FFN order processing

Once a merchant of the JTL Fulfillment Network (FFN) is handed over to you, X-Sitter does the complete processing for this merchant:

• Waiting outbound orders are accepted after a stock check and acknowledged in FFN.
• Shipped orders and stored goods are reported back to FFN.
• An hourly stock reconciliation brings everything else that changes the stock to FFN: corrections, inventory counts, putaways without advance notice, quality locks.

FFN therefore always keeps the merchant's stock up to date.

Before you start

• The FFN connection exists, see Connect JTL Fulfillment Network (FFN).
• The merchant is assigned to a client, including the FFN warehouse, see FFN merchants. Without a warehouse no goods receipts are reported.
• The client's articles are imported (job FFN products, FFN-Produkte laden). Articles that are still missing are loaded from FFN one by one when an order arrives.
• Stock in X-Sitter: an order is only accepted if the free stock covers it. Without booked goods, every order stays in FFN.
• You have access to Administration › Jobs & connections (Administration › Jobs & Verbindungen), see Jobs & connections.

The three switches

Orders only arrive when all three are set:

Switch	Where	Effect
Merchant assignment	JTL › FFN Dealer Directory › Add a new dealer	Decides which client the merchant's orders belong to
Job FFN orders (FFN - Aufträge laden), active	Administration › Jobs & connections, at the client's company	Releases this client's merchant. A job at your own (logistician) company applies to all assigned merchants
Cut-off date Orders and goods receipts from (Aufträge und Wareneingänge ab)	In the mask of this job	Puts the processing for this merchant live. Empty = the job does nothing

The card Takeover by X-Sitter (Übernahme durch X-Sitter) on the FFN connection page shows all merchants with an active job, their cut-off date and the link Edit job (Job bearbeiten).

Step by step

1. Open ERP Systems › JTL › FFN Dealer Directory and assign the merchant to the client, including the FFN Warehouse (FFN merchants).
2. Open Administration › Jobs & connections, choose the client's company, create the job FFN orders (FFN - Aufträge laden) and switch it on.
3. Put the client's goods into stock in X-Sitter or take over the existing stock, see Putaway.
4. Open the job, enter the takeover date under Orders and goods receipts from and save.
5. Optional: set Reconcile stock with FFN to report only first (see below).
6. From the next run (every minute), accepted orders appear in the order overview with the source FFN and the status Open (Offen).

Fields and options

Field	Where	Meaning
Orders and goods receipts from (Aufträge und Wareneingänge ab)	FFN order job	Takeover date. FFN orders created before this day and putaways before this day stay untouched. Empty = no import and no goods receipt reports
Reconcile stock with FFN (Bestand mit FFN abgleichen)	FFN order job	off (aus), report only (nur melden: differences are sent by Telegram, nothing is booked) or correct automatically (automatisch korrigieren: differences are booked in FFN). Only works with a cut-off date
Largest automatic correction (units) (Größte automatische Korrektur (Stück))	FFN order job	Default 10. Larger differences are reported instead of booked. This protects against a wrong booking that empties an article's stock in FFN
Import ASNs from (Avise importieren ab)	FFN connection page	From this day on, FFN inbound deliveries of all assigned merchants are created as advance notices. Empty = off

The order cut-off date applies per job, i.e. per merchant: every merchant can be taken over on its own day. The advance notice date applies to your whole company and does not depend on any job.

How it works

Accepting an order (every minute)

1. X-Sitter reads the merchant's orders that are waiting in FFN.
2. Every item must be a known article, and the free stock must cover the quantity. Free stock = stock on storage places without a quality lock, minus the open quantities of all orders in progress. Bill-of-materials headers do not count, their components do (see Bills of materials).
3. If the stock is sufficient, the order is created with the status Pending (Wartend), acknowledged in FFN, its documents (e.g. invoice) are loaded, and then it becomes Open (Offen). Only now does the warehouse see it.
4. If the stock is not sufficient or an article is unknown, nothing is created. The order stays waiting in FFN and is checked again in the next run.
5. If a run is interrupted between creating and opening the order, the next run finishes the order or removes the waiting order again.

After the order has been opened, workflows with the trigger "when an order is imported/created" start, see Workflows.

Cancellations

An order cancelled in FFN is cancelled in X-Sitter as long as it is Open, Pending, Error (Fehler) or Waiting (Wartet). If it is already in progress, it stays and you receive a Telegram message.

Reporting the shipment (every 5 minutes)

For orders with the status Sent (Versendet), X-Sitter sends a shipment notification to FFN with the shipped quantities and one parcel per tracking number. FFN books the stock out and marks the order as shipped. The order history then shows Tracking transferred (Tracking übertragen).

Reporting goods receipts (every 5 minutes)

For advance notices that came from FFN, X-Sitter reports the stored quantity per article, batch and best-before date that FFN does not know yet. Putaways wait ten minutes before they are reported, so that you can still cancel them. An advance notice that you close in X-Sitter is closed in FFN as soon as everything has been reported.

Stock reconciliation (every hour)

Switched on per job with Reconcile stock with FFN.

1. For every article of the client that is known in FFN, X-Sitter compares its stock with the FFN stock: goods on storage places without a quality lock against the FFN stock (including quantities reserved for orders), quality-locked goods against the blocked FFN stock.
2. The difference is the correction. Example: 6 units are booked out in the warehouse, X-Sitter has 94, FFN has 100 – the reconciliation reports or books −6.
3. An article is skipped while its stock is on the move: an order with the article is in progress (picked, packed, waiting for loading) or was shipped as an FFN order but not reported yet; the article was put away in the last 30 minutes; a goods receipt for an FFN advance notice has not been reported yet; an earlier correction is still open.
4. Report only: the differences arrive by Telegram, the same list at most once a day. Correct automatically: differences up to the limit are booked in FFN with the note "X-Sitter Bestandsabgleich"; larger ones are reported.
5. Emergency brake: if more than 20 articles and at the same time more than a quarter of the compared articles differ, nothing is booked, only reported. That many differences are not corrections but stock that has not been booked in X-Sitter yet.

What is taken over from FFN

FFN	X-Sitter
Merchant's order number	Order ID
External number (shop)	Order number
Delivery address with company, salutation, state, mobile number	Delivery address, street and house number separated
External and internal note	Note on the order; the internal note starts with "Intern:"
Shipping method	Shipping provider and name of the shipping method
Requested delivery date	Expected delivery date
Priority 0–5	Priority 10–1
Items	SKU, name, quantity, net and gross price, tax rate, article, EAN, weight
Bill of materials	Header as a bundle item (not picked), components as items
Documents (invoice, delivery note, shipping label)	Order documents

Good to know / Troubleshooting

Most messages arrive by Telegram. Subscribe to JTL-FFN - error (JTL-FFN - Fehler), see Telegram notifications.

Message	Cause	Solution
No orders arrive although the cut-off date is set	Job missing or inactive, merchant not assigned, or the order was created before the cut-off date	Check the card Takeover by X-Sitter on the FFN connection page; fix the job and the assignment
Der FFN-Auftrag … wartet in JTL-FFN und wurde nicht angenommen. with "Not enough stock: SKU (x needed, y free)"	The free stock is not sufficient	Put the goods away; the next run accepts the order
… with "Unknown article: SKU"	The article can be found neither in X-Sitter nor in FFN	Import or create the article (merchant's SKU, owner = client)
Der FFN-Auftrag … kann so nicht importiert werden und bleibt in JTL-FFN liegen.	The order has no pickable item or a fractional quantity	Clarify the order with the merchant
Der Auftrag … wurde in JTL-FFN storniert, ist hier aber bereits in Arbeit …	The cancellation came after picking had started	Stop the order manually
Die Versandmeldung für den Auftrag … wurde von JTL-FFN nicht angenommen … with "Stocks_NotEnoughStock"	FFN does not know the stock (goods receipt never reported)	Put the goods away through an FFN advance notice, or correct the stock in FFN
Für … wurden n Stück mehr an JTL-FFN gemeldet, als jetzt eingelagert sind …	A putaway was cancelled after it had been reported	The stock reconciliation corrects the difference; otherwise correct the stock in FFN manually
Einlagerungen zur Referenz … passen zu mehreren Avisen …	Two advance notices have the same delivery note/order number and the same article	Change the reference of one advance notice
Bestandsabgleich JTL-FFN, Händler …: n Artikel weichen ab. …	Warehouse and FFN stock differ; the job is set to "report only" or the emergency brake was triggered	Check the list; if the warehouse stock is right, switch to "correct automatically" or correct in FFN
… n Differenzen liegen über der Grenze von x Stück und wurden nicht gebucht. Bitte prüfen.	Difference larger than Largest automatic correction	Check the stock; raise the limit in the job or correct manually in FFN
… n Korrekturen wurden von FFN nicht angenommen.	FFN rejects the correction, e.g. because the product is managed with batch or best-before date there	Correct the stock of this article in FFN manually
Die Einstellung ist für diese Firma nicht angelegt. … (when saving the advance notice date)	Your company has no FFN merchant assignment yet	Assign a merchant first; if the message stays, contact X-Sitter support
Bitte ein gültiges Datum angeben oder das Feld leer lassen.	The date is not valid	Choose the date with the date picker

Limits

• If a merchant locks an order in FFN to change it, an order that X-Sitter has already accepted is not stopped.
• FFN is only informed once the order is Sent. Partial deliveries before that are not reported.
• The stock reconciliation compares per article, not per batch or best-before date. Products that FFN manages with batch or best-before date are not corrected automatically.
• A putaway that is cancelled after the goods receipt report, and quality locks, are only balanced by the stock reconciliation. Without it, the difference stays in FFN.