How does the Production Detail calculate estimate cost?
I am trying to develop a BAQ to display the cost elements for a KanBan job or the Estimated Cost in a Production Detail report. I would like to then assign these values as the Standard Cost.
I see alot of topics similar to this idea, but every scenario seems a bit unique. That is why my question is fairly straight forward, what field(s) does the Production Detail report use to generate Estimate Costs?
Not as straightforward as it seems on the surface, at least in Epicor.
The cost data lives in the PartCost table. The exact fields Epicor will use depends on the costing method for the part. Each method, however, has fields for labor, burden, material, subcontract, material burden. The system adds these fields together to get the total cost.
For Labor and Burden, it takes your Resource Group “Costing Labor” and “Costing Burden” rates, and multiplies those by the time required by the Production Quantity for each operation.
For Subcontract, it will look to the value listed in the MOM (or if there is a supplier price list, it will use that) again multiplied by the production quantity.
You can also do a Cost Rollup, which (theoretically at least) does exactly the same thing, using the part’s Costing Lot Size as the “job” quantity.
The process is definitely not as straightforward as it seems, judging by the amount of topics and articles on this subject …so thanks for the feedback on the fields.
When calculating the Estimate Cost, which costing method is used? Will it always be dependent on the method of the part/site? How is it determined which fields of the cost data is totaled?
Ernie, where does one do a Cost Rollup? Also, the info on Labor/Burden/Subcontract is helpful as the production detail is filled in… how is material calculated?
@hackaphreaka’s post above mine describes how the material costs are calculated.
The Costing Workbench program is where you do your cost rollups for Standard Cost determination. This is described (along with more than you’ll ever want to know about costing) in the Job Costing Technical Reference Guide, available on Epicweb:
https://epicweb.epicor.com/doc/Docs/Kinetic_TechRef_JobCostingGuide_2024.1.pdf
It is actually very straight forward. Query the JobAsmbl table.
All of the estimates and actuals are there and the LL Lower level fields hold all of the sub assemblies costs so AsmSeq 0 TL This level is the main and the LLs hold all of the subs.
Estimates are captured at time of job release…right? Just making sure that’s the case if I ever need to pull it into something
Does the Job have to be closed? What if there are no jobs - is there a way to create a dummy job?
I don’t remember when they are originally done. I update them with a bpm when we kit, so the estimate is closest to correct. We have a lot of custom parts that will have no cost info when the job is created/released.
If you want the cost for a specific job, then the job itself should be closed since by that time all costs will have been added to it. If the job is still open, there may be more cost that will need to be associated with it, which means it really isn’t ready to be a template for your standard cost exercise.
If you are trying to calculate your Standard Costs for your manufactured parts, you need to follow the directions in the document referenced above.
What exactly are you wanting to do?
I am trying to calculate the current estimated cost and set those as the standard cost. I would like to be able to do this from time to time as we review our costs. Using the costing workbench I get different numbers than the estimated cost in production detail, which are both different than the BOM Cost report. The Estimated Cost does match a kanban job cost however, and so we’d like to use that most current cost to set a standard.
One of the most important settings used by the Costing Workbench is the Costing Lot Size value on the Part > Site tab. This is the “production quantity” that is used for the cost calculation. Especially if you have setup times on some of your operations, this value can drastically affect the unit cost of a finished part. For instance, if you have a hour or so setup time on multiple operations, amortizing that cost over 100 pieces is somewhat different than amortizing it over 10 pieces. This value should PROBABLY be whatever your “typical” production quantity is, but that is up to your Finance people to decide.
That’s a great help Ernie! What happens in the background of the amortization if the Lot Size is 0?
Since you can’t have a job that produces a 0 quantity, it has to put something there. It could be any random number. I don’t know if there is a “default” value baked in or not.