System Load Issues
One call that I get for support rather frequently, is that users will say that their system slows down at times. In researching their issue it turns out that many times this slow down occurs when they are posting purchase orders or inventory receiving. Very large purchase orders.
What happens is that they create a purchase order for one of their major vendors. Or, they get their shipment, and are posting the inventory receiving. In either case, the purchase order, or receiving, is quite large. Typically several hundred items are being purchased or received, and the posting takes several minutes to complete.
Let us take a look at everything that is going on. For each line, the inventory record must be updated to reflect the changed quantities. The purchase order must be updated with the current status. Those are the obvious ones. Additionally, however, there are many tables that get updated in the background. These are such things as tables that track quantity for each site. If you are using multi-site, the tables that track what needs to be replicated must be updated, also.
The bottom line is that there is a great deal of processing going on for each line on the purchase order or receiver. When there are several hundred lines, the processing load is quite large.
With this in mind, there really is not anything that can be done as far as the speed of the processing. That is assuming that the SQL server has been tuned, of course. So, if possible, time your large postings outside of your busy hours. Usually, these can be held off until there is little other activity. Performing them before, or after, business hours is the best, if it can be scheduled that way.
Dave