendor. Show the cost amount column, which is standard in both the planning worksheet and the requisition worksheet, so you can see what you are spending.

If you have many lines, export to Excel to see the total amount. With only a few lines you can simply read it directly. This tells you whether the planned quantity is enough to hit your discount threshold.

Preparing the existing lines so they are not carried out yet

If the critical demand is not enough, you want to keep those lines but not turn them into orders just yet. Clear the filter, then remove the action message checkmark on the lines so the action message is set to “Ignore”. This way nothing gets created when you carry out actions at this stage.

Setting up the direct replenishment template

Open the direct replenishment worksheet and run “Calculate direct replenishment” with a template. A practical template setup looks like this:

• Purchase items up to reorder quantity: Configure the calculation to suggest quantity up to reorder point plus reorder quantity.
• Item filter with a vendor number: Add a filter so you only get purchase items for a specific vendor. Keep it as a vendor number you can change each time you run it, so you do not have to look it up again.
• Suggest quantity only when there is something to suggest: If an item calculates to zero, the first job already handled it, so there is no need to suggest it again.
• Skip if already planned: This is the most important field on the template. Set the checkmark so the job does not delete the lines you already have in the reverse planning worksheet. You want to skip the planning of items you have already covered.

Running direct replenishment for the vendor

Run the job on the vendor, for example vendor 88000. Direct replenishment always creates lines on all items carrying that vendor number. The suggested quantity to order goes up to reorder point plus reorder quantity.

You can drill down to see what else you could buy if you need to reach the discount level for that vendor. Then check off the items you want to include and carry out actions, which moves them into the planning worksheet as lines.

Checking the combined order in Excel

Back in the planning worksheet, filter on the vendor again. You now see more lines: some planned by the big batch job for critical demand, and some planned manually because you are filling up the order anyway.

Export this to Excel to review the combined order. From the sheet you can see the total quantity, for example 888 units, and the total amount, for example 27,000 in your local currency. If you have added volume and weight to the items, you can see those totals too. This tells you exactly what the combined order will look like before you commit.

Creating one combined purchase order

If the order looks right, go back into Business Central. If you have many lines, use the field for accepting the lines as action messages, even with other lines present. Be aware that the other lines in the planning worksheet have been deselected, so they will not be included.

When you carry out action messages and make the purchase order, Business Central creates one purchase order for all the selected items for that vendor.

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