[Revised Sep 02]
Order quantities will be wrong if the Stock-on-hand is wrong or the sales forecast is wrong. But most apparently wrong order quantities are a result of RxOne taking into account changes in sales patterns that it has detected... do not assume it is wrong just because the quantity is unexpected. The ordering formulae are discussed in a separate topic.
Checking a 'wrong' quantity.
1. Check the Stock-on-Hand (SoH). If wrong in the machine correct it. Wrong SoH will always cause an incorrect order quantity. If there are many wrong SoH figures appearing, it is likely the rolling stocktakes are not being done properly. They are important otherwise "garbage in = garbage out."
2. Look at the sales forecast on the stock card. Is the order quantity reasonable in view of the sales forecast for the month, the SoH, the time of month, the seasons?
If so, the order is correct, though the forecast might not be. If the forecast seems wrong, consider the sales for earlier months... usually the forecast is reasonable, it is just that the computer has detected a change in sales patterns before anyone else (which is what it is there to do).
3. If the SoH and forecast are correct, look at the order quantity considering the SoH (negative stock to be bought up to zero), any owing on scripts, whether a high season is coming, whether the usage is building up, the time of month and other factors described in detail under ordering philosophy.
There is always room for different opinions as to the correct order quantity, but the computer's suggestions should not be lightly over-written... the computer has a perfect memory, detailed history to work from, and RxOne inherited its ordering formulae from its MS-DOS ancestors where they proved very efficient in several thousand sites over many years. They are not perfect, but they are usually considerably better than even a skilled human buyer when taken over the whole stock.
Order made up on Master is different from order made up on Slave.
The 'Liquidity' setting is probably different on each machine. Set it correctly on all units. Use of different liquidities can be deliberately used to allow a quick method of increasing or decreasing orders.
Making up an order twice
If, after making up an order once the same order is immediately made up again, it may correctly order a small quantity extra, since it will order those items that it were rounded down on the first order.
To prune high order quantities, see Order, Editing.
Related topic