I/C Options Screen

Select one of the following options to specify when item costs are updated:

• Posting. Inventory Control immediately calculates and updates item costs for every shipment and receipt when you post the transaction. Item costs on inquiries and reports are always up to date.

  Note: Costing items during posting also means that posting orders from Order Entry can take longer.

• Day End Processing. Inventory Control calculates and updates item costs when you run Day End Processing. Posting will update inventory quantities but not the costs.

  Note: If you select this option, you cannot change the Create Subledger Transactions and Audit Information During field.

Inventory Control always updates inventory counts when transactions are posted, so you always know your inventory levels.

If you cost items during posting, select one of the following options to specify when to create subledger transactions and audit information:

• Posting. The program creates subledger transactions and audit information when you post the transaction.

  Note: Creating subledger transactions during posting also means that posting orders from Order Entry can take longer.

• Day End Processing. The program creates subledger transactions when you run Day End Processing.

  Note: If you cost inventory items during Day End Processing, this option is automatically selected.

With either option, you can override the timing by selecting Manually Using I/C Create G/L Batch Screen for Create G/L Transactions field on the I/C G/L Integration screen.

Inventory Control always updates inventory counts when transactions are posted, so you always know your inventory levels.

In this table, you can set up four aging periods for Inventory Control. The program uses these aging periods to group outstanding transactions. If you change the number of days in the To column, the program updates the number in the From column in the next row.

Use this table to specify the numbering format that Inventory Control uses to assign a unique document number when adding a document type to a batch. The number is a combination of a prefix, which identifies the transaction type, and a sequential number.

Document Type

This column lists the types of documents produced by Inventory Control that can have document numbers.

Length

Use this column to specify the maximum length of the document number (including the prefix) for each document type. The maximum length is 22 characters

Next Number

This column displays the number that Inventory Control will assign to the next document of that type. The program increases the number by 1 each time a transaction is posted.

You can change this number at any time. However, you must be sure not to assign a number and prefix that has been used before.

Prefix

Use this column to specify the prefix (or keep the default prefix) to use in the number for this document type. The maximum characters in the prefix is six. There must be a different prefix for each type of document.

Enter the code for the item structure to be used by default to format item numbers. You can click and select one of the existing item structures.

Note: You cannot select a default item structure until at least one item structure has been set up.

Displays the description of the item structure code selected for Default Item Structure.

In this table, specify the segments you want to use in your item structures. You enter the segment name and length. You also specify whether to restrict what can be entered for the segment in item numbers.

Length

Enter the number of characters an item number can use for the segment. This number cannot exceed 24. (Item numbers contain a maximum of 24 characters, including optional separator and prefix characters.)

Segment Name

Enter a name for the segment, which may describe the segment. For example, you might have a segment for region, color, or size.

Segment Number

Displays the segment number used to identify the segment. There is a maximum of 10 segments.

Validate

If you want item numbers that use this segment to be restricted to the set of segment codes (that are set up on the I/C Segment Codes screen), select Yes. For no restrictions, select No.

This table displays a list of possible separator characters. In item structures that use multiple segments, separator characters distinguish (visually) the segments from each other.

In the Use column, select No for any characters that you want excluded from item structures. Select Yes for characters you want available for selection as a segment separator in the I/C Item Structures screen.

If the Keep Item Statistics option is selected, you can choose whether to report period statistics by fiscal year or calendar year, which affects the starting date for the statistics.

• Calendar year. The starting date is January 1st.
• Fiscal year. The starting date is the first day of your fiscal year.

Important! You should not change this setting partway through a year, because this will cause figures to be distorted in some periods and you will have to make corrections in all records for which you keep statistics. If you need to change this setting, do so only at year end.

There may be additional costs (such as freight charges or duty charges) when you post a receipt return transaction to record the return of goods to suppliers. Select how Inventory Control should treat these additional costs:

• Prorate. The program prorates the additional cost on receipt returns to the remaining items on the receipt.
• Leave. The program leaves the additional cost assigned to the goods being returned. You then use the I/C Adjustments screen to reassign the additional cost to another general ledger account .

You can change this setting at any time. You can override this setting when entering receipt returns.

Note: If you return all of the items on a receipt, you must use the I/C Adjustments screen to reassign the additional cost that was specified on the receipt to another general ledger account.

Select the Allow Edit of Statistics option if you want to be able to revise the following statistics:

• Sales statistics for previous periods of the current year or for previous years (on the I/C Sales Statistics screen).
• Transaction statistics from posted transactions (on the I/C Transaction Statistics screen).

Note: This option is only available if the Keep Item Statistics option is selected.

You can select or clear the Allow Edit of Statistics option at any time.

You may want to turn on the option while you are setting up your Inventory Control system, particularly if you are creating the system partway through an accounting year. You can then enter more complete inventory records by adding the statistics from your previous system for previous periods in the current year, and for previous years.

After you finish setting up your Inventory Control system and your system is operating, you can turn off the Allow Edit Of Statistics option because the program automatically updates the statistics when you post transactions.

Select this option if you want to be able to use fractional quantities in your Inventory Control system.

Fractional quantities are useful if your inventory includes homogeneous items. (Homogeneous items are those with identical elements that can be broken down into multiple, smaller units, such as oil or grain.)

Advantages of using fractional quantities:

• You can use bigger stocking units. Instead of using the smallest unit (such as ounces) as the stocking unit, use a larger stocking unit (such as pounds), and fractional quantities for smaller amounts (less than a pound).
• You can create BOMs that include fractional quantities.

However, if you do not intend to use fractional quantities in transactions, you can simplify transaction entry by not selecting this option. This means you do not have to enter decimal places for quantities and unnecessary decimal places do not appear on reports.

Note: You can select the Allow Fractional Quantities option at any time. However, once you select and save this setting, you cannot clear the option.

Select this option to allow inventory items to be stocked at all locations.

If your company has only one location, or it does not need to restrict any items from being stored at any locations, select the Allow Items At All Locations option on the Processing tab of the I/C Options screen. This saves time setting up your Inventory Control system since you can enter transactions right away for any item at any location. (Transactions include receipts, shipments, returns, internal usage transactions, transfers, assemblies, and adjustments.)

If this option is not selected, you must use either the I/C Location Details screen or the I/C Locations screen to assign the item to the location before you can enter transactions for an item at that location.

You can select or clear this option at any time.

Select this option to allow processing of transactions that result in negative inventory levels (that is, permit the "on hand" quantity of stock items to go below zero). For example, negative quantities can result from timing problems when you enter shipments for items before entering their receipts. In this situation, your inventory figures do not match the physical inventory.

If you do not want inventory levels to go below zero for any reason, do not select this option. Transactions that require more than the number of item units available at the specified location cannot be posted.

You can select or clear this option at any time.

Select this option to allow you to order and receive special items for which you do not maintain an inventory quantity. (This setting is used by Inventory Control, Order Entry, and Purchase Orders.)

Non-stock items are usually services or specially ordered items which are not normally kept in inventory. Inventory Control maintains a list of the non-stock items that you purchase regularly, but does not maintain quantities and costs for non-stock items. Non-stock items must use the user-specified costing method. You cannot enter assemblies for non-stock items..

You can enter names in these fields as you want them to appear on the I/C Location Details screen. (If you leave these fields blank, they will not appear in the screen.)

Names for alternate amounts can contain uppercase letters, numbers, blanks, symbols (such as @ and #), and punctuation marks (such as ? and !). Each name cannot exceed ten characters.

If you type alternate amount names, the fields appear on and are used by the following Inventory Control reports:

• I/C Location Details
• I/C Item Status
• I/C Markup Analysis
• I/C Selling Price/Margin Analysis.

Amounts in these alternate amount fields can:

• Store costs for items in Inventory Control in these alternative amount fields. Order Entry and Purchase Orders can use alternate amounts as the basis for tax calculations when taxes are charged on costs, if you select an alternate amount as the tax base for the tax authorities. (The tax base is specified in Tax Services.)
• Be used as the base for discount pricing, marking up an alternate cost by percentages or by amounts.

You can change the Alternate Amount 1 Name and Alternate Amount 2 Name at any time.

Select a location to use as the default goods-in-transit location.

A goods-in-transit (GIT) location is a virtual location where you store goods while they are in transit. This more closely matches the transfer process, where goods may be on trucks or in transit for days or weeks at a time.

Each time you transfer goods between inventory locations, you can choose to transfer goods:

• Directly (and immediately) to the destination location.
• To the GIT location first, and then to the destination location.

When using a GIT location, the goods can travel on different trucks and be received in separate lots. It also means that goods can stay in transit indefinitely. A GIT location is treated just like any other inventory location, so you can check item quantities in transit.

Specify which date the program displays by default for the Posting Date when you enter receipt, shipment, internal usage, adjustment, transfer, and assembly transactions:

• Document/Transaction Date. Select this option if you usually want the posting date and fiscal period to match the document date.

  The program will automatically change the default posting date if you change the date in the associated date field on the document entry screen.

• Session Date. Select this option if you usually want the posting date and fiscal period to match the current session date.

  The program keeps the session date as the default posting date even if you change the document date.

The posting date determines the fiscal year and period to which a transaction is posted to General Ledger.

If you have a multicurrency system, currency revaluation also uses posting dates to select open documents for revaluation purposes and thus, revaluation adjustments are posted to General Ledger in the correct fiscal year/period.

If the Multicurrency option is selected, you can specify the default rate type, such as spot rate, to use for converting source-currency amounts in transactions to their functional-currency equivalents. You can type the code of the rate type or click and select the rate type.

You can change the default rate type at any time.

Enter the basic or standard weight unit of measure to use for measuring the weight of your inventory items, such as pounds or kilograms. You can click and select an existing weight unit of measure.

Displays the currency used for processing. This is selected for your company on the Company Profile screen in Common Services.

Select the Keep Item Statistics option if you want to accumulate statistics from posted transactions.

Inventory Control retains transaction and sales statistics from the transactions processed for up to 53 periods per year, for any number of years.

Inventory Control uses these statistics to produce the I/C Transaction Statistics report and the I/C Sales Statistics report. You can print the statistics for an item by period and year, as far back as the oldest year and period for which you keep this information.

You can turn on or turn off the Keep Item Statistics option at any time. If you turn off the option, Inventory Control immediately stops saving statistics, although it retains those already collected. If you turn the option on again, there will be a gap in the statistics corresponding to the period when the option was not used.

Select this option to have Inventory Control keep the detailed transaction records when you post so you can print the I/C Transaction History report. This report lists all transactions posted for items assigned to the account sets you select within a specified period.

If you do not select this option, nothing is reported in the I/C Transaction History report.

Note: This setting does not affect drilldown. Inventory Control automatically saves transaction history for drilldown purposes each time you post transactions unless you specifically delete transactions after posting.

Important! You can turn the Keep Transaction History option on or off at any time. If you turn it off after you have used it, Inventory Control immediately stops saving transaction history, although it retains the history already collected. If you turn the option on again, there will be a gap in the collected information corresponding to the period when the option was turned off.

Saving transaction details uses a large amount of space on your computer's hard drive.

If your company uses multiple currencies, you can set up price lists for items, and have Inventory Control process and report receipt transactions in these currencies.

To use more than one currency in Inventory Control, select the Multicurrency option on the Processing tab of the I/C Options screen. (The Multicurrency option must already be selected for your company on the Company Profile screen in Common Services.)

Important! You can select the Multicurrency option for Inventory Control at any time. However, once you select it (and save your changes), you cannot change Inventory Control back to a single-currency ledger.

If you select the Multicurrency option in Inventory Control, the Order Entry and Purchase Order modules also use multicurrency accounting.

If the Keep Item Statistics option is selected, you can select the type of period to use to report period statistics:

• Weekly (Sunday=day 1)
• Seven Days (beginning on the first day of the week in your fiscal calendar)
• Bi-Weekly (Sunday=day 1)
• Four Weeks
• Monthly
• Bi-Monthly
• Quarterly
• Semi-annually
• Annually
• Fiscal Period (if accumulating by fiscal year )

Important! You should not change the period type partway through a year, because this will cause figures to be distorted in some periods and you will have to make corrections in all records for which you keep statistics. If you need to change the period type, do so only at year end.

Select this option if you want the ability to delete individual transactions immediately after posting (if you do not want to save transaction information).

Do not select this option if you want to keep all transaction information.

Note: We recommend that you do not delete transactions. If you delete transactions after posting, you will not be able to view posted transactions or drill down to them from General Ledger

If you post transactions using the I/C Post Transactions screen (instead of from a transaction entry screen), you will not have the option to delete.

Select this option if you want to use only the inventory units of measure (UOM) that are set up in Inventory Control. You use the I/C Units of Measure screen to set up the buying, stocking, and selling units of measure for inventory items—and the default conversion factors between each of the units. This setting lets you enforce consistency for all items added after you select this option.

If you do not select this option, you can specify any units of measure for new inventory items—whether or not the UOM have been added to Inventory Control.

Note: This option only affects new inventory items or new units of measure that you add to existing items. If you enter items and then select this option, it will have no effect on the existing items unless you add new units of measure to existing items.

If this option is selected, multiple items can have the same serial number, as long as they do not also have the same item number.

To prevent the assignment of a serial number to more than one item, regardless of item number, clear this option.

Select this option to allow entries to be saved even if the number of assigned serial numbers is less than the quantity of serialized units that you are working with.

Example: Receiving 15 serialized items from a vendor will require you to generate 15 serial numbers during receipt before saving the transaction, unless this option is cleared.

When auto-allocating serial/lot numbers, select whether to sort the numbers by:

• Serial/lot number
• Stock date
• Expiry date

If you want lot numbers to expire after a specified number of days, select the Days to Expiry option, and then enter the number of days from creation to expiration.

Tip: To enforce the expiration period, you should also select Warning or Error as the Expired Lot Allocation Message.

Select the message that you want to display when serial numbers expire: None, Warning or Error.

The Separators Used in Lot Mask Structures section lists the different characters that you can use to separate segments in Lot Masks.

To prevent a character from being used when creating a serial mask, double-click the Use column to set it to No for that character.

Select the code for Serial Numbers Mask to use as the default for serial numbers that are added to the system.

You can change the serial numbers mask for individual serialized items in the I/C Items screen.

This option affects users of Sage 300 Order Entry. When selected, the quantity of serial/lot numbers that needs to be allocated to ordered items is determined by the Quantity Ordered field in Order Entry.

When auto-allocating serial/lot numbers, select whether to sort the numbers with Earliest or Latest first.