Ace MSU Pricing

Ace provides Multiple Selling Unit (MSU) prices to Eagle for Windows users. MSU pricing is used for bulk items that are sold in various units of measure, such as wire (sold by the length or foot) or fasteners (sold by the box or each). Downloading MSU pricing is important because it automates the process of designating items as blind at the individual level (i.e. foot, piece, etc), and price sensitive at the bulk level (i.e. roll, box, etc). Ace watches the market for you and updates the bulk pricing as necessary.

You download MSU Pricing from Ace via your weekly Electronic File Maintenance (EFM). This topic explains how to set up your system so that MSU Pricing information is downloaded via EFM, and how to process that information.

Setup

1. Call Ace Retail Technology Support at 1-800-777-6797 to request that they turn on the MSU flag, and that they set you up to start receiving ERTL hotsheet records. ERTL hotsheets are used to process the MSU information via EFM, as well as to keep the new MSU field updated in the Eagle for Windows Ace Catalog.

2. Set up the following options in Options Configuration. To display an option, click ID, type the option number, and press Enter. Select the desired setting in the Current Value column, then click Change to save your changes.

3. Option 8791 Create and/or update MSU prices from Ace HotsheetsSetting this option to Y tells the system to always add (or update) the MSU price for bulk items. If an item has an MSU price (which is a price based on ’Retail Units’), the system automatically creates an MSU with an ’Exact Price’, where the MSU ’Quantity Factor’ is set to the item’s ’Retail Units.’ Current MSUs are updated if the MSU price changes or if the MSU ’Retail Units change.’  If the number of ’Retail Units’ changes, the system adds a new entry to the current MSU. For example, if the MSU is set up as $24.99 per 500 retail units, and a hotsheet record changes the ’Retail units’ to 450 with a price of $22.99, the system adds this new entry to the current MSU. This means that at POS, the clerk will need to decide if they are selling the item with 450 units or the item with 500 units.

4. Option 8793 Add MSU prices when auto-adding Ace SKUsSet this option to Y if you want to always add the MSU price for bulk items when auto-adding items from the Ace Eagle Catalog, EFM (FIL/RFL), ERP, promotion downloads, and reverse POs.

5. Option 8795 Create a new MSU if the old MSU was not created by hotsheetsSet this option to Y if you want the system to always create a new MSU code if the existing MSU code was not created by hotsheets.  If an MSU price is received in hotsheets, the MSU price is loaded into the Item Price Changes (IPC) window to review. When prices are finalized, the Price Change Report (RPC) checks to see if an MSU already exists for the item. If one does exist, and it was not created by the hotsheet process, the system deletes the existing MSU code and adds a new code. Epicor recommends setting this option to Y because it ensures that a given MSU code is only assigned to one item. If you set this option to N and an MSU is assigned to multiple items, the hotsheet process will update a price for a given item, which in turn updates the price for all other items that have the same MSU code assigned; this would likely result in the subsequent items having incorrect pricing on the bin tag.  

3. Use the "Accept Ace MSUs” field on the Codes tab of Inventory Maintenance to indicate that hotsheets (EFM) should create or update an Ace MSU price for this item (Multistore users: this field is master data). To access this field, click Misc and select Additional Codes Flags (alternatively, Eagle for Windows users can simply click the Additional Codes Flags hyperlink on the Codes tab). To update this field by range (rather than item by item), use Item Code Update (RICU). With RICU, you can update this field for an entire department, commodity group (class) or merchandise class (fineline).

If this field is set to Y, hotsheets (EFM) will update an existing MSU price, and if one doesn't exist, EFM will create the MSU code with the MSU price. Note: the actual creating or updating of the MSU price occurs when the Price Change Report (RPC) runs with option F.

If this field is set to N, hotsheets (EFM) will never create or update an MSU price for this item. If you are set up to download MSU prices from Ace (option 8791 "Create and/or update MSU prices from Ace Hotsheets" is set to Y), the new MSU price will be viewable in Item Price Changes (IPC) window, but RPC option F will see the N in this field and prevent the MSU price from being attached to this item.   

Downloading and Processing MSU Prices

1. Run EFM as you normally would. Since you are receiving ERTL hotsheets, you will automatically receive MSU pricing via EFM.

2. Review the Price Change Transmission Report to view the new MSU prices. To make changes to the pending price changes, use the Item Price Changes window.

3. Finalize the price changes as you normally would, by running the Price Change Report (RPC) with option F.

4. Print new bin labels for the MSU items by running the Bin Label Print Report (RBL) and selecting the Item Change File. (Note: if you've never used the Item Change File before, click here for setup procedures.)

On the Options page of RBL, select MSU Prices from RPC-F.