I am still refining my finance skills in Epicor to this day, but something I have stumbled upon is end of month inventory valuations and the conflicting inventory transactions that are happening on dates after the end of month.
So it goes like this. Run a stock status report at 12AM on the end of the month.
then take 1-2 days to close the month (capture wip, post AP invoices, pay ap invoices, all that).
Well in those 1-2 days we are seeing STK-MTL, MFG-STK, MFG-CUS transactions that have a system date of 5/1 or 5/2 but a transaction date (the apply date) of 4/30 and 4/28.
Well if those transactions are truly happening on 5/1 and 5/2 why is it being back dated to 4/30 and 4/28?
Maybe it’s super obvious, but I am looking for any ideas from y’all on where to start looking to find out why (i.e. company config, product group, anything…).
@utaylor You need to set the earliest apply date to the first day of the new period. We actually capture up to the day on last day of then month and then nothing but GL entries happen after that.
Thanks Doug, not sure what scripts I need to run, my question is, why are the transactions entered on 5/1 and 5/2 but applied to 4/29-4/30?
I am certain the users aren’t changing the apply date on some of these, but that may just be the issue. If the customer shipment is dated as 4/30 and they don’t change the date when they physically ship it I can see maybe why it applies to 4/30.
But as for issuing material to a job, not sure why the job would apply those transactions in 4/30 unless the close date has something to do with it.
We are 24/5 and sometimes 24/7 depending on the backlog.
If you set the earliest apply date, you will find out real quick how they are happening because the person will come asking why they can’t do what they want. It is under General Ledger/General Operations.
My question to all of you is this though, where in that “monthly checklist” is the apply date change.
For example, it still takes the accounting dept a couple days to finish their transactions and get them posted in April, when would you change the apply date?
Because I feel like if we were to set the earliest apply date to 5/1 right at midnight on 5/1 then we wouldn’t be able to do half or more of the accounting functions as well.
There are multiple options for Earliest Apply Date. On the main screen you can set the general date:
Then in the Per Module you can make that different:
So this would prevent any transactional data to be applied to the previous month, but since you don’t define “General Journal” on this tab, they can still do back to 4/1 to finish their entries because that is caught by the “All Transactions” setting.
So go through and get all shipments, receipts, invoice batches, and labor tickets processed. Run your capture and then set the EAD. Of course, your process may be different.
I’ve set up a dashboard to show all open items so the areas can review towards month end to make sure there is nothing left open.
@utaylor We run 4-4-5 and close on Saturday. Our capture is offset, so Thursday captures up to the previous Monday, etc. On Saturday we do the final shipments for the month, final invoicing for the month, make sure no one is left on jobs and capture up to current.
At this time we can set all modules except GL to the first day of the current period and GL to the first day of the previous period. We actually do it when accounting comes in on Monday morning.
Yeah, you definitely need to get accounting involved to see what they want. As @Doug.C said, you can control the modules separately. You will probably want to lock down everything except AP and GL, then lock AP, and finally GL.
The accounting department can handle it if they are closing things down manually for the month. Otherwise a scheduled function (if available) is a quick and easy process.
