Sage 100

Outside Processing without BM and WO...I have a client who distributes cardboard boxes and other paper products. They receive in 1000 of box ABC, and then have to turn around and send out 500 of those to another vendor for shrink wrapping. Those boxes come back and are received in as box XYZ. As far as I know, there's no other way to keep inventory of the original part number correct without performing negative inventory adjustments, but the client has become concerned with the posting to the Inventory Adjustment account since they view this as a loss on the books. Does anyone have any other ideas of how to track inventory, both on a quantity and accounting basis?

You could use a 'vendor transfer' warehouse to indicate that they're in process, but that would necessitate creating IM Tran entries.

Haven't tested this all the way through, but if you use inventory issue to take ABC out of stock, you can change the GL you post that to (if need be), and if the shrinkwrapped items get their own product line and use standard cost you should be able to control how the variance posts when you receive in XYZ on the PO from the vendor who does the shrinkwrapping. Inventory GL might be understated while the boxes are out for shrinkwrapping, but other than that the costs & counts should be correct. Use vendor aliases to have the PO show to the vendor how you want it to.

Is their volume so low that BOM would not be considered? I would think the module would greatly enhance their throughput.

@AmberStoneburg, if the cost added in the shrink wrap process is not material then another alternative would be to use Units of Measure rather than track the boxes by bundles. Since they are shrink wrapped, I suspect they occasionally disassemble bundles back into individual units. Selling bundled units under a 1k UOM would resolve the issue. This may not help in managing reorder points for bundles but there are always ways around things. Just a thought outside the box. (Pun intended!)

If they do a negative adjustment for the 500 going out as well as a positive adjustment for the 500 shrink wrapped coming in they shouldn't be having problems with the value in the inventory adjustment account. It appears the challenge is they are adjusting out the quantity for box ABC and receiving the 500 for XYZ on a PO. No real clean way to do this without using BOM. Then it is a slam dunk. The ROI should be an easy sell for this.

What a shame. Subcontract processing is standard issue with most modern mfg solutions. Epicor handles this very elegently

There are a number of things that stump Sage 100: - Outside processing - Consignment inventory - Meaningful sales reporting that doesn't require Crystal

Thanks everyone for their responses. Since this is a very high-maintenance customer for many reasons, I don't want to suggest BM at this time. I've proposed to them 3 options: continue IM Adjustments, begin to use IM Issues instead (to control GL postings) or perform PO drop ships directly to the OP vendor...it will all depend on how they want their GL to be affected, so now they test and review.

Sorry for throwing my two cents where it doesn't belong, but the wouldn't the fact that they are ""high maintenance for many reason) be a reason to simplify their processing by bringing BOM into the picture????

One thing that is very difficult with this particular client is the ability to teach them something new :) And I'm not sure at this point that the amount of these type of transactions are enough for them to spend the money on a new module.

I hate to bring back an old thread, but I am in need of your expert opinions. One of my clients has an outside process (a fill process). They provide all the materials, send materials to an outside processor, who in turn takes raw materials and ""fills"". Now, before you say Sheesh, Kathleen that's easy...put it on a Work Order and process the WO to completion. Apparently, because we have iCS warehouse management installed, we are not able to do that, because the outside process is a Misc. Charge, and we cannot use Misc. Items or Charges. (Didn't know that going in!!) So, I suggested they perform a Production Entry using a ""-F"" number to relieve inventory for just the fill. Anyone else had ideas for Outside Processing issues?