The question this page answers
What have I staged to buy, what is it worth, how many purchase orders does it become, which of them can be placed right now, and whose money does it draw on, before I convert?
What you see
The Bench is where lines wait to become purchase orders. A line is one variant at one warehouse from one supplier, with a quantity. It sits under Buy book on the rail on every plan, beside Container planning, which opens the same page on its container review. Staging is not ordering: a line on the Bench spends nothing and is removable, and nothing reaches a supplier until the Bench is converted and the drafted order is issued. Its address keeps an older key.
The head is the page's name, Bench, with the basis line: cost, the money the lines are priced in, and days for lead time. Under it stands a row of figures, each footing to the Orders table: Value, Orders, Lines (Lines shown while a filter narrows the page), Not on an order (lines no order takes, usually because they name no warehouse) and Units. The head's doors are Planned procurement, Container planning and Explore in Ask; on Pro, with one commitment chosen, Cash overview as well.
Lines is the grid, with a Lines or Products switch, a search for product, variant or SKU, and a Filter by supplier, warehouse, fit, lead time, unit cost and sell price. Its columns are Product, Variant, SKU, Supplier, Warehouse, Units, Value, Fit, Unit cost, Size pack (only once a line carries one) and Lead time. Fit reads Fits, Under MOQ, Off batch, Size pack incomplete or Unpriced, and its hover names the line's minimum and batch. A line with no cost reads Unpriced in Value.
Orders is one row per supplier and warehouse: Supplier, Warehouse, Lines, Units, Value in the supplier's currency, Minimum order value and Short by (both gone when no supplier declared a minimum), Lines that do not fit, Standing, Containers and Last box. Standing reads Can be placed, Cannot be placed, Cannot be valued or Size pack incomplete. A column that says one thing of every row is said once above the table instead. A chart draws each order as a share of its supplier's minimum.
On Pro, Against the agreed buys lists each commitment these lines draw on: Commitment, Season, Lines, Open to commit, Would draw, Left to work and Standing (Within the envelope, At the limit, Over the envelope, No envelope declared). It folds to one figure unless a buy is over its envelope. A Commitment picker narrows the whole page to one agreed buy.
What to do
A figure typed in Units writes nothing yet: the tables move, a strip above the grid shows what the change does, and Put back and Do it again walk it. The head's button then reads Apply adjustments and create {n} purchase orders. Change a line's supplier or warehouse in its cell, or use the row's menu for Remove from bench (with Undo in place), Open product or the supplier record.
Press an order to open Review order: its lines, the reasons it cannot be placed, and Apply recommendations, Fill to minimum, Apply size pack ratios, Fix this order and Leave on the bench. Where a container is on file it also offers Top up to fill or Hold back to the previous container, each with the sentence it prints before you press.
Selecting lines raises the bar: Ask Tightly, Review orders, Change supplier and Remove from bench. Review orders holds the selected orders with Fix all, and says before its button:
Creates {n} draft orders and clears {n} Bench lines. Supplier issue is separate.
Create {n} purchase orders converts the whole Bench; while any order is blocked the head offers Review {n} blocked orders instead. The result replaces the tables with one sentence, such as {money} is drafted across {n} purchase orders; not with a supplier yet, then a table of the drafted orders with Review agreement on each, the door Open these orders (or Open and the order's number), and Back to the bench.
Under More, Clear the bench asks first:
Clear {n} lines from the bench? This cannot be undone.
Every write needs a read-write seat; a read-only seat reads the page.
When it is empty or failed
Nothing is on the Bench.
The door is Open Smart Replenishment on Lite, Essentials and Essentials+ and Open commitments on Pro. A failed read says The Bench could not be read, with Try again, and a failed grid says The lines could not be read.
A conversion whose orders break a supplier's rules is refused in place with the server's sentence, which counts the orders and names each rule, and one row per unmet rule (Order, Constraint, Short by), for example:
{n} purchase order(s) cannot be placed: {n} order(s) are under their supplier's minimum order value.
Any other failure reads The purchase orders were not created. On Pro, staging one agreed buy a second time is refused rather than doubled: the Bench already holds its lines, and the sentence asks you to remove them from the Bench first, then stage.