Internal Orders

Internal Orders go by several other names in certain countries or systems:

• Requisitions
• Orders
• Report & Requisition
• R&R

Internal Orders are a way to support users in requesting new stock from another store.

Viewing Internal Orders🔗

If you would like to order some stock from your supplier:

1. Navigate to the Replenishment menu
2. Tap on Internal Orders

You will see a list of all existing Internal Orders:

You can use the Search by comment field to filter the list by the comments of the Internal Orders:

You can sort the list using the column headers:

1. Tap the column header of the column that you want to sort. The column is sorted in ascending order.
2. Tap the column header again and column will be sorted in the opposite order.

Creating a new Internal Order🔗

Select a supplier🔗

1. Click on the New Order button (top right corner):

2. A new window opens, inviting your to select a supplier:

3. Select a Supplier by pressing on their name. You will see a window like this:

Defining Maximum Month of Stock (Maximum MOS)🔗

Defining the Maximum MOS (Month of Stock) is critical to the calculation of the Suggested Quantity and you can change it:

• There is an industry rule of thumb that the Maximum MOS should be set to 3 times the ordering cycle
• The default Maximum MOS is 3.0, which is based on a monthly ordering cycle
• If for example, the ordering cycle was every two months, then Maximum MOS should be set to 3 x 2 = 6.0

This can be done before or after adding items to your order.

Adding a single item🔗

Tap on Add Item to add a single item to your order. A new window opens:

First select the item you want to add to your order. Open the Stock details dropdown menu and select your item from the list. You can also type some or all of an item name (or code) to look for a specific item.

Once item is selected, you should see the following information on the window:

• Item Code and Item Name
• Unit: the default unit used for this item (eg. Tablet, Vial)
• AMC: Average Monthly Consumption. How much stock your store uses each month on average (based on a configurable number of months, default is set to 3 months)
• Suggested Quantity: how much stock mSupply suggests that your order to reach your stock target quantity
• Order quantity: the quantity of units that you request from your supplier

You should also see the following charts:

• Stock distribution: In this chart, you will see the following information:
  • The Target Quantity for the item. This is calculated as: Maximum MOS x AMC.
  • Your current Stock on Hand (in grey)
  • The suggested quantity calculated by mSupply

• Consumption History (monthly): this chart shows the monthly consumption up to 12 months in the past (in grey) and the current AMC (in orange):

• Stock Evolution: this chart shows you your stock level for the last 30 days and your projected inventory for the next 30 days. The projected stock will be updated based on your inputs in the Order quantity field:

Requesting a quantity in packs🔗

If the item which you have selected has a default pack size configured (see the mSupply documentation on editing units for details on how to do this) then you will see a few additional elements on the 'Add item' window:

The new elements are:

• The Default pack size
• A switch to toggle between Units and Packs
• An input field for Requested packs

When entering the requested quantity in the number of packs, you'll see the fields as above. The Requested packs input is enabled, and the Requested quantity is disabled, and automatically calculated for you.

The reverse happens when you are entering by units, as you can see below:

Adding items using a master list🔗

If your organisation is using Master Lists, you can add multiple items at once using your store's master lists. It is particularly useful when you have a lot of items in your order and you don't want to add them all one by one.

1. Tap on the Add from master list button
2. Select a master list
3. A dialog window opens asking you whether you want to add all of the items from this master list. Tap OK if you wish to proceed.

All the items of the master list are now listed in your order. If you had previously added single item, it will add items that are not already there.

Tap on an order line to change the Order Quantity or tap on the button Requested to Suggested button

Reading the Internal Order's list🔗

When you add items (using a master list or not), the item is added to the order's table. The following information is provided for each order line:

Using Suggested Quantities🔗

If you tap on the Use Suggested Quantities on the requisition header, mSupply will automatically copy the values in the Suggested Quantity column into the Requested Quantity column.

You can always manually edit the order quantity for each by tapping on an order line.

Printing an Internal Order🔗

When viewing a specific Internal Order, simply click the Print button which is on the top right of the page. When printing, a PDF file is generated for you, which will then open in a new browser tab. This can then be printed using your browser by clicking print or using control+P (if using windows) or cmd+P keys on your keyboard (if using a mac).

This will either

• Show a menu of possible reports for you to select from before creating a PDF. This will happen if there are more than one report defined for the Requisition report type.
• Create a PDF immediately, if there is only one report to select from

Sending an Internal Order🔗

To send the order to your supplier:

1. Tap on the Confirm Sent button (bottom right corner)
2. A dialog window opens asking you whether you are sure to want to send the order. Tap on OK to proceed
3. Status of your order is now SENT and the order is no longer editable

Approving Internal Orders🔗

Remote approval process🔗

It is possible to configure stores, so that requisitions require approval from specified users before they can be fulfilled. For a full description of this process refer to the mSupply Remote Authorisation documentation.

To do this:

• In the requesting store, enable the store preference Include requisitions from this store in supplier's remote authorisation process
• In the supplying store, enable the store preference Use remote authorisation for response requisitions

For further detail on configuring store preferences, refer to the mSupply documentation on the topic.

When configured in this way, the requesting store will see an additional column in the Internal Order list, showing the approval status:

And when viewing a specific Internal Order, there are columns showing the approved quantity, approved number of packs and a comment entered by the approver, if there is one:

Similarly, the supplying store will have an additional column in the requisition list view showing the approval status :

And finally, a specific requisition will also have new columns, for the approved quantity and an approval comment, if one has been entered by the approver:

Local approval process🔗

Another option for implementing an approval step for Internal Orders is to enable what is called 'local approval'. With this, you can allow only certain users to change the status of an Internal Order to Sent. To allow a user to change the status of an Internal Order to Sent, they require the permission Can confirm Internal Order as Sent to be enabled.

To set the permission, edit the user within mSupply and change to the Open mSupply permissions tab, shown below:

Without this option checked, the user will not be able to update the Internal Order status to Sent and the order is unable to be processed.

On changing the status to Sent, the user's details are added to the comment field; this can be seen when viewing the Internal Order, in the details panel:

and is also shown to the approver in the remote authorisation web application if that is being used.

The additional text is of the form:

Approved by [user's full name]. Email: [user's email address] and Phone Number: [user's phone number].

These details are taken from the user, as configured in mSupply. Refer to the Managing Users section on how to do this.