Supplier eLink User Guide

Supplier e-Link provides the ability to integrate with web services made available from seed and chemical suppliers who have followed industry-driven standards and guidelines for this type of ecommerce communication. These web services make it easier to report the sale and receipt of products by allowing product attributes and delivery notifications to be imported and Invoice information for specific program stewardship requirements to be exported.

Note: Agvance refers to suppliers as Vendors. Throughout this document, any reference to a supplier is considered a vendor within Agvance.

There are several web services available. These include:

Electronic Delivery Notification (EDN)
Seed Order Management
Electronic Price Sheet Import
Grower Point of Sale (GPOS)

Electronic Delivery Notification (EDN) Import

The EDN Import allows Electronic Delivery Notifications to be imported into Purchase Receipts. This web service allows for less data input and more accurate figures.

Choose the appropriate supplier at Accounting / Inventory / Purchase Receipts. Because a web service is established for the supplier, a Select EDN button is available next to the supplier name on the Add a Purchase Receipt window. Winfield, Bayer CropScience, Corteva and Syngenta suppliers include the option to select EDNs for seed and Winfield additionally includes crop protection products.

Choose Select EDN to view the available delivery notifications in the Select EDN window. Use the Delivery Number column to search for a specific Bill of Lading number. Any EDNs previously downloaded but not saved on a Purchase Receipt are available in the list.

Select Get New EDN’s from Web to retrieve new EDNs available from the supplier.

Select the EDN to import into the Purchase Receipt. The products contained within that EDN (Bill of Lading) are loaded into the grid at the bottom of the window.

Note: A product must be cross-referenced to be brought into the Add a Purchase Receipt window. Double-click the Prod Name to select an Agvance product to match the supplier’s product if no cross-reference has been established. Products may be deleted from the grid by selecting the line number and pressing the Delete key on the keyboard.

After the products on the EDN have been finalized, choose Select to load the products into the Purchase Receipt grid. At this point, additional products may be added to the Purchase Receipt.

Once the Purchase Receipt is saved, the EDN is no longer available for import into another Purchase Receipt.

Seed Order Management

The Seed Order Management web services allow Grower Orders, Bookings, Dealer Orders, and Purchase Orders to be managed from one system.

Grower Orders

A Grower Order is the transaction which requests seed from a supplier for a specific grower. Managing Grower Orders in Agvance also allows the dealer to manage the Bookings and Purchase Orders associated with the Grower Orders.

Adding a Grower Order

In Accounting, go to Inventory / Manage Seed Orders / Grower Order and select Add.

Choose the supplier from whom the seed is being ordered. Grower Orders may be created for either customer(s) or a specific field. If ordering by field, the customers on the field’s Bill Splits are automatically populated, and the Grower Order is placed in the supplier’s system for the first grower in the split with a GLN set up in Agvance.

Note: If the field or customer splits are not known at the time the order is placed, a Grower Transfer may be used to transfer all or part of the order to a specific field or customer split. Grower Transfers are discussed later in this document.

Checking Availability

Select the desired products by dropping them into the grid at the bottom of the window. Choose Check Availability to request the availability of those products from the supplier. Enter the appropriate quantity for each product in the grid. Select Done.

Note: It is helpful to sort the products in the lower grid by the Amt Available column so the products that are not available are grouped together and can be easily removed, leaving only available products. It is also important to note all products in the grid are added to the order when Done is selected. Choose the Do not bring zero requested quantity lines into the Grower Order option to ensure line items with zero or blank quantities are not added to the order. This reduces clutter on the Grower Order for easier viewing.

After selecting Done on the Select Products window, the Grower Orders window displays.

Order Number – An auto-generated number assigned to each Agvance Grower Order.
Dealer ID – The dealer’s identification number as recognized by the supplier. The Dealer ID is set up in the B2B (Business to Business) Setup program.
Salesperson – Selecting a salesperson on the order sends the Salesperson ID with the order to the supplier. The supplier can credit the salesperson for the order if this incentive is offered.
Purchase – Select the Purchase Order option for this order. Add PO adds a new Purchase Order, Edit PO allows selecting an existing Purchase Order to update, and No PO does not add or update a Purchase Order. Once a Grower Order is saved, this selection defaults to the subsequent Grower Order.
Direct Ship – If the Grower Order should ship directly to the grower or a location other than the dealer’s Ship To location, select the Direct Ship option on the Grower Order. This sends a note to the supplier reminding them to contact the dealer prior to shipping the order to determine the shipping address.
Comments – These comments are not submitted to the supplier but carry over to the Booking associated with the order.
Farm Manager – If a farm manager is being used on the order, select it by double-clicking in the Farm Manager area. The list of available farm managers displays. The Role column in the Select a Farm Manager window has two options - Prepay and NonPrepay. Selecting a farm manager with a Prepay role enables two Payment Instruction options on the Grower Order window, Regular and Prepay, which sends special payment instructions with the Grower Order to the supplier. Selecting a farm manager with a NonPrepay role has the Payment Instruction options disabled and automatically sends Regular as the payment type to the supplier.
Note: The farm manager reference is included on the order when the products are requested from the supplier. The best practice is to select the farm manager prior to selecting and ordering products. If a farm manager is selected after the order is placed, to associate the farm manager with the supplier’s order, one of the products on the order must be re-requested.
Sales Ref # – The supplier’s order number. This number is used to identify the order in the supplier’s system.
Payment Instructions – Select Regular or Prepay for the type of payment.
Show Booking – When selected, at the save of the Grower Order, the Booking displays and is available to add discount information or edit pricing for all customers on the Booking.
Hide Rows with Zero Qty – When selected, rows on the Grower Order that have zero quantity will not be displayed when editing the Grower Order.
Import Sales Order – Once a supplier and customer have been selected, optionally select a Sales Order to import products into the Grower Order.

Grower Order Grid Columns

Amt. Available – Displays the amount of product available for the dealer to order from the supplier.
Ordered Qty – The amount of product on order with the supplier for this specific order.
Requested Qty – An editable field that allows more or less of a product to be requested on the order. Increase the order by either increasing the requested quantity or by adding another line item for the same product and requesting the additional quantity for that line item.
Place Order – After editing the Requested Qty (either increasing or decreasing the line item amount), submit the line item change to the supplier by selecting the Request button for the line item. This process is covered later in this document under Editing Grower Orders.
Ordered – A checkmark in this column indicates the line item has been submitted to the supplier.
Note: Once the Requested Qty is changed for a line item, the Ordered column becomes unchecked because the change to the Requested Qty must be submitted to the supplier.
Increase to Dealer Order Qty – This quantity is returned by the supplier and indicates the amount the Dealer Order changed after the Grower Order was placed.
Note: This quantity is the absolute value of the change. If the order was decreased, this number is still reflected as a positive number.
Total Dealer Order Qty – This quantity is returned by the supplier and indicates the amount of product on the Dealer Order.
Total of All Grower Orders – This quantity is returned by the supplier and indicates the total amount of product that exists on all Grower Orders for the dealer.
Long / (Short) – This quantity is returned by the supplier indicating the dealer’s long or short position for the product on the line item. This number should also be the difference between the Total Dealer Order and Total of All Grower Orders columns. A positive number indicates the dealer has more product on their Dealer Order than on Grower Orders. A negative number indicates the dealer has more product on Grower Orders than on their Dealer Order, creating a short position.
Selling Price – A unit price for the line item may be added to the Grower Order by double-clicking in the Selling Price column. Enter a price or select from the available prices. This unit price carries over to the Booking.
Do Not Submit Electronically – Additional products can be added to the Booking screen but not submitted to the supplier by selecting this option. An example of this would be a generic prepay product.

Prior to saving the Grower Order in Agvance, select the Purchase Option of Add PO, Edit PO, or No PO to either create a new Purchase Order in Agvance, append the products and quantities to an existing Purchase Order, or to bypass the creation of a Purchase Order for this Grower Order. If choosing to edit a Purchase Order, double-click in the Edit PO field, and select the Purchase Order to be updated.

Selecting Save will automatically create a Booking and add a Purchase Order or update the existing Purchase Order depending on the option selected.

Note: If the Add PO option is selected, the location’s preference must be set to auto number Purchase Orders. If the preference is not set to auto number, before adding the Grower Order, add a Purchase Order for this supplier for any product. Use the Edit PO option and select this staged Purchase Order. The test product can later be deleted from the Purchase Order.

Select Save to save the order. A Booking is automatically created and a Purchase Order is added or an existing order is edited.

Editing a Grower Order

To edit a Grower Order, select it from the Select Grower Order window and choose Edit.

To check availability on an existing order, select Check Availability on the Edit a Grower Order window. This checks availability for all products on the order containing a GTIN in the Agvance product file.

If the Requested Qty column is edited on the Grower Order, choose Request on the line item or Order at the bottom of the window must be selected to send the new requested quantity to the supplier. Choosing Order may be used to submit multiple lines to the supplier at one time. For example, if editing the requested quantity on five line items and then submitting the changes all at one time, select Order instead of choosing Request on each changed line item.

Note: A line item on a Grower Order cannot be deleted in Agvance because the Grower Order is associated with both a Booking and, optionally, a Purchase Order. To remove the line item on the Grower Order in the supplier’s system, set the Requested Qty on the order in Agvance to 0 and choose Request. This removes the line item from the order in the supplier’s system. No future edits to the Requested Qty are allowed for this line item.

If a farm manager is added or changed on an order that has already been submitted to the supplier, Request must be selected on one of the line items to submit the farm manager information to the supplier. Once the changes to the Grower Order have been submitted to the supplier, choose Save to save the changes in Agvance. The Grower Order is updated and the Booking window displays allowing the grower’s prepay to be managed if necessary. After appropriate changes have been made to the Booking and saved, the Purchase Order window opens allowing any necessary changes to be made.

Voiding a Grower Order

To void a Grower Order from Agvance and remove the order from the supplier’s system, highlight the Grower Order in the Select Grower Order window and choose Edit. Select Void on the Edit a Grower Order window. The Grower Order is voided in Agvance and the associated Booking is also voided. The Purchase Order quantities are updated for all products on the Grower Order and the order is removed from the supplier’s system.

Grower Transfers

The Grower Transfer feature allows the dealer to transfer all or part of a line item from a Grower Order to a different grower without releasing the seed. If the dealer deletes a line item from one Grower Order and then orders the seed for a different grower, the seed is released, allowing other dealers to consume this available seed. The Grower Transfer process prevents this from happening by transferring the seed to a different grower.

To transfer seed from an existing order to a new order, highlight the existing order in the Select Grower Order window and select Grower Transfer. To transfer seed from one order to another existing order (instead of making a new order), choose the Existing option and double-click in the Order Number field to select the Grower Order receiving the transferred product.

On the Grower to Grower Transfer window in the Transfer Grower Information area, select the grower(s) or field for the transfer.

For each product being transferred, enter the quantity to be transferred in the Transferred Qty column. The full quantity or partial quantity for line items may be transferred to a new or existing order.

After the transferred quantities are entered, select Save to create the new order or update an existing order and create a new Booking or update the existing Booking. Selecting Save also creates the new order in the supplier’s system and updates the existing order(s). The Purchase Order is not changed because the total quantity of product ordered did not change.

Grower Order Reconciliation

To ensure there are no discrepancies between Agvance and the supplier’s ordering system, the Grower Order Reconciliation tool, found at Accounting / Inventory / Manage Seed Orders / Grower Order Reconciliation, provides a checkup between both systems. Running this shows any differences between Agvance and the supplier’s system. If any differences are found, please contact SSI to help resolve the discrepancy. Although not required, it is highly recommended that the Grower Order Reconciliation be done on a regular basis.

Dealer Order

The Dealer Order contains the products and quantities a dealer is scheduled to receive from the supplier.

Viewing the Dealer Order

To view the Dealer Order for a supplier, select the Dealer ID and Vendor ID at Accounting / Inventory / Manage Seed Orders / Dealer Order.

The Dealer Orders window in Agvance displays all products from the Reconcile Classification specified in B2B setup. The Dealer Order also displays the total quantity for each product on Agvance Grower Orders, the quantity on the supplier Dealer Order, the Long/Short position, and the Shipped Quantity for each product.

Agvance Grower Order Total – The sum of the products’ quantities on Grower Orders as calculated by Agvance.
Qty on Dealer Order – The amount of product on the Dealer Order as supplied by the manufacturer.
Long/Short – The difference between Agvance Grower Order Total and Qty on Dealer Order.
Shipped Quantity – The amount of product which has been shipped as supplied by the manufacturer.
Uncommitted – The total quantity of product associated with the My Dealer Bucket customer on Grower Orders for this location.
Note: The My Dealer Bucket customer is set up in the B2B eBusiness Location Setup window.
Refresh – Selecting this refreshes the product quantities in the Qty on Dealer Order column.
Order – When a quantity is entered in the Requested Qty column, choosing Order sends an order request to the supplier.
- If a product is in a short position, Order should only be used when Bayer is the supplier. A new order request will be sent to Bayer reflecting demand to fill the short position and then the order is cancelled.
  Note: Attempting to order shorts for other suppliers will produce undesired results.
- If a product is in a long position, choosing Order will send the order request to the supplier.

Reconciling the Dealer Order

After reviewing the Dealer Order and determining which products have a long or short position, select the product, and choose Reconcile on the Dealer Orders window. The Reconcile Dealer Order window displays all Bookings containing a line for the selected product.

Amount Ordered – The total quantity from Bookings.
Qty on Dealer Order – The quantity from the Dealer Order. This information is provided by the supplier.
Allotted Seed Left – Equals the Amount Ordered minus the Qty on Dealer Order. The goal of the reconciliation process is to get the Allotted Seed Left amount to 0.00. This can be accomplished by editing the Adjusted Quantity column for each Booking the dealer would like to change. If in a short position, remove bags from the Bookings using the Adjusted Quantity column. If in a long position, add bags to Bookings using the Adjusted Quantity column. As Bookings are adjusted, the Allotted Seed Left amount is recalculated. After the Allotted Seed Left amount is at 0.00, choose Update. If the supplier is set up in B2B for web services, changes made to the Bookings from this window are transmitted to the supplier. The program also displays each Booking, allowing prepay to be managed.

Change Log

On the Dealer Orders window, select Change Log to view all changes made to the Dealer Order. This log includes changes made by both the dealer and the supplier.

Electronic Price Sheet Import

The Electronic Price Sheet Import allows the supplier’s available pricing information to be imported for the current season by Vendor, Price Zone, and Product Crop Code. Additionally, the location may be selected as well as which Price Level to update.

On the Electronic Price Sheet window, found at Accounting / Transfers / Import, choose the appropriate Vendor. Enter the Price Zone, Product Crop Code, Request Date, Location of prices to update, and the Price Level to which the prices will be imported. An option is available to update the master product location instead of the selected location.

Note: The supplier provides a list of their Price Zones and Product Crop Codes.

Note: Some suppliers (<Vendor>) may require the Request Date.

Grower Point of Sale (GPOS) Export

Note: A product classification must be set up to include the supplier’s products in the dataset. Only Invoices containing the products in this product classification are exported.

The GPOS web service allows grower point of sale information to be exported from the supplier’s seed and chemical products invoiced in Agvance.

In Agvance Accounting, go to Transfers / Export / AgGateway / XML.

Note: The Starting Invoice and Ending Invoice selections are enabled when the Export All Unexported Invoice Line Items option is not selected.

In the AgGateway area, double-click in the Vendor field to select the appropriate supplier.

Choose Product Classifications to select the correct Product Classification. These are the designated products to be sent with the export transmission.

Choose to Transfer File to Web Service or save the file locally on the export. If Transfer File To Web Service is selected, the Invoice information for the supplier’s products are automatically sent to the supplier. To save the file locally, select the Path and File Name option and the file will be saved to the specified path. The Prescan option processes a prescan report and then saves it at the specified path.

Invoice line items may be exported on a nightly basis. Set the parameters for exporting the Invoice line items and choose Save Set. A scheduled batch may then run this set using the Agvance Reporting Agent.