In this article, you can find information about the new and redesigned features of pixi Purchasing. pixi Purchasing was modernized and transferred to web pixi. Many features from the desktop application stayed the same, but the user experience, the look and feel, was improved. Additionally, based on user requests, new features were implemented to help you further optimize your purchasing process. In this article, you will learn about the actual changes between desktop Purchasing and the new web Purchasing.

New and changed Features in web pixi Purchasing

As we migrated pixi Purchasing from the desktop application to web pixi, we have improved the user experience of many existing features and we have also added useful new features.

Separate Module for Managing Supplier Data

You no longer have to go to pixi Control Center to see all your suppliers and manage supplier information. This is now included in Purchasing module in web pixi. In order to give you more flexibility for working with suppliers, we have added some more fields, e.g. for purchasing conditions, and better statistics.

Improvements for Working with Purchase Orders

The handling of purchasing orders is a lot similar to before, but was enhanced in several places:

The process of creating normal purchase orders is now separated from long-term pre-ordering.
Purchase orders can be duplicated: if you have to order the same items regularly, you can just duplicate an existing order.
The lifecycle of purchase orders was extended with a new status "Confirmed" which clearly separates orders you sent to a supplier from orders that a supplier confirmed and will ship to you as ordered.
Purchasing conditions from suppliers and items can be maintained and pixi will actively inform you about possibilities for purchase order optimizations. Entering a discount for purchase orders and purchase order lines is now possible. Packing units and minimum order quantities can be applied to all items of an order.

You can easily change the look of your printed or e-mailed purchase order documents to fit your individual needs. Just use the simple template editor and if you wish, you can make a differently looking purchase order document for each supplier.
Export of purchase orders to CSV, PDF and RTF is now possible in every status. Before, it was only possible to export purchase orders to CSV and XML in status Ordered and Closed. Export to XML is not supported anymore.
You do not need to switch the location you're logged in via registry, web pixi Purchasing supports ordering for multiple locations in one user interface. You can either create separate orders for different locations or split the order quantity for each item by location.
With the introduction of the new user experience, it is now much easier to find supplier orders: instead of quick filters and a pop-up with search parameters, the advanced search is directly accessible on the right side of the screen. Additionally, filters can be individually configured with the so-called filter builder.

Purchase Order Suggestions

The biggest functionality change has been done for the purchase order suggestion. A wizard leads you through the process and a preview at the end enables you to check suggested purchase orders before they get created.

Backwards Compatibility of the Purchase Order Suggestions

If you're unsure of how to use all the parameters and had no chance to test how the new calculation for purchase order suggestions works, you can use the following setup to get the same behavior as on pixi LOU version.

General setup:

If the database setting UpdateExisting_NEW_SOrderlines was enabled, the purchase order suggestions always updated existing orders. This can now be configured in the Purchase Order Suggestions wizard parameter, Create orders.
If database setting AutoOrderChecksAllLocations was enabled, the purchase order suggestions included stock from all locations in the calculation. This is now handled by parameter Locations in the Purchase Order Suggestions wizard: you can include one or more locations.
Creating orders for specific suppliers: in the desktop pixi Purchasing application buying you could select one specific or all suppliers to be considered for calculating the suggestions. This is now handled by parameter Suppliers in the Purchase Order Suggestions wizard: you can select one or more suppliers.
Before the priority of suppliers was fixed, i.e. always the cheapest supplier had the highest priority. Now you can select in the parameter Order from supplier with either the cheapest price, fastest delivery or from which you ordered last time. There's also the possibility of setting a favourite supplier which is always used for the specific item.

If you only used the option Open customer orders that are not on stock, you need to set the following parameters:

Order Method: On Demand
Order options: see above
Delivery address: the location you were logged in with the pixi desktop application, usually 001
Suppliers: see above, for priority select Lowest price and do not enable the checkboxes
Locations: see above, if you select more than one location, select option Summarize selected locations and calculate suggestions
Purchasing Conditions: nothing needs to be configured

If you additionally used the option Fill minimum stock, you need the following setup:

Reorder level and target stock values for each item need to be set to the same value (minimum stock quantity field in LOU version, this is assured with the migration during the update)
Select the following parameters for the purchase order suggestion:
- Order Method: Target Stock
- Order options: see above
- Delivery address: the location you were logged in with the pixi desktop application, usually 001
- Suppliers: see above, for priority select Lowest price and do not enable the checkboxes
- Locations: see above, if you select more than one location, select option Summarize selected locations and calculate suggestions
- Purchasing Conditions: nothing needs to be configured

Working with Supplier Deliveries / Goods Receipt

Purchasing and processing deliveries from suppliers are now two separate processes in pixi. Therefore, some minor changes needed to be done also in the goods receipt functionality:

A new goods receipt document based on a purchase order as a template can be created on the Deliveries tab in the desktop application. When choosing supplier orders as a template, you can also see the external order number and status in the dialog.

Item Management for Purchasing Purposes

Item management was also improved in the web pixi:

Purchasing specific item data: To support a proper purchasing process by using purchase order suggestions, we renamed Minimum Stock Quantity into Reorder Level and introduced new stock parameters, like target stock and safety stock (Note: Currently, the safety stock is not considered by any automation.). Minimum order quantities are now a property of the supplier specific item data, i.e. for every supplier assigned to an item a minimum order quantity can be set. Before the value was set for once per item and mainly used to influence the order quantity that the purchase order suggestion would calculate.

With the Internal Item Number, a new identifier for items was introduced, which is a freely choosable number for pixi internal purposes. If you're, for example, printing catalogs, you can now maintain the catalog number in pixi. The internal item number is unique for each item, can be used to search for items in all applications and is the main identifier for items in web pixi.
A new item status was introduced: Unavailable. Not available items can't be ordered from suppliers, but as long as they are still on stock, they can be sold to customers. An item is set as unavailable, if the values for the reorder level are negative for all locations. In the items list, not available items are displayed in grey text.

Discontinued Features

Because of the migration from the desktop application to web pixi, some features were changed or are no longer available:

The desktop pixi Purchasing application was renamed to pixi Goods Receipt.
Tab Purchase Orders was removed from the desktop application.
Options to edit Min Stock, Min Order Qty and Packing Unit were removed from tab Items in the desktop application.
Columns which showed Min Stock, Min Order Qty and Packing Unit were removed from list of items in tab Items in the desktop application.

Item Info

Option to set Min Stock, Min Order Qty and Packing Unit were removed (tab General > Actions) from Item Info in desktop applications.
Tabs Purchasing and Statistics were removed.
Tab Suppliers:
- Buttons Add and Delete were removed.
- Only Barcode and Item Nr. Supplier are editable.

Control Center:

Table Supplier in tab Tables was removed.
Some Database Settings are not used anymore:

Setting Name	Setting Caption	Description	Replaced By
InsertAddItemOn SOrdersDragDrop	Assign supplier to an item on drag/drop operation	In desktop buying, when the documents are created, they are assigned status NEW and while on this status, users could move items among documents with a drag and drop operation. Setting controlled the operation in a way that when ON, the supplier that the item is moved to is also added to the list of available suppliers for the item.	Inserting items per drag and drop into purchase orders is not possible anymore because the list of purchase orders and the details of a purchase order are separate views. Items need to be assigned to the concerning supplier before they can be added to a purchase order. Therefore, assigning a supplier to an item by mistake is prevented.
AddXDaysTo DeliveryDate and AutoOrdering CheckDeliveryDate	Auto Ordering - Add X Days To Delivery Date and Auto Ordering - Check Delivery Date	If the CheckDeliveryDate setting was set, then supplier order suggestion would only consider those open supplier orders where: delivery date <= supplier delivery days + value of second setting AddXDaysToDeliveryDate.	Functionality of this setting was replaced by an extensively improved purchase order suggestion functionality with several parameters and possibility to create profiles for automatic purchase ordering.
AutoOrderChecksAllLocations	Auto Ordering - Check Stock on All Locations	If setting was enabled automatic purchase order suggestion would check available stock summarized from all locations and compare it with open orders during auto ordering process for open orders or minimum stock ordering.	Functionality of this setting was replaced by an extensively improved purchase order suggestion functionality with several parameters and possibility to create profiles for automatic purchase ordering. It is now possible to select one or more locations in the parameters of the purchase order suggestion.
BuyingSimpleMode	Buying Mode	Simple mode - delivered item quantities were entered directly into the supplier order document. Advanced mode - delivered item quantities are entered on a separate tab (Goods Receipt) where receipt documents are created.	Usage of goods receipt functionality is mandatory in order to obtain correct historical supplier prices in reports. Therefore, this setting is not supported anymore.
eMailSordersTo SupplierSubject	Email Subject for Supplier Orders	Definition of subject text for e-mails that will be sent to suppliers.	E-mail subject can be set up directly in the process of sending an e-mail to the supplier in web pixi.
BuyingEnable SordersFactor	Min.Stock Factor	Enabled function in supplier order suggestion to multiply Min Stock quantity with a certain factor.	Functionality of this setting was replaced by an extensively improved purchase order suggestion functionality with several parameters and possibility to create profiles for automatic purchase ordering.
SummarizeMinStock FromAllNormalLocations	Summarize Min Stock from all normal locations	If this setting was enabled, it calculated the Min Stock values for an item on all locations.	Functionality of this setting was replaced by an extensively improved purchase order suggestion functionality with several parameters and possibility to create profiles for automatic purchase ordering.
SaveSupplierWhat's new in web pixi Purchasing?Path	Supplier Orders PDF Folder	Always save a copy of the purchase order as PDF to this folder location. e.g.: C:\Pixi\	Due to migration to the web, this is controlled by browser settings.
BMECatImport_ Update_MinOrderQty	BMECat, Import of Minimum Order Quantity	Import and update of Minimum Order Quantity for an item with BMECat item import.	Importing and exporting of Min Order Qty is not supported anymore, since in pixi web buying this qty is connected to supplier specific item data not to item in general.
UpdateExisting_NEW_SOrderlines	UpdateExisting_NEW_SOrderlines	Setting to define if the purchase order suggestion creates only new orders or updates existing orders.	Functionality of this setting was replaced by an extensively improved purchase order suggestion functionality with several parameters and possibility to create profiles for automatic purchase ordering.

What's new in web pixi Purchasing?