Many years ago Dynamics GP introduced the ability to have ship-to address by line item on purchase orders. As part of this, the standard PO form looks to the line items for the ship-to address that prints in the PO header, however, a number of things that affect how this prints (creating, as consultants say, “a veritable minefield of potential problems”). Let’s start by examining the system’s dependence on the shipping method.
The Shipping Method initially defaults from the vendor card. It can be changed from the expansion arrow by the Vendor on the PO. (But make sure you override this BEFORE adding line items or you will need to address each line item individually.) When the shipping method is a Pickup type, the Vendor’s Purchasing address will be used. The expansion arrow by the Ship-To Address ID on the line item can be used to edit the address.
When the shipping method is a delivery type, the address for the Site ID on the line will be used. The expansion arrow by the Ship-To Address ID on the line item will open the Purchasing Ship-To Address Entry window, but nothing is editable. The “gotch ya” here is that you will not get any company name on the ship-to (just the address from the Site ID). To work around this, we need to create a conditional calculated field in Report Writer that is based on whether this is a standard PO (with a delivery shipping method) or not.
If you leave the Shipping Method field blank, no ship-to address defaults! You can select the Ship-To Address ID by using the expansion arrow but if you go back and enter a shipping method, the software will override your entry with the address associated with the first line item’s Site ID (and you cannot edit the address).
When doing a Drop-Ship PO, the Ship-To address for the Customer will be used. The expansion arrow by the Ship-To Address ID will open the Purchasing Ship-To Address Entry window, and you are able to edit everything. The Name field defaults from the Ship-To Address Name on the customer address card (which might not be filled in if you started using GP before version 2010…see other blog).
Mystery solved!