Why it's important
Products refer to various items purchased from vendors and are available in different package sizes. Multiple products can be associated with a single ingredient. For example, unbleached flour comes in 1 lb, 5 lb, 25 lb, and 50 lb bags. From a recipe’s perspective, the size of the bag purchased does not affect the ingredient; all bags contain the same unbleached flour. However, buying a 50 lb bag can lower the cost per pound since it is cheaper than the 1 lb bag
When multiple vendors supply the same or similar products, one vendor often wins over all others, and reciProfity classifies this vendor as the Preferred Vendor.
How to use it
If you purchase the same product from multiple vendors, you may have a preferred product/vendor you'd like to use when creating a Shopping Cart.
If your vendor allows you to purchase broken cases, the broken case icon indicates that you can order a broken case when using the shopping cart.
Vendors often charge extra for broken cases. To prevent a user from accidentally ordering a broken case, this is set to NO by default. You can change this either item by item or globally.
Preferred Product:
In Ingredient Edit mode, you can choose the Preferred Product in the Product section by clicking the gray thumbs-up icon.
This will turn the thumb green
Broken Case:
If your vendor allows you to order broken cases, you can also click the Broken Case Allowed button. This will allow you to order a broken case in the shopping cart, which will translate to a broken case on a PO.
From the Shopping Cart, any products that allow Broken Case ordering will allow you to fill in the Package Qty as well as the Case Qty:
Your choices are assigned to the Ingredient and flow to the Shopping Cart.