Hi Tim,
When you are creating new Cost IDs for the next year do you implement during a stock take when setting qty to zero? It seems from what I’ve just seen in my test environment changed IDs with a qty produces alot of transactions.
Thanks
yes, when you change cost IDs, it will generate a journal entry for each difference… for example, if you have a part X with the CostID of 2021… it has a cost of 1.25… but you create a new CostID called 2022, and you change the cost of part X to 1.26… When you change the cost ID, it will examine the current Qty On Hand, and if any, it will produce a cost adjustment of .01 per qty… But this same thing would have happened if you posted a cost change in the Costing Workbench.
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Many thanks Tim. We have yet to implement our main manufacturing site yet so as part of or go-live and stock count I will Zero all QOH for and the new cost ID to MfgSys and then bring in QOH for both sites.
when you bring in the new QOH, it will also cause GL Transactions… 
Hi Tim,
I’ve tested a few parts and transferred from one site to the other but one thing I expected to see but didn’t was Epicor unable to handle the cost variance. All posting went to known accounts i.e. not our catch all clearing account of 99999… and went smoothly. I tested with parts initially at $1,000 and purposefully raised POs at a higher price and received them in one site then bought and received under that in the other. Both sites had different costs but the transfer went smoothly. Did I see another post mentioning Epicor posting a variance somewhere?
Thanks
Matt
Transfer variance is a big topic. If you want to break down and cry, read this post and all its 37 replies:
We went on several tangents, but it might prove useful to your endeavors. (We are std. cost here; sounds like you might use average?)
But, point is, there is a place for transfer variance, even without “interdivisional accounting,” which thankfully we decided against.
Do you have GL controls on the plant transfer definition (site maintenance, I think)?
EDIT: You know, it’s something else when I am the only person in the history of this forum to ever mention “interdivisional accounting.” Twice - once here and once in the post I linked to above. And we avoided it after all. So, this is not exactly a well-beaten path, I guess!
The transfer variance will only happen if you are Standard Cost (or the dreaded Last cost). If you are Average, Lot, Fifo, or LotFifo, then there will be no variance captured.
If standard cost, here is what happens:
- Site 1: Std Cost of $1000, purchase at $1200 - a $-200 variance. the cost in the system is now $1000
- Site 2: Std Cost of $1500, purchase at $1200 - a $300 variance. the cost in the system is now $1500
- transfer the part from site 1 to site 2. It will
- transfer OUT $1000 from site 1,
- transfer IN $1500 into site 2…
- there will be a $500 variance due to the change
If Average cost then here is what happens: the cost will adjust the average when you move the parts, just as though they were purchased. It follows all the normal average costing rules.
- Site 1: purchase at $1000 - If none on hand before trx, the cost in the system is now $1000
- Site 2: purchase at $1500 - if none on hand before trx, the cost in the system is now $1500
- transfer the part from site 1 to site 2. It will
- transfer OUT $1000 from site 1,
- transfer IN $1000 into site 2…
- The new cost in site 2 will change from 1500 to 1250 due to averaging. No variance will be posted.
And, as @JasonMcD pointed out, you need to make sure that you have the GL Controls for Plant Transfer definition setup correctly so that variances (if needed) go the right places.
Thanks Jason. Due to the break down & cry item this may be an afternoon thing.
At least you get the Interdivisonal Accounting reference. I only have elephant’s foot to my name ;p
Thanks again Tim. We are average so may have dodged this bullet.
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Yes, I see that, yes you do. Well, congrats?
Statistically Improbable Phrases, or something like that, right?
@timshuwy I am finally able to try this here for the first time, and this is definitely the right way to do things.
But how do you copy the costs from the old ID to the new one? I assumed Costing Workbench, but the help doesn’t show a way to do that, not that I see.
Of course I can do a BAQ and a DMT, and I probably will do that. But is there no way to duplicate the entire cost set with a new ID?
For example, our parts are standard-costed, but I would still like to retain all of the Last cost data on the parts for reference. Is DMT the only way to do that?
Yes, use the costing workbench. Create the new costing id, and then use costing workbench. There is a question that asks the source cost ID to use.
I think I got what you are saying (I’ll explain after this), but I’m not liking the results.
First, we use standard cost and that data came over, but the Last cost data is all zeroes, as is Average, etc.
So if I want to retain that info, is DMT the only way? Seems so.
Second, it only pulled in 11,000 parts to the new ID, but the old ID had 19,000 parts. I’m assuming there is some setting I missed there and so be it, but I’m curious what happens if I were to assign the new cost set to the site (that has all 19,000 PartPlant records). Kind of a moot point if the Last cost data isn’t there anyway.
What I did:
(Loaded Cost Details - not shown)
And post it.
(I think this is supposed to say “Post Cost Set” not “Cost Post Set.” 
I think I found a way forward. This is rough, though.
Big thing I learned is that DMT really does not handle this well for an unassigned cost set. One of the required fields of the DMT is Plant and that’s silly and is a problem because it’s checking my changes against the assigned cost set. So when all I want is to load in the costs for other costing methods, I can’t do it. I am able to modify it with an updatable BAQ, so there’s that.
And so also, that’s terrifying because I was actually able to modify the assigned cost set also and no GL activity happened, so hey don’t ever do this, okay people!
And about not getting all parts, the step I missed previously was to check off “Retrieve unlinked purchased parts.” It got me to 16,000 instead of 19,000 but that’s close enough.
So the procedure as I see it for moving ALL costs from the existing set to a new one is this:
- Make a BAQ of the PartCost table. Download all of the parts for old Cost ID.
- In Site Cost Maintenance, make a new Site Cost ID. You can set the primary site already; this won’t hurt anything. A later step will actually link the two.
- In Costing Workbench, make a group; use the current cost set (not the new one) for the “Copy from Site Cost ID”
- Also in Costing Workbench, go to Actions > Load Cost Details. Be sure to check the setting of “Retrieve unlinked purchased parts.”
- Wait till the process is complete
- In Costing Workbench, go to the Cost tab and then search and return all purchased parts and all manufactured parts
- In Costing Workbench, go to Actions > Post. Then change the Site Cost ID to the new one.
a. I unchecked Labor and Burden rates here since I am not updating those. YMMV. - Make an updatable BAQ of PartCost and publish a dashboard of it.
- In your dashboard, load in the new costs and the historical costs
- Export this dashboard and save the file for next time. Then DELETE THIS DASHBOARD! No one should know this exists. Yeesh.
- In Site Maintenance, go to Actions > Change Cost ID and pick the new one. Click Process. This is it - try not to panic.
Also, this skips inactive parts. If you reactivate one, this part is untethered to any cost and always transacts at zero. Yay.
So really, I guess you need to use the updatable dashboard to add in the inactive parts to the cost set as well. At this point, I could ditch Costing Workbench altogether (steps 3-7).
I have to be missing something. Do other people do this, with a new cost ID every year?
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Jason is there any way to specify the cost site ID to use when quoting (regardless of the plant you are in)?
Sorry, I really don’t know. We don’t do a lot with quotes.
Since you got me rereading this, I should say that I did go through with the new cost ID a few days after the July 8 post.
For some reason, when I did the change (step 11 above), it errored out during the endless ADJ-CST portion. So, that was a nightmare, trying to explain to people:
- Yes, the new costs are loaded and all future transactions are at the new costs
- But the GL activity didn’t complete, so $800,000 is in the wrong account(s).
In their words, the “subledger” was right but the General Ledger was wrong.
Believe it or not, I’ll still do it again this way next year. But I’ll be more prepared.
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Hello all, ignoring the “necro” warning because this is like an encyclopedia article not a problem/solution 
.
Has anyone done a CostID change going from one option to another? In our case, we have two sites sharing a cost ID due to a setup error 5 years ago, and with FIFO that means we’re constantly getting FIFO errors as one site’s transactions consume the other’s FIFO stacks.
What steps would be required to make the switch? I’m unsure how the costs would be assigned to the site that didn’t change. Will it use the warehouse onhands to calculate?
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Hey Steve,
In Site Maintenance, in the Actions menu, there is a process to change the Cost ID. I would try it out in test to make sure it works - especially with FIFO. It does create posting entries. Try it in test first! Don’t FAFO your FIFO.
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What Mark said!
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