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Working with Shopping Carts

Kevin U
  • Updated

What is a Shopping Cart?

A shopping cart is involved in the PO creation process. You populate a shopping cart with vendor products required for purchasing. Once the shopping cart is populated, you then create the individual vendor POs from the products in the cart. 

There are different methods to populate a shopping cart. One of the methods to populate a shopping cart is from the production amounts of a selected date range and of selected meal periods/snack times. Doing so will pull in the selected vendor products for the food items (ingredients of recipes and prepared foods) in your scheduled menus.  

shopping_cart.png

(Right-click diagram to open and expand in new tab)

You can also populate a shopping cart from a shopping list. A shopping list contains commonly-used items (food items and non-food items) that itself is populated via different methods (see the Shopping Lists chapter for more information). 

When an item is on a shopping list, its currently-selected vendor product is also included on the list, and it is that vendor product that will appear in the shopping cart for subsequent inclusion in the associated vendor purchase orders. 
shopping_cart2.png

(Right-click diagram to open and expand in new tab)

Creating a New Shopping Cart

To create a new shopping cart record in the system, complete the following steps:

  1. Select Procurement > Purchase Orders. The Purchase Orders Listing screen appears, listing any existing open carts and existing PO numbers. 

    PO_listing_screen.png

  2. Click the New Cart button. A new shopping cart record is created in the system, and the Populate Cart screen opens (screenshot below). 

    populate_cart.png

  3. Your next steps are to populate the shopping cart. Because the shopping cart record was created in the system when you clicked the New Cart button (step 2 above), you can leave the Populate Cart screen and return at any time to populate the shopping cart. Either way, refer to the appropriate topic below to populate the shopping cart. 

Opening an Existing Shopping Cart

To open an existing shopping cart record:

  1. Select Procurement > Purchase Orders. The Purchase Orders listing screen appears, listing any existing open carts and existing PO numbers. 

    PO_listing_screen.png

  2. An existing shopping cart has the Open Cart link in the PO Number column (first screenshot below). For the shopping cart you want to open, click its Open Cart link, and the Populate Cart screen appears (second screenshot below). 

    open_cart.png

    cart_existing_populated2.png

Populating a Shopping Cart from Production

The first step in the PO creation process is to create a shopping cart record in the system. The next step is to populate the shopping cart with the vendor products required for purchasing.

You can populate a shopping cart from the production amounts of a selected date range and of selected meal periods/snack times. Doing so will pull in the vendor products selected for the food items (ingredients of recipes and prepared foods) from your scheduled menus, along with the order quantity based off the production amounts. 

PO.png

To populate a shopping cart from production, complete the following steps:

  1. If not already open, open the existing shopping cart record. When you open an existing shopping cart record, it opens to its Populate Cart screen (screenshot below). 

    populate_cart.png

  2. Click the Add New button and select From Production. The Add Items From Production pop-up appears (second screenshot below). 

    from_production.png

    add_items_from_production2.png

  3. In the Date Range fields, select the date range from which to pull items. 
  4. In the Meals & Snacks field, select the meal periods and snack times from which to pull items. 
  5. From the Menu Service Locations field, select the menu service locations from which to generate reports. Note that a menu service location is assigned menus and dining areas. The dining areas in turn determine the diet order census based off people profiles assigned to the dining areas, or a dining area set up with a manual census.
  6. If your forecasting is configured to include the advance ordering census (i.e., people with advance ordering as a service type), then the Advance Ordering section is available with the following options:
    • Use Forecast - for the "advance ordering people" (i.e., those with the advance ordering service type), the cart uses production amounts from the forecasting worksheets associated with the selected days, meal periods and snack times.  

      PO_advanced_ordering.png

    • Use Orders and Exclude AO People who have not placed an order - when Use Orders is selected, the cart uses the actual orders placed by "advance ordering people" (i.e., those with the advance ordering service type) instead of using the production amounts from the forecasting worksheets.
    • Note that if the system is set up to automatically place an order for persons with the advance order service type who do not place an order or have forgotten to place an order (click here for more information), then there is the option to not include those items in the cart; this is done by selecting the Exclude AO People who have not placed an order check box. 

      add_items_from_production3.png

  7. Regarding the Use Auto-Generated Forecasting check box (screenshot below), some overview is first required, explained as follows: if forecasting is configured and applied to your menus, the cart will automatically include the serving numbers from the menu's associated forecasting worksheets. When a forecasting worksheet is locked, then the report will pull those numbers from the locked forecasting worksheet.

    However, If you do not want to pull serving numbers from a locked forecasting worksheet, and instead pull from the latest auto-calculated forecasting results generated by the system, then you can do so by selecting the Use Auto-Generated Forecasting check box.

    Using auto-generated forecasting results rather than the results from the locked forecasting worksheet provides you with the most up-to-date information based upon your current census and menu edits. It is also a useful function to compare forecasting numbers that you may have manually adjusted on the forecasting worksheet as opposed to what the system auto-calculates.

    add_items_from_production4.png

  8. You are presented with a message stating that you can use other areas of the software while your report generates (first screenshot below). If you click Yes, Notify Me When Ready, the system will notify you when the shopping cart is ready (second screenshot below), allowing you to view the cart or dismiss the message. In addition, a message appears on the Notifications and Alerts section on the home page when the cart is ready for viewing (third screenshot below).

    generating_cart.png

    view_cart.png 

    cart_ready.png

  9. The system populates the cart with food items that match the selected date range and meals/snacks, listing the quantity needed for production, the selected vendor product in the system for each food item, and the order quantity (automatically calculated) of each vendor product. 

    cart_populated.png
    (Right-click image to open and expand in new tab)

    Note:     Food items without a select vendor product in the system appear at the top of the list. For more information, see What if an Item in a Cart has No Vendor Product?

  10. Your next steps are to review the items in the cart to check if they are required or to confirm their amounts. See the Reviewing a Purchase Order (PO) section for appropriate articles. 

Populating a Shopping Cart with a Shopping List of Non-Food Items

A shopping list is a means to add non-food items, such as cleaning supplies, to a shopping cart. See Using a Shopping List to Order Non-Food Items for more information. 

shopping_list.png

To populate a shopping cart from one or more shopping lists, complete the following steps:

  1. If not already open, open the existing shopping cart record. When you open an existing shopping cart record, it opens to its Populate Cart screen (screenshot below). 

    populate_cart.png

  2. Click the Add New button and select From Shopping List. The Add Items From List pop-up appears (second screenshot below). 

    populate_from_shopping_list.png

    add_items_from_list.png

  3. From the Shopping Lists field, select the desired shopping lists.  

  4. The Exclude items in the cart? check box is selected by default, and will not add any items already in the shopping cart. 

  5. Click Add To Cart. The system populates the cart with items from the shopping lists. The cart lists the quantity needed for production, the selected vendor product for each item, and the order quantity (automatically calculated) of each vendor product. Right-click the screenshot below to open and expand in new tab. 

    cart_populated.png

  6. Your next steps are to review the items in the cart to check if they are required or to confirm their amounts. See the Reviewing a Purchase Order (PO) section for appropriate articles. 

FAQs

Q: Can I change the unit of measure for items in a shopping cart? For example, grams to ounces?

No. The unit of measure is associated with the vendor product and cannot be changed.