The Electronic Pricing Update system provides you with an automated method of maintaining item information via electronic media.
The EPU system can be used to significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to initially populate the FACTS inventory system with inventory records. It can also be used to periodically maintain price and cost changes you receive electronically direct from vendors or pricing services that provide this service for vendors.
Price and cost changes can be imported from tape, diskette, CD-ROM or a file provided by an on-line service. Regardless of how it is delivered, the EPU system provides the means of transferring the information from an ASCII file (or flat file) into the Inventory Control module.
To do this, the EPU system requires "maps" that tell the system what information to pull from the flat file and where to store it in the FACTS system. Since each service provider may send different types of information, the mapping option accommodates flat files from a variety of sources. Action codes determine what to do with the information sent in these flat files. New items, price changes, cost changes, part number changes, and discontinued items are several types of changes that are handled through EPU.
The flat file, provided by the pricing service or vendor, is manually or automatically copied to the system. The data within the flat file can be manipulated using a pre-processor prior to import. Once imported, the system uses all the default information created for the pricing service or vendor to translate the records from the flat file to a pending file. If the EPU system does not know how to handle the data provided, the records are flagged with exception codes in the pending file. These errors can be corrected within the pending file by changing or deleting the records as necessary. When the update is run, all records not flagged with exception codes are updated into the FACTS system.