We recently realized we are eating the cost of tooling that gets consumed during manufacturing. For example, a part that is particularly difficult to machine, wears out the cutter after just 2 parts. Right now, we just order tools and use them. There is no link to a job. How can we accurately charge these tools against the job to have their cost reported separate from materials and hardware? I don’t think this would be done ahead of time (in MOM or BOM), as the tooling might change based on the machine or what is available.
Would someone just have to record some kind of entry each time a tool was consumed? Or do we setup the PO to link to the job somehow? What if we order 5 tools for a job and use only three of them? Can we take the cost of the two remaining tools and put that cost on the next job that needs those tools?
I assume this is an accounting/finance thing. I am not a finance person, but If I have the right keywords, I may be able to get them to a solution. How are tooling costs supposed to be captured in Epicor?
There are two ways of handling tooling in Epicor… either as a Part or as a Resource.
Generally speaking, if the tool is an asset which is maintained and depreciated, it would be a Resource and added as a Scheduling Resource to the Operation record… whereas if it is more of a commodity item it would be a Part and issued to (or bought to) the job as a material.
In the scenario you describe, it would likely be closer to the Part side of the equation, so you’d create a Part master record… and then either add it to the Material list on the BOM beforehand OR someone would have to manually add it to the job so it could be issued (or purchased direct).
Awesome! Thanks Ernie! This is exactly what I was looking for.
If we do have tools that are resources, do we need a separate asset module to track that kind of thing?
