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SUP088 – Process Manufacturing

The Process Manufacturing feature is a new Module / Function that works independently from the current Manufacture / Kitting Function found under the Inventory section In Palladium Enterprise. The feature will allow you to Create Jobs, Post Work in Progress in the form of Inventory, Service, Labour and Machinery costs that will remove the items from Stock and post to the WIP Account. On Closing a Job, the total costs get removed from WIP and the finished Goods updated with the respective cost. Below is a list of the Setup and Processing features found in the Manufacturing Module.

Setup

General Ledger Setup
A new Ledger Account needs to be assigned to manage the Work In Progress.

Company Options
Settings have been added in the Company Options function to cater for Imports and the related posting of the WIP from Scales to eliminate any human error or intervention. In addition an option has been added to validate and allow / disallow the over or under issuing of inventory per Work Centre.

Setup Work Centres
The Work Centre function allows you to create steps within the manufacturing process with the ability to assign Inventory Items, Additional Costs, Machine as well as Labour Costs per Work Centre. In addition, a Work Centre could act as a staging area for Quality Control or final commissioning. We also have the ability to track or report on Jobs per Work Centre. As an added value, manufacturing variances in the form of item issuances are managed on a per item, per work centre basis, allowing for greater analysis on efficiencies per stage of production.

Setup Labour
You can set up an unlimited number of Labour Types, each with their own rates and Recovery Accounts. When you set up the rates, the Cost will change proportionately to the quantity on the BOM. Ie should the BOM reflect a quantity of 100 and the variable hourly set at 2 hours, should a job be created to manufacture 1000 items, the variable costs will be 20 (2 / 100 x 1000) hours and the fixed Setup and Breakdown Costs at R300 respectively per the screen below.

Setup Machine Rates
You can setup various Machine types and rates as we do with the Labour rates above, and assign these during the Process WIP process routine.

Setup Bill of Materials
When you setup the BOM, you first define the item to be manufactured, then assign any By-Products that may be associated with this manufacture. Thereafter you will specify the different Work Centres (routing) for this Manufacture. Once you have defined your Operations (or Manufacture Steps), you then need to assign the relevant Inventory / Labour / Machinery / Recovery costs per Work Centre. In the example below you will see that we have selected the Machine Work Centre and the Components assigned to the Machine Work Centre.

Here we have allocated Labour to this Work Centre.

Here we have allocated Machine Time and Costs to this Work Centre.


We can optionally assign Recovery Costs to the process such as Electricity in large Engineering concerns.

BOM Changes / Revisions
The revision option allows you to maintain fill Bill Revisions/changes with the tracking on the revision date of the Job. This facilitates the recall or full recipe tracking of a manufactured item.

Processing Jobs

Creating a Job
To create a job you need to go to the Process Jobs icon and select the Item that you would like to manufacture, as well as the Quantity to Manufacture. In our example below, the BOM was setup for a Manufacture Qty of 21, and we would now like to manufacture 45 items. What will happen is that all quantities as well as variable costs will change proportionately with Fixed Cost Components and Recovery Costs remaining the same.

We can optionally assign Recovery Costs to the process such as Electricity in large Engineering concerns.

Job Status
On creation, the status of the job is “open”. At this stage, the Job can be adjusted and additional items or resources added or removed. Only when Inventory or resources have been issued to a Job, does the status change to Work in Progress at which time the Job is “Fixed” and unable to be amended.

Printing
At this stage the following reports can be printed from the Process Job Function:

  • Job Card – detailing all expected costs and resources assigned to the job by Workcentre.
  • Pick Lists – Bulk Pick Lists per Workcentre – allowing you to prepare the inventory for issuing to the Job.

Job Cost Summary
We have also included a Cost Summary function that records the Actual vs the Theoretical costs on the BOM with the difference being a manufacturing variance that can be reviewed on an ongoing basis.

Posting WIP
WIP can be posted as many times per Work Centre as required. The Issued column below will detail all previous issues for this item for the specific work centre. In addition to this, although the main Job cannot be amended, you can still assign any other Inventory Items or Resources to the Job (ie non-original BOM items) at any stage for substitution purposes. Such items will be highlighted on the Manufacturing Variance.

Transferring a Job
The Job Transfer function sets the “default” Work Centre for that job, allowing users to have a detailed view of what status of production or state that a Job is currently in.

You can also view the status of a Job via the Process Job Function below.

Job statuses can also be viewed through the Production Centre Calendar with the option to filter on the Job Status and / or Work Centre for extensive flexibility.

Closing a Job
A job can be fully or partially closed. When a job is partially closed, because the final costs are not yet known at this stage, Palladium will use the Theoretical Manufacture costs for the transaction with the net over/under cost assignment being allocated when the job is fully closed.

Reporting
In addition to the Reports Mentioned above, we also have the following comprehensive manufacturing reports to record costs and manage efficiencies within the production environment.

Production Variance Report
The Production Variance report will allow you to manage the actual quantity and costs of a Job vs the theoretical quantities and costs on a per Work Centre basis – allowing production manager the ability to identify production inefficiencies easily. This is extended to Inventory Items, Labour Resource, Machine Resources and even general Company Overhead allocations.

Manufacturing Efficiency Report
This report allows you to manage the theoretical output (quantity of manufactured items) vs the actual manufactured quantity.

Resource Efficiency Report
This report allows you to manage the efficiency, or usage, of a Labour or Machine resource over a specific period.

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SUP054 – Understanding Projects in Palladium

Project Setup

Project Information
The first thing you have to do is to create a project. This is found in the Palladium Business Section.

Select the feature and create a Project Number and Name, as well as assign the Project to a Customer as well as to a Profit Centre should the Profit Centres be in use.

At this point, you now need to enter the various information relating to the project. This information ranges from the Status of the Project with the relevant Milestone dates in order to track the status more effectively. The project type refers type, or terms of payment for the Project allowing you a holistic view of the Project status at a glance.

Project Budgets
Palladium allows you to budget costs, revenue as well as item quantities on any given project. The significance of this is that you may well be under cost for a specific item on a project but used 10% over from a quantity point of view. Had we not have been able to budget in this way the effects of the quantity overrun may have been masked by the effects of the effective procurement.

Project Payment Schedule
The payment Schedule Tab allows you to setup and track the agreed progress payments on the job and to manage payments that are contrary to the agreed payment schedule.

Project Contacts
Palladium caters for the ability to create an unlimited number of contacts relating to the project. These could range from your responsible staff, that of your client or sub-contractors ensuring you have the relevant responsible person’s information available when you need it.

Attach all Relevant Documentation
With Palladium’s Project function you can track all information relating to the project with Problem Logs and related resolutions, standard Project Log and notes.

In addition to this, Palladium has the ability to attach all pertinent information and documents to the Project securely with full encryption and security.

Assign Costs and Revenue to Projects
Costs can be assigned to projects from all Processing Documents from Vendor Quotes/Orders and Invoices to Customer Quotes/Orders and Invoices. This facility gives a project manager the ability to report on all Potential as well as Committed costs and Revenue.

If you refer to the screen below, you will see that we are able to allocate costs to Projects only after the document has been saved (recorded). In addition, you are able to track or trace the status of the order using the document status field, situated in the bottom left-hand side of the document.

Once we select the Project Icon, we are able to post the costs to one project or to post them, individually to separate projects offering powerful functionality with complete ease of use.

Extensive Reporting
The Palladium Project Reporting function is not only comprehensive but also uses Terminology used in the industry. We refer to Tenders and Change Orders rather than Sales Quotes offering a Custom application for a very specific industry. Here you can see the extensive list of reports on offer.

Flexible for Multiple Industries
The Project module offers extensive flexibility for it to be used across multiple disciplines and industries for the discerning business that would like to monitor the costs, and/or revenues, relating to a specific project or task. Ideally suited for any business that would like to consolidate or compare the costs and/or revenues across any 2 or more Customer and Vendors.

Use this function to control the profitability of a school fete, the extension or painting of an office in your room of for the construction of a Plant on behalf of one of your customers.

SUP113 – Customer Sales Discounts

The purpose of this article is to explain the use of the applying of Customer Discounts in Palladium Enterprise. The discounts are in the Form of Item Line Discounts and Customer Trade Discounts (Document Discounts).

Item Discounts

There are 2 settings relating item discounts as follows:

Item Discount Matrix
The item Discount Matrix is a Discount Matric that is Applied to a Customer Category vs an Item Category.

Setup
To set this up go to Inventory / Maintenance / Price Discount Matrix. In the screen below you will see that we have 3 customer categories with 5 Inventory Item Categories, each with their own default item discount value.

Processing
When processing a sale for a Customer assigned to the Wholesale Category, the Discounts relating to the respective inventory Category will be applied as seen below.

Item Contract Pricing
This function allows you to set an Overriding Discount per Item Category per Individual Customer or for a Group of Customers based on the value of the Item Sale for that specific item Category.

Item Contract Pricing Setup
To set this up go to Inventory / Maintenance / Contract Pricing. Then select the Validity Date Range for this Special Pricing, then set the price value breaks and overriding discount value for the Inventory Categories. You are not obliged to set the Value Breaks and could have the additional discount apply from the first cent.

In the screen below you will see that we have set an additional discount for Ring Sales between $2000 and $9,999.99 and another from $10,000.

Using the Inclusion / Exclusion function you can include only specific items for the overriding discount, meaning that you could have the special discount relate only to specific items without having to change the Inventory Category as seen below.

The date ranges allows you to set Multiple Pricing Ranges and Variations within the same Discount Matrix Type as seen below. This is the same as the new date-base Customer Pricing in Palladium as seen below as well as on the Trade Discount Matrix below.

Assign Contract Price to Customers
Once we have set up the contract pricing we need to assign the Pricing to a Customer. To do this simply go to Customers / Maintenance / Settings Tab and navigate to the Contract Pricing section as seen below.

Processing
When we process a sales document with the value for rings over $10,000 you will see that the discount has increased to 12% for this Customer.

Customer Trade Discounts

These discounts are applied on a per Customer basis and applied as an overall Document Discount. We have 2 Types of Trade Discounts in the form of General Customer Trade Discounts and a Trade Discount Matrix.

Setup
To set this up, simply go to Accounts Receivable / Maintenance / Customers / Settings Tab and navigate to the Trade Discount section as seen below and enter the discount value.

Processing
Once Set, the discounts will appear on all sub-total of the sales document (net of item discounts above) as seen below.

Trade Discount Matrix
This function is similar to that of the Item Trade Discount Matrix in that it allows for a variable Trade (Document) Discount with the ability to Include and Exclude specific items.

Setup
To set up the various Trade Discount Matrix Types, go to Accounts Receivable / Maintenance / Trade Discount Matrix Types. Like we had previously you can set the selected items in which you would like included in the additional “overall” discount structure as seen below.

Assign to Customers
To assign this Matrix to your Customer(s), simply go to Accounts Receivable / Maintenance / Customers /Settings Tab and navigate to the Trade Discount section as seen in an earlier screen assigning the relevant Matrix type.

Processing
Once we have setup all we do is to process an invoice with the respective value and the Trade discount will adjust Dynamically as seen below.

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SUP086 – Inventory Integration & Negative Quantity On Hand Updates

Inventory Integration Methods

Palladium has the ability to integrate to the General Ledger on either a Perpetual (Integrated) or on a Periodic (non-Integrated) method. Note that the system will allow you to switch from one method to another as required.

Perpetual Method
The Perpetual, or integrated method, will post a general ledger entry for the Cost of Sales/Inventory leg of a sales transaction, ensuring that the Inventory control account is updated with the correct value of the inventory on hand on a real-time basis.

Periodic Method
The Periodic, or non-integrated method, does not write any transactions to the inventory or cost of sales accounts at time of sale and relies on the user to post the correct general ledger journal entries at period, or month-end. In addition to this, no general ledger transactions are written for Inventory Adjustments or Stock Take processes.

Setup

The setup methods are the same with the use of Account sets, although the main difference is that with the Periodic Method, Palladium will only use the Revenue account for Sales, and the Expense accounts (Cost of Goods) for Purchases. The reason for this is because we require control accounts for month end Journals and related account balancing.

Data Integrity

Certain functionality has been set as inactive using the Periodic method. These include the Inventory Ledger Validations as seen below as well as the Inventory Balance in the Company Summary tab.


You will also see that we have set the Inventory Balance as Periodic Inventory Balance to simplify the identification thereof.

Negative Inventory

General
We have the ability to record negative on-hand inventory updates either using the items last received cost or to update at zero cost.

Update at Zero Cost
Updating at zero cost will value all inventory with a negative value at Zero and a value only being recorded for all quantities exceeding 0.

Example
Should you have a negative quantity of say 3 of item X and receive 5 at $100 each, Palladium will receive 3 at $0, and 2 at $100 each, with the balance of the $300 being allocated to that items Variance account as set on the Account sets.

Update at Last Received Cost
Updating at last received cost will record all negative quantity items at the prevailing last received cost per unit. When the items are sold they will be sold at the last received cost. When items are received, the items will be received at the average negative cost, with the balance between this and the Received cost being allocated to the Variance Account as set on the Item Account Set.

Example
Should we have a negative quantity of say 3 of item X where the prevailing last received cost was $200 each, showing a value of -$600, and receive 5 at $100 each, Palladium will receive 3 at $200, and 2 at $100 each, with the balance of the $200 being allocated to the Item’s Variance Account.

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SUP040 – Related Items and Upselling

This feature allows you to set an unlimited number of “Upsell” Items for Optional Dynamic Prompting per processing document. Additionally, this feature can be used to group a number of items together say in the form of Kits or Standard Orders by attaching an unlimited number of Inventory Items to a service Item as an example.

How Does This Feature Help Your Business?

  1. Provides you with extensive sales-related information, which optimises the sales process.
  2. Increases staff productivity as it limits training requirements.
  3. Reduces processing errors and makes it simple for new employees to sell specialised products.
  4. Can also be used to Relate items to others such as Item Supersession.

Setup

To illustrate this functionality, I will use an Outdoor Retail Store as an example. To get started I go to the Inventory Module | Inventory & Services and select the Primary Item that you would like to link the Related Items to. Then select the Related Items tab, and select the items that you would like to link to the primary Item. There are two primary settings here. They are as follows:

  • Qty and use Proportionate Quantity – this setting will allow you to change the ratio of Primary Items to the Related Items. An example for this would be that you may require 2x Battery Packs for every 1 x Torch sold.
  • Auto-Invoke Reminder(as signified by the checkboxes) – when selected, the system will prompt, or auto-invoke the user to purchase the respective related item as soon as the Primary item is selected for the respective processing function such as Sales Invoices or even Point of Sale.

Note
You can still view the related items on sales documents at any stage without setting them as “auto-invoke” as detailed below.

Processing

To use the function generates a sales document and select the Primary/Linked Item. There are 2 ways in which we can access and select the Related Items from the various Sales Items, either as an Auto-Invoke or a Manual Selection as detailed below.

Auto-Invoke

In the example above we have set the Sleeping Bag as the Primary Item, and have set the Flashlight and Suntan Lotion as Auto-Invoke Items. On selecting the Sleeping Bag, you will see that the system automatically prompts to add the related Items.

Manual Invoking

We can manually invoke the Related Items at any time by selecting the Related Items Button on the sales form that will allow you to select the required related items.

The screen below shows my Master Item () and Related Items (sleeping bag, gumboots, lantern, tent, etc).

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SUP044 – Understanding Freehand Quotes

This feature allows you to create Quotes for Clients (and prospective Clients alike) while managing the margins of sales and service items (including prospective items). Additionally, the Purchase and Sales Documents can be created on the fly, all from the same screen, offering traceability from the purchase of the item, to goods receiving through to the sale of the item.

How Does This Feature Help Your Business?

  • Create quotes for Prospective Clients without having to Create a Customer Masterfile Record.
  • Create quotes for Prospective Items without having to Create an Inventory Masterfile Record or use the function to control Buyouts.
  • View and manage margins as a value or as a % of the total deal value
  • On acceptance, have the ability to create the Inventory Items and Customer Records on-the-fly
  • Create the Sales and Purchase Documents all from the same screen
  • Have the option to view all Suppliers for a specific item, with the system selecting the preferred Supplier as default

Feature Options

Create a Quotation for a Prospective Customer or Prospective Inventory Item
Here you can create a quotation for a prospective OR a current customer, as well as a prospective OR current Inventory or Service Item. This allows you the ability to handle Buyouts whilst maintaining the appropriate margins. If you refer to the Vendor Field on the Item Line, you can also specify the details of the Vendor that
was used to cost the quote. (Note that in the case of standard Inventory Items, the system will default the preferred Vendor for that Item and give you the ability to select another or assign a Vendor to that Item.


Converting the Quotation
Once the Customer has approved the quote, we can now convert the details to a Sales Document (Quote, Order or Invoice) as well to one or more Purchase Documents (Requisition, Order or Supplier Invoice) on-the-fly. If you have used a prospective Customer Or Item, the system will prompt you to select the Item or Customer or to
Create these on the fly.


Once the Items and Customer has been linked the system will create the Purchase Order on-the-fly and bring through the Sales Quote and Customer Details to trace the document through to fruition.

Receive Goods With Complete Traceability
When goods are received the Created From customer and Order details will be displayed on the Goods Received Voucher and processing screen, allowing you to effectively complete the order fulfilment cycle.

Note that the ability to trace the Document Reference above is also available in all the Create/Copy Purchase Order from Sales Orders function, with each individual copied sales order and customers details listed separately.

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SUP111 – Receipts to Sales Orders and Credit Requests (Laybys)

The purpose of this feature is to allow receipts to Sales Orders and Credit Requests coupled with the ability to Send Customer Statements with or without these open orders. In addition we have the ability to process Request for Credits at time of receipting to process customer short payments or claims, alleviating the need to short allocate against a fully paid invoice. This feature is also ideal for Laybys where we will only release the goods once fully paid.

Setup

To Activate this function, go to the Company Options / Receivables – settings 2 Tab, and select the Allow Receipt Processing to Sales Orders Function.

Processing

Transaction Processing
At time of receipting we have the ability to Allocate Receipts to one or more sales orders as well as have the ability to Create a Credit Request on the fly as seen below. In my example I have Created a Sales Order for $100.

I now process a receipt against the Sales Order as seen below. Note that at this time I have the ability to process a request for Credit and on doing so the Request would also be available for allocation purposes as a negative amount. This is used extensively where client claim rebates or for returns or price changes, while still paying the other documents on the order in full.

Statement Processing
We now have the ability to process Customer Statements with or without displaying the Open Orders as seen below.

Here is a statement displaying the Open Orders

Here is an example of the statement without the Open Orders

Customer Ageing
The same applies to the Customer ageing reports per below.

With Sales Orders

Without Sales Orders

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SUP086 – Inventory Item Dimensions

In its most simplistic term, the item dimension function was designed to allow users to enter dimensions in order to calculate the quantity of an item. In addition to this, users have the ability to set default dimensions (as factors) allowing you to convert from one Unit of measure to another, on the fly.
Applications for this feature Include:

  • Entering Dimensions for Glass or Wood to calculate the m2 by entering the length and width,
  • Working with Batches or Rolls of Material or where we can enter the qty of Rolls and using a factor of say 50, default the qty to multiples thereof.
  • Invoicing boxes of items such as tiles – where we enter a required Length and Width of the area to be tiled, and together with a default Factor, the system will define the number of required boxes (ie re the example below)

Setup

Creating Profiles
The first thing we need to do is to create “profiles” or standard template settings for the dimensions. This ensures that you only need to setup a profile once, then assign it to the related items.

To setup the profile go to Inventory > Maintenance > Dimensions Profile. Once selected you will create the profile per the example below. As you see we have created 3 dimensions where the Height is a dimension that the user is unable to change. The Auto-Invoke ensures that a profile dimensions pop up to the user at time of processing.

Assign Profile to Items
Once the profiles are created you simply just assign them to the relevant Inventory items as seen below.

Sales Document Processing
Once the profiles have been assigned, the profiles will activate on all Sales and Sales Order Processing screens.

Another function is the ability to enter multiple dimension lines for the same item to be used for different glass sizes for example.

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