Inventory Basics

Throughout the program year, your organization obtains inventory through your participation in the Food Distribution Program. You obtain product quantities through three methods:

Your state agency allocates products to your organization through fair-share, special, direct ship, and direct diversion allocations.
Your organization responds to preorders and your state agency allocates product quantities based on your preorder responses.
Your organization makes unassigned requests for products at your servicing warehouse.

Each method assigns products to your organization at your servicing warehouse. The allocated product quantities wait at the warehouse until your organization places an order. The product quantities remain available to you until the allocation's close date.

Allocations and Service Fees

Your inventory consists of product quantities allocated to your organization. The CNPweb invoiced your organization for the related service fees, and drew entitlement to cover the product cost.

Your state agency invoiced your organization to cover the service fees at the time it created each allocation. The method your organization uses to pay for related product fees depends on your program participation.

Ordering Period

The state agency expects your organization to order all product quantities based on the allocation dates.

You may have the same product in inventory with quantities allocated through different allocations. You must keep track of the individual allocations and the quantities associated with each allocation. The Sponsor Summary - Inventory tab provides this information and allows you to see the individual allocations that make up the total product quantity in inventory.

Excess Storage Fees

If you fail to order all or part of a product quantity, your organization may be assessed excess storage fees by the state agency based on their policies and procedures.

Cleared Allocations and Lost Inventory

If you fail to order all or part of a product quantity by the allocation close date, your organization loses access to the inventory. The state reclaims it as unassigned inventory and it becomes available to other sponsors serviced by the same warehouse.

Orders

When you place an order for your inventory, the CNPweb provides you with a list of all products and quantities grouped by storage type and sorted by product code. You identify the delivery location and the delivery period for each order, and the specific quantity of each desired product for this shipment.

The CNPweb subtracts each product quantity from your inventory. If you edit or delete the order, it makes the appropriate adjustments to your inventory.

When you have multiple allocations contributing to the available quantity for the same product, the CNPweb subtracts the ordered quantity from the allocation with the earliest close date.

Notes:

The USDA may ship products directly to a delivery location warehouse (direct ship orders) or a processor (direct diversion orders).
Sponsors track their inventory through the Sponsor Summary - Inventory tab.
Sponsors track their open orders through the Sponsor Summary - Orders tab.