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Stock Settings

There are a number of settings that affect how the BHIMA software deals with stock management. To check and update the settings, one goes to the “Stock Settings” page (under the “Stock” folder):

menu > Stock > Stock Settings
  
⇒ Opens a page for editing the settings that apply to all stocks

If you do not see the “Stock Settings” menu item, consult your system adminstrator. You need to be given permission to access that page.

• To add permission for a user to access the “Stock Settings’ page: Under menu > Administration > Role Management, click on the action menu on the right end of the desired user. In the action menu, click on Permission. Scroll down to “Stock Settings” (at the end of the Stock items), then click the check box and the [Save] button. The Stock Settings page should now be accessible for the user.

AMC - Average Monthly Consumption

For the following Stock Setting options, the term “AMC” is used. It represents “Average Monthy Consumption” of consumable stock. AMC is the total number of stock items dispensed on average to patients and services for the facility involved. AMC is an important value that used to estimate when to order more stock.

Individual Stock Settings

The Stock Settings page allows access to the following items:

• Number of months for calculating the average monthly consumption (integer, default 6 months) This determines the number of months (N) in the past to use to estimate the average monthly consumption. The AMC is a “moving” average, since it uses a window of only the previous N months to determine the average. This setting will set the value of N.

• Default minimum number of months of security stock for depots (integer, default 2 months) The stock supply should provide at least this many months of stock at all times for the depot involved.

• Minimum Purchase Delay Sets the minumum amount of expected delay in months for a supplier to deliver medicines after the purchase order is finalised.

• Enable automatic confirmation of purchase orders (yes/NO) Enable automatic confirmation of purchase orders when they are created without requiring manual confirmation

• Enable permission to view depots in stock registries (yes/NO) Limit the consultation of stock registries to users according to their depots

• Enable automatic stock accounting (YES/no) Enabling this feature will write stock movement transactions into the posting journal in automatically, in real time. It requires all inventory accounts to be correctly configured.

• Enable automatic crediting of supplier on stock entry (yes/NO) Automatically adds the transactions to credit the supplier for the value of stock received in a depot when entering stock from a purchase order. This is only triggered if the automatic stock accounting is set as well.

• Activate the restriction of distribution depots (yes/NO) Limits the depots a user can interact with to the depots that the user has access to. Thus, if a user cannot distribute stock from a depot, they also cannot transfer stock to that depot.

• Algorithm for calculating Average Monthly Consumption (AMC). Possible choices:

  • Default Algorithm: The average monthly consumption is obtained by dividing the quantity consumed during the period by the number of days having stock for the period, and by multiplying the result by 30.5.

    

  • MSH Algorithm (default): The average consumption is obtained by dividing the quantity consumed during the period by the difference of number of months in the period minus the total number of days of stock out in the period. The MSH algorithm is recommended by the Management Sciences for Health organization (https://www.msh.org).