Our business is completely make to order and SO driven. Also SO lines drive creation of unique jobs that are tied back to the SO, and then eventually ship directly from WIP. Very few if any WIP jobs will end up in FG.
However, we have some occasional needs to consume FG for either R&D testing or for marketing samples. The status quo has been to create a $0 SO to create the demand to build these samples then ship or consume, however this method skews our product margins since COGS GL accounting is set at the product group GL control code level. Also per PwC guidance, marketing samples should be classified as a marketing expense, not as COGS.
Now we do have Inv Qty Adj reason codes already setup to consume FG to Marketing expense and to R&D expense. My question is how can we create demand to produce these samples then issue them to these expense codes - hopefully without a lot of manual tracking?
We tried entering a req, but reqs only allow for purchased items, not manafactured parts. We have tried playing with job entry but there are only 3 types of jobs available - job to job, job to stock, and job to order. If we create job to stock, then consume from stock to marketing reason code, the concern is that the demand won’t be tracked and those jobs could appear as availability for other customer orders and it could create a shortage, as well as a lack of visibility to what those jobs were created for and from the other side - a lack of visibility as to the status of the sample demand request.
How are others handing sample production requests?
We created an “internal customer” for some instances. Basically a generic customer record we can use for internal projects. We can create a SO in Epicor for that internal customer to drive demand. We then ship within Epicor to that customer (even though it doesn’t physically leave on a truck).
I don’t know the finer points on how we set up the GL controls for that “customer” off the top of my head, but I assume you can adjust the GL controls on the customer to steer monies however you need.
A route you could investigate, at least. Test it through the system and see if you can get the transactions to land where you want them.
Thanks - we did think about doing this, but I haven’t found a customer GL setting. Does anyone know where to set Revenue and COGS GL on a Customer/SO level?
On a Sales Order level… you could potentially create a Product Group. You can assign product groups to any line item. Then use the Product Group to steer the GL transactions?
Create a Product Group that points to your Marketing Expense GL account
Create a NON-NETTABLE inventory warehouse bin
Create a Make-to-Stock job for the part, receive it to the non-nettable bin. Ensure that your sales team doesn’t see that non-nettable bin in any of their availability dashboards (by default none of Epicor’s production processes will see it).
This leaves the responsibility of moving the stock OUT of the new bin (probably via Inventory Adjustment) when it gets “consumed” by whatever.
If the Product Group GL codes are set correctly, the inventory quantity in the bin will have zero value.
I am comfortable with either way. It isn’t that ADJ-QTY is (always) a failure, if the appropriate process is followed. The cost has already been accounted for correctly, which is USUALLY why ADJ-QTY messes things up.
Oh, I don’t want to take over @bbriscoe’s thread since that’s so unlike me…
However, it’s not the cost per se, it is when we are measuring Inventory Accuracy. How can I differentiate a failure from non-failure if they look the same? Sure, you can use Reason Codes AND Transaction Type but now you rely on the human element to get two things right.
IMHO, the only person who gets to use Qty Adj is the person who is being measured for inventory accuracy.
You are correct, an MPS will create the job (just like a Forecast will). Those two functionalities are more for planning multiple things that will happen in the future (like you want to build 1000 units over the course of a year and spread out the load). The OP indicated this is a one-off that happens now and again. It is no more work to create a single job than it is to create an MPS that will THEN create that single job via MRP.
Saw “nun” and had to drop it in…couldn’t resist.
Ernie’s suggestion of a separate product group to segregate GL activity plus a nonnettable location seems to check all the boxes…but why not just enter a a “sales order” at zero sales dollars with the product cost associated and just let it hit the marketing GL? Beats using ADJ-QTY.
But these are standard parts that already belong to another product group. We just want to peg them to a sample demand request. The existing PN can’t belong to 2 different product groups can it?
The Part Number cannot, no. But on the job you create you can CHANGE the Product Group. It will default in as whatever is on the Part record, but you can modify it on the job.
So if we need 10 different PNs with various quantities in the same sample request, would the MPS tie the request all together and give order tracking visibility to each of the jobs without having to keep a manual tally on a sticky note?
Our alternative thought was to create a “sample kit part” with a BOM that consists of various quantities of the 10 different FG PNs and then create a sample part job that would spawn job to job subjobs for each of the discrete sample parts. Not sure if this would even work but we planned to test it today.
Sure, you can use Reason Codes AND Transaction Type but now you rely on the human element to get two things right. 
Great scene.
