Special order items are products that are not actively replenished and are not generally available without being specifically manufactured or ordered. AGR does not create a statistical forecast for these items or track stockout. Special order items play a significant role in satisfying customer requests and fulfilling orders for items that are not regularly stocked.

Compared to regularly ordered items, special order items serve as a means to purchase and track items that deviate from regular inventory processing and enable businesses to handle specialized or customized products, as well as items with limited availability, ensuring that demands are met efficiently.

You can tell AGR that any item is a special order items through the integration to your ERP, or by registering it in AGR under item details, for individual items, or through bulk update for several items at once.

You can include the Special Order Item column in any grid to see at a glance which items are set as special order items. Adding the Open sales order quantity column allows you to also view how many units of that item are included in an open sales order.

AGR does not produce forecasts for special order items. Demand for special order items is derived from any of the following: open sales orders, data inserted into the sales plans, data inserted into the promotions plan, min display stock. These factors will trigger an order quantity if the item does not have enough stock to cover. Additionally, BOM Demand from a parent item’s forecast can inadvertently create demand for Special Order components.

The order formula for special order items is the same as for any other item with the exception that there is no demand coming from a forecast or statistical safety stock.

AGR helps you recognize special order items with a specific order exception.

Using Reorder Point and Max settings with Special Order Items can lead to conflicting logic. Reorder Point and Max are designed to maintain stock levels, while Special Order Items are only ordered based on Sales Orders. For example, a large Sales Order might require purchasing more units than the Max level, highlighting the incompatibility of these approaches.

AGR may suggest ordering multiple units for Special Order components even though they are not forecasted. This will occur in cases where there is demand for the item, through any of the above mentioned demand streams. if the warehouse receives demand from stores and the item is marked as a special order item there as well, then most likely there is an open sales order at the store pulling distribution demand. same goes for special order Parent items that have open sales orders or any of the above mentioned demand streams will create BOM Demand on the components.

If the parent item of a Special Order component is not marked as Special Order, it may have a sales forecast that generates Estimated Future Deliveries. These deliveries create future BOM Demand for the component. This can result in unintended demand until an actual Sales Order is received.

To ensure Special Order components are only ordered when needed:

To prevent future BOM Demand for Special Order components:

While marking parent items as Special Order prevents unintended future demand, it also stops future planning. Businesses must weigh the risk of delayed fulfillment against the benefits of avoiding overstocking or unnecessary purchases.