Sage 100

We have upgrade some clients from 4.3 to either 4.5 or 2013 and it seems that the standard cost field is not disabled if there is activity against an item; it appears that a large number of our clients used to go into this field on a constant basis and change the standard cost; I am aware that there is a new utility to change the cost, but most of these clients cannot afford to get all users out of the inventory to use this utility as they really need to do this on the fly. Has anyone else come across this as an issue? any suggestions?

You have to use the utility. The problem with the way it was before is users were changing the value of their inventory at will and no corresponding general ledger adjustment was being made. Forcing the use of the utility means the required adjusting journal entry will be made as well.

The standard cost can be changed on the fly by first adjusting the on hand quantity to zero (this enables the field in item maintenance), changing the standard cost and then adjusting the on hand quantity back in. This does the same thing as the utility but can be done when the system is being used by others. The obvious drawback is the three steps, I guess that is the tradeoff in the new versions.

Trust me, from an accounting view, it is a very good thing. From the perspective of the users who have been able to simply go in and change the cost at any point in time, we are getting a lot of heat and was wondering if anyone else was encountering the same issue and if they found any ""loop holes

The work around using the inventory adjustments will make the required journal entries. We also encountered a great deal of grief from clients that were able to cheat and just make the change on the older versions.

The question is if they are intentionally using standard cost accounting as their costing method. If so , then standard costs should not be changed arbitrarily. Company policy usually dictates a periodic time frame (qtrly, semi annual, annual) when standard costs are reviewed and updated. Then they measure variances from standard at the new rates. If they don't do that, then they might consider using a different cost methodology that doesn't lock the standard cost field.

You can also use custom office to lock the standard cost field completely except for designated users.

We ran into this on one upgrade. I think the functionality changed in 4.4. The customer was not pleased. So far as we've seen there's no workaround that does not require having all users exit Inventory/Sales Order which is most definitely not what they were used to doing before. Agreed that changing STD Cost on the fly is probably not a good idea to begin with.

I had a couple of clients that this was really an issue with. ISM did a mod for me that is really great. No GL entries, but it does allow them to udate the Standard cost easily.

Seems like VI Importing is the best option, ""especially"" if you need to adjust a ton of items (see addt'l info: https://90minds-com.socialcast.com/messages/18990721). But to just update 1 item in the middle of the business day and have to basically shut the system down in order to do so is a bit ridiculous. So for that or if you need to adjust a ""reasonable"" amount of items during the day, it would seem that the ""adjusting the on-hand qty to zero, change standard cost in Item Maint, then adjust qtys back in"" process makes sense and is somewhat reasonable. But I would be interested to know more about that ISM modification that @DianaLaughner referenced above. Diane?

Attached are the specs. It's really very basic, but it works.

Thanks, @DianaLaughner. For the most part it looks like a VI Import routine.