MS Connect Suggestion: On Purchase Stop Summarising PR Lines

This suggestion came about from an issue raised by a client while I was working with them to implement Purchase Order Processing with Workflow for approvals of purchase requisitions (PRs).

The issue encountered, is that when multiple lines for the same product at the same cost are added to the PR, approved and converted to PO, these lines are consolidated. This results in loss of information as only one item description or comments are pulled through to the PO.

To illustrate this, I created the following example.

First, create a PR with at least two lines. I have used the 2-A3284A product and changed the description on both rows:

Once approved, the Purchases button will launch the Purchase Order Preview window which shows that the two lines will be merged together:

This is continued through the transfer process onto the final PO:

The reason this is such a problem, is that most of my clients are set up in Inventory Control with standard/generic items which they select for purchasing and amend the description accordingly.

For example, a client who deals with Perfect Image for Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and SharePoint would create a single CONSULTANCY Inventory Item linked to the relevant cost centre and then amend the description on the PR to show which type of consultancy was being ordered. And there are times when more than one type might be being ordered on the same PR and our standard daily rate which is the same whether the consultant works with Dynamics GP or CRM.

With the purchase process working the way it does, they will lose the detail on the PO and only see that CONSULTANCY has been ordered for one of the types.

We had a bit of a discussion internally about this, with some of my team saying working as designed and others, including myself saying bug. Before logging it with Microsoft, I decided to ask my fellow MVPs their opinions and again there was a bit of a split.

Microsoft have confirmed that it is, in fact, functioning as designed and have suggested logging it on MS Connect so we can determine how widely this is a problem.

Despite being told it is functioning as designed, I still believe this is a bug as it is basically corrupting information during the PR to PO conversion. I’d appreciate it if people could vote on this suggestion at MS Connect and let Microsoft know, one way or the other, whether the current behaviour should be changed.