# Acumatica production demand 'Prepared': what it means and how to clear it > Source: https://netray.co/erp-help/acumatica-production-demand-prepared-status-meaning > Publisher: Netray (netray.co), AI and integration engineering for ERP and manufacturing systems. > Section: ERP Help ## Short answer In Acumatica Manufacturing, a demand record marked Prepared has been staged by a planning step but has not yet been turned into a supply order (production order, purchase order or transfer). It normally clears when the next planning or order-creation step runs against it. If it never clears, the cause is almost always a missing item setting, a replenishment source that is not defined, or a planning run that was never completed. ## Kind error ## System small-erp ## Erp Acumatica Manufacturing ## Module Production Management / MRP ## Query acumatica production demand prepared ## Alternate Queries - acumatica prepared status production demand - acumatica demand stuck in prepared - acumatica MRP prepared demand not planned ## Applies To Acumatica Cloud ERP with the Manufacturing edition (Material Requirements Planning, Production Management). Exact status labels can differ slightly between 2023 R2, 2024 R1 and later releases, so confirm on your own screens. ## Steps ### How to move a Prepared production demand forward **Items:** - Open the planning inquiry that lists the demand and note the item, warehouse, required date and quantity on the Prepared line. - Open the Stock Items screen for that item and check the Replenishment Source on the Warehouse Details tab. Production demand needs a source of Manufacturing, Purchase or Transfer to become a supply order. - Confirm the item has an active, effective-dated Bill of Material and Routing (revision) for the required date. A missing or expired revision leaves demand unplanned. - Check the planning options: lead times, order policy, safety stock and lot size. A demand that produces a zero-quantity requirement after netting stays in Prepared. - Run or re-run the planning process (regenerate or run MRP) for the affected warehouse and horizon, then reopen the demand list to see whether the status changed. - If the demand should become a production order, create it from the planning results or from the sales order demand and release it as normal. - If the demand is stale (the sales order was cancelled or changed), cancel or delete the source document, then re-run planning so the Prepared line is removed. - Record what you changed, so planners understand why that item was not planning before. ## Sections ### What Prepared means in practice **Body:** Acumatica separates demand from supply. Demand comes from sales orders, forecasts, production order materials and safety stock. Supply is the production, purchase or transfer order that covers it. A status such as Prepared marks a point in between: the system has collected and staged the demand but nothing has consumed it yet. This is not an error message in the usual sense. It is a state. Planners search for it because lines linger in that state and the next step is not obvious. Treat it like an 'ordered but not yet fulfilled' marker: something upstream was done, and something downstream is missing. ### Why demand stays Prepared **Body:** The four usual causes are a planning run that was started but not completed, an item with no replenishment source for that warehouse, a Bill of Material or Routing that is not effective on the required date, and a quantity that nets to zero because existing inventory or open supply already covers it. A fifth cause is data that changed after the run. If someone edits an item's lead time, or a sales order date moves, the staged demand no longer matches the master data. Re-running planning refreshes it. ### How to diagnose it quickly **Body:** Pick one Prepared line and trace it end to end. Find the source document, the item, the warehouse and the date. Then ask three questions in order: can this item be produced or bought in this warehouse, is there a valid BOM revision on that date, and does inventory already cover the quantity. Whichever answer is 'no' or 'unknown' is your blocker. Fix that one and re-run planning for a single item first, rather than the whole plant, so you can see the effect before committing to a long run. ### Cleaning up stale Prepared demand **Body:** Old Prepared lines pile up when orders are cancelled without a follow-up planning run. Schedule planning on a regular cadence so staged demand is rebuilt from current data rather than patched by hand. Avoid editing the underlying demand tables directly. Acumatica enforces integrity through its business logic, and a direct database change can leave planning records that disagree with the documents they came from. ## Pitfalls - Running planning for all warehouses when only one is misconfigured, which is slow and hides the real cause. - Assuming Prepared is an error and deleting lines, which can break traceability from sales order to supply. - Leaving item replenishment source blank on newly created stock items. - Using an expired BOM revision and not noticing because the item still opens normally. - Fixing the item but not re-running planning, so the screen still shows the old state. ## Ai Angle An AI assistant grounded in Acumatica (for example ERPray, read-only by default and showing the query it ran) can take a Prepared line and walk the same checks automatically: replenishment source, BOM effectivity, netting against stock and open supply. It returns the single blocker per line. For companies that cannot send ERP data to a public cloud, the model can run on-prem against the same data, and nothing is written back without human approval. ## Faq ### Is a Prepared production demand an error? **Answer:** No. It is a status showing that demand has been staged but not yet covered by a supply order. It becomes a problem only when it never moves, which points to a missing replenishment source, a missing BOM revision, or an incomplete planning run. ### Will re-running MRP delete my Prepared demand? **Answer:** Re-running planning rebuilds planning records from current documents and master data. Valid demand is regenerated, while demand from cancelled or changed documents drops away. It does not remove the underlying sales orders. ### Why does a Prepared line show quantity zero after netting? **Answer:** Netting subtracts on-hand inventory and open supply from the requirement. If those cover the demand, no new order is needed and the line has nothing to convert, so it can sit in its staged state. ### Can I change the status manually? **Answer:** Do not force status changes. Move the demand by fixing its cause and running the next planning step, or by cancelling the source document. Manual status edits risk inconsistent planning data. ## Search terms acumatica production demand prepared, acumatica MRP, acumatica manufacturing planning, acumatica replenishment source, acumatica production order, acumatica demand status, acumatica BOM revision, acumatica run MRP --- Talk to an engineer: https://netray.co/contact?intent=erp_ai | Machine catalog: https://netray.co/agent/catalog.json