This is part of my internal notes. It’s mostly generic enough.
Thanks, I have ABC codes in. Do you null out the LastCCDate using DMT? I would assume so.
Thanks so much for your steps. I want to put together the set up and see how many parts per period we count. Our goal is to count only once per week and only 50-60 parts. I have a production calendar to assign for this that only has 1 8-hour day for the week (Thursday) that I have been assigning during the tests.
Nope. I’ve begged for that, but no. You have to request a data fix from support. Or if you are on prem… well you know. (I do the data fix.)
Yes, it’s smart to have some kind of dedicated calendar for this.
Also, FYI, most of us give up on all the setup and just manually pick the parts based on a spreadsheet/BAQ/yelling.
2 Likes
1 Like
We actually JUST made this switch in the last few weeks.
Our CEO had a really good idea, which was to count all like parts on the same day. That will be defined wildly differently for everyone, I know.
But for us, an example is rear axles. We have a few varieties, and they all look a lot alike. If we let the system do its thing, we’d count some rear axles in week 1, some in week 2, etc.
But manually, we decide to do them all on one day. Then you don’t get these bogus swings when someone counts one part as a different part number. If there is an error, it’s observable that very day that you lost 2 of these but gained 2 of those.
Some axles might even be rare enough to fall into a B or C category, and we might not rectify a mistake for months if we let the algorithms run the thing.
2 Likes
In theory, if we were a brand new instance of Epicor, wouldn’t last cycle count date be set at 1/1/2025 or even 12/1/2024 if we were starting cycle count in January? Or should it just be a blank field?
I forget honestly. I want to say it’s the create date of the part. Yet somehow the initializing process knows to override them. I think.
Just wipe them out.
1 Like
Answered my own question here. It should be a blank field until the Initialize Last Cycle Count Date is run.
2 Likes
This is why so many people do the cycle counting outside of Epicor’s process… it’s only option is “count all the parts”. Emphasis on the all… and the ABC codes define which ones get counted how often. It’s extremely inflexible that way.
3 Likes
Ernie couldn’t you make ABC codes that you assign to groups of parts and kick each of those ABC counts off a week apart until you’ve scheduled all your parts? And make them get counted every 7 days?
Group A: 100 parts
Group B: 100 parts
Group C: 100 parts
Kick off group A with frequency of 7 days on 11/15/2024.
Kick off group B with frequency of 7 days on 11/24…
Never mind haha you’ll be cycle counting everything anyways haaha 
Not only that but you’ve just created a full-time job for yourself creating and maintaining cycle count schedules. It’s bad enough to do it just once…
1 Like
I was looking back over documentation I gave to a colleague who took it over and I could barely follow what I wrote and it was already foreign to me. Luckily he got it down 100% so I don’t have to know it inside out anymore.
1 Like
To revisit this we are now looking into using Epicor to assign ABC codes but using a spreadsheet to create cycle count lists weekly. I made a BAQ that pulls the current inventory of parts, roughly 3000 Skus, and I paste them into a spreadsheet. Then I can run a VBA script that prompts for a percent of the total and percent of parts with A, B, or C. So, lets say I want to count a random 5% of the 3000 SKUs we have in inventory and I want the random list to have 50% A code, 25% B code and 25% C code. The spreadsheet creates that list and we go count. Then we DMT the quantity adjustments into Epicor.
We like what we see so far but are trying to figure out last cycle count dates and so forth using this method.
1 Like
So, I know I said:
But I’d still recommend using the actual cycle count in Epicor. Why?
It looks less suspicious to an auditor than random quantity adjustments.
Don’t have Epicor tell you what parts to count nor when to count them, yes, agreed. But you can copy and paste the spreadsheet of parts into “Cycle Count Part / PCID Update” instead of doing “Perform Part Selection.”
I did not know you could load in the parts you want to count. That has been our biggest struggle with cycle counting is getting the part quantities we want to count each week. I will have to test out that function. Ownership has said they don’t want someone hand keying in each cycle count part. It is a very manual process With selecting each tag and entering a quantity. They want a count completed, reviewed by a manager then DMTed into the system.
1 Like
Yeah I see no one spelled it out in this thread. But it is in the screenshot I added here (#3): Using Epicor for Cycle Counting, some Questions - #21 by JasonMcD
I sympathize - that was the attitude here at first, too. It took a few years of failure but they changed and don’t want it any other way now.
Maybe you can convince them sooner.
I mean, you’re not “hand keying” like at a keyboard. You take a single column from a spreadsheet and “Paste New” (or “Paste Insert” in classic). It’s like 20 seconds of work.
This is the dashboard I made for this. Shoot it to Excel, then paste into Cycle Count Part / PCID Update.
But you use whatever logic makes sense for you as far as what parts to count when.
1 Like
Can you explain this more. I attempted to do a Paste Insert in Count Tag Entry but it kept erroring out. Am I working in the wrong screen for entering cycle counts?
Yes.
1 Like
I think you can do one or the other right? You can’t do a selection and then add to it right? Man it’s been a minute.
To break this down,
The official/standard/bad way to do cycle counts
- Create periods in Cycle Count Period Definition Maintenance
- Create cycles in Cycle Count Schedule Maintenance
a. On save, it generates one cycle per workday - In that same screen, choose Perform Part Selection
- In Count Cycle Maintenance:
a. Generate tags (basically this freezes the locations)
b. Start Count Sequence (this freezes the quantities) - Enter counts in Count Tag Entry
- Back in Count Cycle Maintenance:
a. Count Variance Calculation Report (yes, you have to)
b. Eventually post the count - Use Count Discrepancy Reason Code Entry as needed
The unofficial way:
Replace step 3 with Cycle Count Part / PCID Update
You can do both. I mean, assuming “Perform Part Selection” is done first.
1 Like