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Clients First knows their software, but they are also astute business people, and they really understand manufacturing and distribution in particular.
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Calculating Available Quantities and Costs – Tips & Tricks For MAS90 & MAS200

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012

How is costing and Quantity Availability calculated in Sage ERP 100 (MAS 90 & MAS 200)?

imageCustomers often ask us how the Sage ERP MAS 90 Inventory Management module
calculates costs and quantities available. Here we provide the explanation.

Calculating Quantity Available

Here we describe the calculation used for printing the quantity available on Inventory Management and Bill of Materials module reports. The calculation depends on the selections in the Include in Quantity Available in the Inventory Management Options window.

  • Due to the differences in vendor lead times from business to business, the quantity on purchase orders can be used when calculating the quantity available. To include quantity on purchase orders in the quantity available calculation, select Purchase Orders.
  • Due to the differences in manufacturing lead times, quantity on work order can be used in the quantity available calculation. To include quantity on work orders and quantity required for work orders in the quantity available calculation, select Work Orders.
  • To include both quantity on purchase orders, work orders, and quantity required for work orders in the quantity available calculation, select POs and WOs.
  • If you prefer that the quantity available calculation not to be considered in either purchase orders or work orders, select No POs and WOs.

The quantity available is calculated using:

[Quantity on Hand + Quantity on Purchase Order + Quantity on Work Order] – [Quantity on Sales Order + Quantity on Back Order + Quantity Required for Work Order].

Inventory Item Cost Hierarchy

The valuation method of an item affects the order in which each type of cost is used in the Sales Order, Purchase Order, and Inventory modules. Below we describe the hierarchy used for each valuation or costing method.

Standard Valuation Cost Hierarchy

The standard cost from the Inventory Masterfile is the first value used for unit cost. If the standard cost is zero, the unit cost defaults to the last cost. If the last cost is zero,
the unit cost defaults to the warehouse average cost. If the warehouse average cost is zero, the unit cost defaults to the item average cost.

Average Valuation Cost Hierarchy

The warehouse average cost from the Inventory Masterfile is the first value checked for unit cost. If the warehouse average cost is zero, the unit cost defaults to the item average cost. If the item average cost is zero, the unit cost defaults to the last cost. If the last cost is zero, the unit cost defaults to the standard cost.

FIFO/LIFO/Lot/Serial Valuation Cost
Hierarchy

For purchases, the vendor last cost is the first value checked for unit cost. If there is no vendor last cost, the last cost from the item costing file is used. If the last cost is zero, the unit cost defaults to the standard cost. If the standard cost is zero, the unit cost defaults to the warehouse average cost. If the warehouse average cost is zero, the unit cost defaults
to the item average cost. Once goods are received, the cost is recorded in the FIFO/LIFO/LOT/Serial cost tier, and the specific cost tier value is used in all transactions.

Other Considerations

In the Sales Order module, the determination of what cost to apply is calculated during the Sales Journal update. When using a pricing method that is a Markup Percentage or a Markup Amount and the standard cost is zero, the cost hierarchy is followed to determine the unit price.

In the Inventory module, the hierarchy determines the cost used in Inventory Transaction Entry for all transaction types.

In the Purchase Order module, the Auto Generate Orders Selection Window uses the following hierarchy when selecting Update Unit Cost With:

1. Standard Default or Last Unit Cost: the Primary Vendor’s last cost is used.

2. Standard Unit Cost: the item’s standard cost is used.

3. Average Unit Cost: the item’s average cost is used.

4. If any of the costs are zero for the above selections, the unit cost used follows the cost hierarchy based on the valuation methods listed.

Please call us with your questions.

Optimize Inventory Management with Sage ERP 100 (Formally MAS 90/200)

Friday, March 30th, 2012

What can you do to improve your inventory management using Sage ERP 100

Performance excellence is a process rather than an end result, requiring a business to continuously examine and refine standard operating procedures across the organization. In this article, we focus on the powerful capabilities of the Inventory Management module of Sage ERP MAS 90 and 200 (soon is becoming Sage 100 ERP).

Balance Supply And Demand

The key to reducing costs while maximizing productivity is maintaining a lean inventory. This means having the right products available when customers need them while minimizing the expense of overstocking. To achieve this, you need to get a tight grip on your inventory at every stage of the supply chain, from procurement through production to shipping.

Effective inventory management requires detailed analysis of what to order, when to order it, and where to stock it. Not to mention tracking physical inventory, returns, and detailed information on the items you carry. As your organization gets better at managing inventory, you gain a true competitive advantage. With tighter control of costs, you will find yourself in a position to offer lower prices or faster shipping.

Smart Part Numbers

The Sage ERP MAS 90 Inventory Management module helps you keep inventory organized with intelligent item numbers. Using up to 30 alphanumeric characters, you can embed meaningful information in smart part numbers such as UPCs, a vendor’s number, recycling codes, and special handling requirements information. Pricing, cost,
stock, and order information can be tracked for an unlimited number of locations for each item. The inventory status of each item, such as available for sale, not in stock, overstocked, oversold, on hand, on order, committed to sale/production are tracked by location as well.

Built-In Reporting

imageExtensive reporting capabilities provide the insights you need to optimize stock levels. You easily can monitor the activity, status, valuation,turnover, and month-to-month sales history of any inventory item. Profit analysis of each item and a month-by-month comparison of past pricing, and sales equip you with the big-picture insight into which

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30 Reasons to Upgrade to MAS 90 and MAS 200 Version 4.5

Wednesday, March 28th, 2012

Productivity And Flexibility Enhancements Provide Quick Return On Your Upgrade Investment

Are you still running an older version of Sage ERP MAS 90? Studies show many customers delay upgrading due to concerns over the cost and effort involved. However, every release is designed to streamline workflow, save you time and money, and improve customer service, so you could experience a fast return on your upgrade investment. In this article, we give you thirty reasons to upgrade, ten each from the last three releases to Sage ERP MAS90 and MAS200 Version 4.5.

Release 4.5 – Reasons to Upgrade

  1. Use National Account Management features and functionality to streamline your branch and corporate customer billing while keeping unique accounts.
  2. Handle the increasing complexities of payroll efficiently with new methods of deduction calculations, benefits accruals, and recalculations.
  3. Beat the competition with flexible pricing set by combinations of totals, items, groups, and by customers.
  4. Reserve specific lots and serialized items for loyal customers or to match previous shipments.
  5. Improve cash flow with streamlined Purchase Orders created from Sales Orders.
  6. Use enhanced Job Cost processing to flexibly track and bill for work-in-progress.
  7. Reward your sales teams with automatic Split Commissions.
  8. Choose to migrate to Sage ERP MAS 200 SQL for more efficiency, scalability, and
    flexibility.
  9. Utilize one SageCRM 7.1 user and server license at no additional cost to
    communicate more effectively, collaborate better internally, and compete in today’s marketplace.
  10. Establish Reporting Tree structures in Sage ERP MAS Intelligence and use the new distribution features to automatically provide information to key team members.

Release 4.4 — Reasons To Upgrade

Version 4.4 added enhancements allowing you to:

  1. Use Parallel Migration to conveniently upgrade to the current release while you continue to run your business on the existing system until your new Version 4.4 system is tested and ready.
  2. Reduce the cost of personalizing your system with easier and more powerful methods of applying customizations that will not be impacted by upgrades to new versions.
  3. React more quickly to changes with greater insight into distribution, manufacturing, and purchasing with on-demand ad-hoc views into your business data.
  4. Improve employee productivity and reduce errors by adding unique identifying information in expanded customer and item number fields.
  5. Increase efficiencies of your system with easy-to-download product updates that provide new customer-requested features throughout the year.
  6. Empower your users with easy access to resource information directly from their desktops.

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Increase Customer Service and Profitability through Business Alerting

Tuesday, March 27th, 2012

Often when speaking to our clients, we hear of manual daily business processes that could easily be improve by becoming more automated.

After assessment of daily business processes to ensure the companies effectiveness in their usage of the ERP software; there is still an additional approach to unequivocally confirm the company is operating at maximum efficiency.

This approach is called KnowledgeSync Business Activity Monitoring

KnowledgeSync allows automating tasks and notifications including but not limited to:

  • Automatically create, fax or email invoices.
  • Monitor A/R aging and email/fax customers overdue statements.
  • Alert salespersons and schedule a call from A/R customer service.
  • Notify the purchasing departments of low inventory levels.
  • Automatically create PO’s based on inventory minimum requirements.
  • Track overdue deliveries.
  • Help the service department detect bottlenecked support calls assigned to individual technicians.

These are just a few of the many capabilities provided by this Business Activity Monitoring application.

Essentially KnowledgSync allows you to easily create alert conditions that can be automatically executed while watching for changing conditions in your business environment.

These Alerts are designed for distribution to the responsible personnel in real time. Multiple communication options allow for the most appropriate response via email, cell phone, fax or PDA.

KnowledgeSync can talk to your ERP applications like Sage MAS 90, MAS 200, ERP 100, ERP 500, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, AX or SAP Business one. It can simultaneously talk to any ODBC compliant database and combine data from multiple systems to determine when and how to fire alerts.

Simply stated… KnowledgSync works as your silent partner to help you run your business as smooth as possible in these times when every minute counts.  Call us if you would like to know more or see a demonstration.

Setting up ACH Processing in Accounts Payable for MAS 90, MAS 200 & Sage ERP 100

Monday, March 26th, 2012

Electronic Payments in MAS 90, MAS 200 and now Sage ERP 100

 

Finding all the information necessary to properly configure MAS90, MAS200 & Sage ERP 100 to send out electronic payments from the AP Module may be an effort in futility.  All of the information is out there but it is spread out across various chapters and documents.

We’ve taken this information and put it together logically in the document below.  We hope this helps you send out payments to your vendors electronically.