Hi everyone I just came to a company that uses the Inspection Flag on the PO level. The Inspection flag is turned to true as needed and works ok for inventoried parts. All PO’s are manually generated as spot buys. The company expenses parts below a certain dollar value but we still need to inspect many of those products as they are received. Unfortunately if the part is an “expense” part the inspection flag becomes inaccessible when entering a PO. The PO automatically turns to “other” as well. This is causing a problem as you can imagine due to the receivers see “False” for the inspection flag and the parts that need inspected don’t get taken to quality. I am new to Epicor so wondering where to start looking…
The PO becomes an other when you’re buying an “expense” part or a non part master part to create the PUR-UKN transaction. Unfortunately you can’t inspect a non part master part (unless it is returned on an RMA).
You can still technically “expense” part master items by controlling the GL on the part class setup and setting them to non-qty bearing. We do this for certain parts. That may be your solution is to set them up using an expensed part class.
1 Like
as @MDiekhuis suggested, you can purchase your expense parts AND have them inspected. Where I used to work (prior to my 23 years at Epicor) we did just that… we had a part number assigned in our part table for every expense item that we “normally” purchased (pens, paper, staples, etc).
You see, in our old system, if you wanted to keep track of historical prices, you had to have a part number. In Kinetic, you no longer have this requirement, as you can see historical prices, even for parts that have no part master.
BUT the inspection rule still is in place. You must have a part number pre-defined in the part table in order to inspect it.
AND this is not difficult. You can create a new partclass that is “Expense” that defines the GL account. Futher, you can create MULTIPLE Part Classes with predefined GL accounts for Office Supplies, Shop Supplies, etc. Then as you create each new expense part, you also define its part class. You also mark the part as non-qty bearing.
LASTLY, in some cases, (where I used to work) we also chose to keep some of those expense items “on the shelf” and actually keep track of the qty. These were not “inventory” but were tracked. They had zero value as an asset, but we could still look in the “inventory” (office supply cabinet), and see how many Pens we had on hand. This takes someone with a strong hand, and a key to the cabinet to control.
1 Like
Thank you both for you quick support. Unfortunately I need to ask a little further. I believe the parts are structured as masters. At least they do exist in our part entry. Allow me to share the attached screen shots of example. Our IT is limited onsite and I am told it can’t be done. Just trying to understand for sure if this organic to the ERP or if perhaps some point in our history the company made a homegrown decision in the way we set-up. I do know we don’t track inventory on these items which is another caveat for me since it is hardware that can shut down our assembly process but thats another topic. I don’t know or see how class is originated to understand that side either. But for sure if can be fixed this is something I’d like to push up the ladder to consult if needed for repair.
Hmm… i wonder i fit is the Quantity Bearing flag that is causing the inspection issue. I thought that as long as it has a part master it would be ok, but it could be that Qty Bearing is what is restricting it.
ANYONE ELSE have an opinion?
I was curious so I tried it in test, turns out you can’t inspect a non-qty bearing part. I guess that makes sense! It was grayed out on the PO when it was NQB and I unchecked it and tried again, and it was available.
I’m working with IT to also check that in the pilot environment. I trust your findings. Is there anything I can do to request a change for that? Many of our parts are machined items that require inspection but fall into the “expense” category based on our companies dollar threshold. Since I am in charge of making sure engineering changes get inspected that is a big gap for me
The short answer is no… you can suggest an Epicor idea but the premise behind it I assume is because you have to disposition the inspection to something that requires an inventory transaction (stock or job) which requires a quantity bearing part.
You may have to create your own solution if you want to keep those parts non quantity bearing. You could always just turn off MRP and cycle count them if the quantity doesn’t mean much. Just an idea.
Good luck!
3 Likes