Purchasing lets you inspect items you receive from suppliers or customers before internal delivery. You can inspect any item or set up certain items to require inspection.

The buyer can use the Note to Receiver field when preparing the purchase order to indicate where items that require inspection should go. The inspector or requestor can record the inspection results in the Inspections window. See: Inspecting Received Items.

You can review in the Receiving Transactions window what items require inspection, and the quantity accepted after inspection. If items require inspection, but the quantity accepted for the receipt is zero, then you know the items are still in inspection. Requestors can review the status of their requisitions in the Requisitions window. In the Purchase Orders window, you can view whether items require inspection and the quantities received and accepted.

If you choose to let requestors inspect items, they can enter the results of their inspections and then record the quantity delivered in the Receiving Transactions window.

If Oracle Quality is installed, you can inspect items through Quality, if the profile option QA: PO Inspection is set to Oracle Quality. (By default, it is set to Oracle Purchasing.) See: Profile Options (in Oracle Quality). You cannot use Oracle Quality to inspect customer returns.

You may also use Oracle E-Records to provide electronic signatures for inspections. See 21 CFR Part 11 Compliance.

At the receiving dock, you receive a shipment of 200 glass vials that require inspection. You record receipt and send the items to inspection. As the inspector of the 200 glass vials, you accept 195 and reject 5. You send the 5 rejected glass vials back to the supplier and deliver the 195 glass vials to the requestor.

In the Receiving Transactions window, Purchasing displays 195 in the Quantity Accepted field. This shows you how many items you can deliver to the requestors.

Returns of Rejected Goods

Purchasing lets you identify returns to a supplier or customer. There may be many receipt numbers associated with a particular purchase order or RMA number. If, after inspection, you find damaged goods and reject these, you can send the goods back to Receiving to return to the supplier or customer. The receiving agent records the quantity returned to the supplier using the Receiving Returns window. See: Entering Returns.

After inspecting 15 computer boards, you reject 5 boards and want to return them to the supplier. You can reference the purchase order on the receipt traveler that you attach to the board boxes. This number lets the receiving agent locate the receipt, and enter the quantity returned for this receipt.

Your company has sold items to a customer that the customer has returned. Inspection shows that the items are not damaged as the customer claims. You return the items to the customer. You can reference the RMA on the receipt traveler that you attach to the items. This number lets the receiving agent locate the receipt, and enter the quantity returned for this receipt.

Purchasing keeps an audit trail of returned items, so you can track returns to suppliers and customers and maintain accurate receipt information.