I am going to ask this without any leading information. What is the source of truth regarding a part’s unit cost? Where do you look when you need to know a part’s unit cost?
I’ll be corrected if wrong, but the answer is: it depends.
In general, you get the PartCost record where the CostID is equal to the PartPlant’s CostID.
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If we have only the one plant, can I just pull the match from Part instead of PartPlant?
Also depends on what type of costing you use.
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Our goal is to understand what it costs us to make the part. I think I would add up the Mtl Unit Cost, Lbr Unit Cost, Bur Unit Cost, and Sub Unit Cost. Those together should give me the total unit cost that it costs us to make the part. Right?
Oh I also see, Mtl Mtl Unit Cost, and Mtl Bur Unit Cost. I guess I should add those in too?
I am looking at part transaction history.
Are you looking for it on a job to job basis or just the current cost?
I think it would have to be on a job to job basis, since the cost to produce the part is based on the labor performed on a particular job. Am I on the right track?
Depends. First we really need to know your costing method. FIFO, Standard, Last, or Average?
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Our current costing is set to Last. We are preparing to switch to Lot Avg. Part of that is making sure we have accurate information for when we cycle parts out of and in to inventory so we can change the cost method.
The concern is that we sometimes see different values in the three places we use to find the unit cost (cost for us to make a part). We use Part Advisor > Profitability, Part Transaction History Tracker, and the Production Detail Report. I am trying to find out what is causing the difference, and part of that is that I need to know exactly what the unit cost should be.
It looks like the values in the PartCost table are pretty much the same as the other sources I have. However, the costs are all in Avg, Std, FIFO, or Last fields. Even though my costing is Last, most of the data in the PartCost table is in the Avg columns. I am so confused!
Epicor keeps track of the avg cost of everything even if it isn’t set to avg.
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Are you make to order?
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Yes, I believe so. Our Orders are set to Make Direct. Is that what you mean?
John properly identified a huge observation. The PartCost table is ONLY updated if you receive inventory to stock.
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Yes. If you do not put your finished goods into stock, your Last cost will never update.
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So, if that is the case, where should I look for my unit cost if not in the PartCost table? I think Part Advisor makes the most sense, as I can see the history of costs. I can also see the difference between jobs.
Costing methods are really only used for valuing inventory. Since you don’t carry finished goods inventory, you really want to look at each job and see the profit/loss there.
@timshuwy , @Mark_Wonsil , or @ckrusen . I’m not aware of a way to see costing for MTO and POTF in a concise manner. The only way I know how is to run Production Detail Report. Do any of you know of something better?
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We do use the production detail report for costing. After some more thorough review, all of our more recent orders actually have matching cost values in all three places I mentioned above. Apparently, it was only the older jobs that didn’t have matching cost information. This was likely due to poor job and cost tracking in the past.
Interesting. Maybe something changed and Epicor tracks costs for MTO even if they are not put in inventory?
My first guess woykd be the MOMs being off.
- Bad estimates for OTF parts
- Incorrect QtyPer, UOMs, scrap factors
- Parts not on MOM
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This is not an easy question to answer because of all the variable features you could have on/off.
Costing methods of average, lot average, fifo (least favorite), lot fifo (ok, this is harder to explain), last (does “interesting” things when there are price fluctuations). Then you have make to stock vs make to order. Throw in Ort on the fly and mixed cost setting possible, it can be difficult to explain what happens without seeing the actual data setup.
There is also a setting that changes behavior for make direct on how it works with variances if you are standard cost.
Oh, and if you do partial completions, it can do some interesting mathematical problems because the system must perform the cost calculations based on incomplete data.
The purest cost capture can actually be make direct / part on the fly in an average cost environment. You should see as close to actual as possible.
Where can you see the costs? In the INVOICE detail table. There is a report in the AR reports menu that shows the data, but also in the invoice tracker (I think) and in the production detail report, which should show cost details for the job. This data is also visible in the job tracker on the assemblies tab in a summarized view.
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