Metalsmith™ can be used with or without inventory items. If you are a broker for metals (or any other types of products) you can still create Orders without the need of your own inventory.
When you are creating an order (see the page on Quotes and Orders) simply enter a product description of your own choosing. When Metalsmith cannot find the product description in its own products, it assumes that it is a product you are going to be supplying from a 3rd party vendor.
For example, if we enter the description “3″ 108# RFSO Widget” and TAB out of the Description column, then enter the # of items in the Ordered column and TAB out. A dialog will pop-up that asks you to enter some basic information about the item, such as who is the vendor, what is the category and alloy of the item, and how it is to be priced.
When you convert the Quote into an Order, this information will be used to generate a Purchase Order for this item from the supplied Vendor. Note that when you have multiple Order Items that are 3rd party, you can add the items to a previously defined Vendor, or buy them from a different one. Metalsmith assumes you will be buying from the same Vendor and will fill in the Vendor name automatically on subsequent item. However, you can change the Vendor at any time. The conversion to an Order will bring up the Resolution Dialog.
This Dialog indicate the one item one the Order that needs further input from you. In this case, you need to provide some additional information that will be used to generate the Purchase Order. See all the * starred items in the screenshot below.
Once you provide all the information needed, close all the dialogs and save the Order. Then the Purchase Order can be viewed and send to the Vendor for immediate purchase.
As mentioned earlier, should you have multiple 3rd party items on the Order, you may purchase them from one or multiple vendors. If there are multiple items for one vendor, then the subsequent resolutions are simpler in that you only need to fill out the Quoted Price since all the items will be going onto one Purchase Order.
In this way, those of you who deal exclusively with 3rd party vendors can use Metalsmith to fulfill all your orders and purchasing needs.