--- David E Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:


> I think there are quite a few more differences than
> that... The  
> information about a rental versus sale and return of
> inventory is  
> very different and I really wouldn't want to see a
> bunch of rental  
> specific fields added to the InventoryItem, which is
> already complex.
> 
> I really highly recommend looking into the existing
> rental stuff more  
> and identify the specific places where the
> functionality is similar  
> to and different from what you need. I might be
> making a bad  
> assumption, but I've seen a lot of people go through
> this and it's  
> easy to try to make what you are familiar with fit
> into a new need  
> rather than going through the time and effort
> required to research a  
> new part of the existing functionality.
> 
> -David

Taking another close look at the rental stuff and the
inventory stuff this is what I'm seeing:
1) Product availability for the rental items is not
calculated for the inventory sections of the order
screen.
2) You can find availability for those items by
looking at it's calendar which is based on
FixedAsset.productionCapacity (production capacity is
a manufucturing use of fixed assets, not a rental use)

3) the entity InventoryItem (correctly) has no
relationship to the accounting entities.  So its name
is not reflecting the accounting "ideology" of
separation of fixed assets, supplies and inventory. 
Inventory items are simply items that are in a
facility.  Could just as easily be called Item based
on it's current implementation.

4)FixedAssets is setup in a way that doesn't allow the
Facility entities to control it (by having the foreign
key in the FixedAsset entitiy).  This keeps you from
being able to transfer a fixed asset in the same
manner that you transfer items for sale. 

>From my POV, the only reason why the approach was
taken to not consider FixedAssets InventoryItems is
because of the shortcut taken with the
FixedAssetProduct entity.  It should have instead been
FixedAssetItem entity and then you're selling /
renting, etc only items which in reality is what
you're doing anyway as InventoryItem is already linked
to the Product entity.  Linking FixedAsset and
InventoryItem allows you to specify the location the
fixed asset as well as specifiy what productId is
representing it for sale/rent

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