Labor before a job is created

Epicor ERP 10
1

I am stuck and would like some recommendations on how users handle this. We do work before the job is dropped. Our engineering department has worked on the job as soon as we get the purchase order signed. The planning process can take up to 5-10 days and during that time our engineering department may have some billable time we would like to capture on the job. How do you all handle this?

2

this is a tough one… and it depends on how you actually engineer the job later. I have seen the following done:

  1. sales order created
  2. Make Direct Job created
  3. Job has one assembly (zero) with two operations: Engineer and Pack/ship
  4. Job is released, engineering charges time to engineering operation
  5. as they engineer the product they add an assembly (assy 1) linking it to operation 20 and build the BOM and BOO within this job.
  6. IF REQUIRED, items on the BOM can even be purchased direct into this job (because it is custom?)…
  7. once job is fully engineered, the job is released and scheduled.
    8 once assembly 1 is finished, the job is packed (operation 20 on assembly 0) and shipped.
3

We have a “part” in the system that has a bom with these operations and a couple generic materials on it. When the order is taken, our sales coordinator makes a job and gets details for this part. Then engineering puts time on it, while engineering the order, then manufacturing engineers build the actual BOM and when it’s done, they get details (append details) and the rest of the BOM is added to the job. Seems to work fine for us.

4

we use Indirect Activity, linked to Engineering Resource Group, with a minor customization to capture PartNum, MethodRevison, JobNum(optional), and CheckBox (Flag) to use this record in cost calculation, then we add these costs using these UD fields to the (Make to Stock) Job Cost at the end (i.e. Book to stock Transaction).

5

We use Project Entry. A project is created with a WBS Phase job for the pre-production tasks such as Engineering, Surveys, Manufacturing drawings, as well as project management itself. The sales order line, manufacturing job and purchase orders are all linked to the project.

3 Likes
6

Interesting, and this would allow the “costs” to be billed to a job? Like the engineer’s time before the jobs are dropped?

7

Yes, the costs would go to the Project Job,

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8

Project jobs cost does not get applied to the sales order line though. If you are engineer to order, and the cost of engineering is part of your margin calculation per sales order line, it will not apply. Project jobs are considered overhead I believe.

9

We did make some changes to our posting rules to accommodate this.

10

We have something similar although we do work before we get the job at the RFQ stage. We are good with calling the quote costs as a period expense, we however would like to see the “job” or resource or activity show up on the scheduler without causing a lot of grief with invoicing/WIP… Any suggestions would be appreciated.

11

We have something similar although we do work before we get the job at the RFQ stage. We are good with calling the quote costs as a period expense, we however would like to see the “job” or resource or activity show up on the scheduler without causing a lot of grief with invoicing/WIP. We do not have to attached the quote costs to the actual work. Any suggestions would be appreciated.