Monday was Family Day in Canada. And it was a holiday. Who doesn’t love a holiday? Our family gets together to share a meal, do a puzzle, but more importantly we enjoy each others’ company. This Family Day was extra special: 63 years ago, my parents were married. And now look at all the family: 4 daughters, grandkids and great grandchildren. And then there are all the spouses.
Visual ERP is like one big happy family. There are a few different things that seem to be modeled after the family structure.
Accounting Window – So Many Generations
The Chart of Accounts is made up of generations.
- Each posting account has a summary or parent account. Then the parent account can have another parent and so on. All the way up to the great-great-great grandmother TOTAL LIABILITIES. The next generation down would be CURRENT LIABILTIES. And then another generation ACCOUNTS PAYABLES, ACCRUALS, SALES TAX PAYABLE. The next level could have posting level accounts or even another generation.
- This parent-child structure can be used for financial reporting. Pick 1 account, let’s say SALES and go down 1 level. Even though you have selected 1 account, it could display 3, 4, 10 or however many children accounts exist.
- Another way Visual’s Chart of Accounts is like a family is Account Groups, or as I like to call them, Foster Parents. These allow you to create another grouping for financial reports. For example, you could have a Foster Parent (Account Group) TOTAL WAGES. Then you could select accounts from anywhere in the chart of accounts to belong to that group. Again, in the report writer use the Account Group. You have the option of showing this as a 1 line total or showing the accounts that make up the group.
Costing Layers – Or Visual Marriages
If your database is set to Actual costing, then you will have FIFO (First-In First-Out) layers. Well, when costing is run the layers are connected. This is where an out-layer is linked to in-layers to obtain the actual cost. How does that remind me of family? It is like getting married. Another family relationship. These layers stay connected “Until Death Do Us Part”.
- That is unless things are not working as expected and you decide to run FORCE FIFO. In this case, the “marriages” are broken and then put back together based on transaction dates. Think of it like getting a divorce. Of course, like any divorce, FORCE FIFO should not be done lightly. Professional help should be requested. Don’t do it alone. In the Visual world, talk to your INFOR partner or INFOR help desk to see if this makes sense for you. Under any situation, consider a test FORCE FIFO in a copy of the database.
- The other family twist is when you issue materials and drive inventory negative (That is assuming you have the allow negative inventory setting turned on). Then to fix the negative inventory, you do an issue return. You would think that when Costing is run that the layers would get connected. But oh no. Visual is very smart. It knows that these 2 transactions are related, and relatives are not allowed to get married. If this happens, all you need to do is adjust in a new layer dated prior to the issue. This will then to connect to the issue out transaction. Then adjust out to put the on-hand quantity back to the correct amount.
The other part about these family relationships are tracing the married relationships. Think of this as checking out the family tree. Visual has a couple of reports under Costing Tools (Admin. Menu) that can help.
The Cost Distribution Analysis Report – Want to know where an OUT transaction is getting it’s cost from? Enter the Part ID and the date of the OUT transaction. This report will show you what layer or layers are married to the out layer. Yes. It can be married to more than 1 IN layer.
The FIFO Analysis Report – This is reverse of the Cost Distribution Report. Enter the Part ID and the date of the IN transaction. The report will show you where the part was used for OUT layers. Again, 1 IN layer can feed multiple OUT layers. Think about a Purchase Order receipt feeding multiple work orders.
Wow, Costing sure does a lot of cool stuff. There’s marriages, family trees and generations.
Wishing everyone and their families a very Happy Family Day.
