Inventory

Item Usage History

Full Usage history on rolling 25 months, including cost of sales. Usage history is stored and is inquirable at location, warehouse, facility and/or item level.

Usage History is visible from its own inquiries, or from Material Status, which now also includes a 'number of months' stock on hand' display. Various Reports also included.

Item Receipt History

Full Receipt history on rolling 25 months. Receipt history is stored and is inquirable at location, warehouse, facility and/or item level. Reporting also included.

Depreciation Calculation and Reporting

Aged Inventory reports, based on either usage or receipt history, or both. Similary aged stock reports are available. Makes monthly depreciation entries a simple exercise.

Item Class Special Charge Control

New flags have been added to the Item Class Master to control whether special charges are allowed against them, or not. The 'allow special charges' flag is checked in Order Entry and Billing, to ensure that only appropriate special charge codes are used.

Inventory Revaluation Improvements

When the accounting cost (average, standard or frozen standard cost) is changed via Item Master, General Ledger journals are generated to ensure that the Inventory sub-system remains in balance with the General Ledger. An inventory transaction history is written to record the 'before' and 'after' and to record the user details, stock on hand, etc. Refer also the similar Costing improvements if you are running the CST module.

Item Class Change Improvements

If the Item Class is changed on the Item Master, The Item Master Maintenance program now resets all other files that hold the Item Class separately, e.g. Purchase Order Lines (HPO).

Inventory-General Ledger Balancing Improvements

The General Ledger Journal Number is now recorder on the Inventory Transaction History record (ITH) to ensure that balancing the Inventory sub-system with the General Ledger becomes easier.

Inventory - G/L Posting enhancements

A 'Profit Center' has been added to the Transaction Effect definition, so that a full Profit Center/Account Number General Ledger effect combination can now be achieved.

An 'Over-ride Inventory Profit Centre' has been added to the 'Item Type Master', so that a specific Profit Centre (Balance Sheet?) can hold the full Inventory profit centre account. The Location Master Profit Centre can still be used to post transactions like 'stock losses from stock takes', so that they affect the branch which created the loss.

A 'Drop Ship Profit Centre' and 'Drop Ship Inventory Account' has been added to the 'Item Type Master' to allow Drop Shipment transactions to have a different General Ledger effect from normal Inventory Transactions. This allows the Inventory General Ledger interface to generate a balance-able interface.

Added a new General Ledger Effect - 'Freight accrual'. This posts an entry from the new Vendor Type / Currency profit centre/accrual account combination.

Added a new 'Transaction Period Open' flag to the General Ledger Period Master. Inventory transaction posting now checks this, rather than the 'General Ledger Period Open' flag, when validating transaction dates. This allows you to close the accounting period, but still process your final General Ledger journals, without having users post transactions into the closed periods.

Inventory Costing Enhancements

Rather than the standard system-wide Average, Actual or Standard cost parameter, the costing method can be defined and run at an item class level.

Material Status Inquiry Enhancements

Simple but effective - you can now 'page backwards' as well as forwards!

Displays due dates on purchase orders

Includes location filters, and display Location Names.

Shows 'number of months stock on hand' at all inquiry levels.

Allow simple function key access to 'Item Notes' and 'Alternate Item' displays. Function keys only display if 'Item Notes' or 'Alternate Items' exist for the item.

Automatically display 'Item Status', in full colour to ensure that they are visible.

Stock Count Enhancements

Finally a stock count function which allows you to count any time you want, not just at month-end.

Allows a blind count, and compares with the stock as it was when you controlled your cut-offs. This is a six-stage process, consisting of
· count selection, including nominated warehouses, item classes, item locations, etc.
· print count sheets (optional target quantities)
· freeze stock (which takes a snap-shot of the on hand balance, so that you can continue processing while the count is being finalized)
· enter counts - a simple, 'no item number entry required' quantity entry. If a new item is found, you can simply add a count entry for it.
· Count vs. Actual report, in detail or 'variances only' to compare what was counted with what was expected (stock on hand when it was frozen)
· Variance Post - creates Inventory transactions for variances.

There are two other optional steps;
· 'second count/recount' entry
· 'first' vs. 'second/recount' entry report, to check that we have counted consistently

Counts and Variances can be re-run ad infinitum, until acceptable.

Inventory Month-end Enhancements

The Transaction History Purge has been separated from the rollover. This allows AS/400s with a short processing window to process the essential month-end rollovers without holding up month-end processing while doing the non-essential Transaction History purge processing. The Transaction History Purge can then be run independently, at a less pressured time.

Usage and Receipt History is accumulated in their own 'History' files, rather than lost, so that they can be used for more sophisticated depreciation, usage history, stock turn and other reports.

Bulk List Price, Standard Cost Management

There is a new program which can be scheduled or can be run interactively to automatically update your list prices, based on a desired margin. The margin can be calculated from the current vendor quotes file, or from the current cost.

Similarly, the standard cost can be re-valued from the vendor quotes file, based on a margin, while still keeping the General Ledger in synchronization by passing the appropriate revaluation journals).

Margins for both can be defined against multiple price breaks. The rounding accuracy can be defined (i.e. number of decimal places)