Costing Module Setup

You can link a Costing (also known as the Bill of Materials or BoM for short) to standard manufactured Items. This is done in the Items > Costing tab.

You can create a linked Estimate by right-clicking on the Costing record and selecting Create Estimate. If an Estimate has already been linked to the Costing, it can be opened by selecting Open Estimate from the popup menu.

It is recommended that you use the Components Estimating model to create the Bill of Materials for Items. When creating a Bill of Materials in the Costing Transaction Type, users are restricted to adding Components, Materials and Services to the Root only. ie. Items can't be added to Components. This ensures that a separate costing is created for each level of Manufacturing.

The Item pricing is automatically updated from the linked Costing.

Price update options include:

• Unit Cost - The Item's Unit Cost is updated to that of the linked Costing. This is recommended where there are no Setup / Fixed Cost in the Costing.

• Fixed Cost & Unit Cost - A Fixed Cost (Setup Cost) and Unit Cost is extracted from the Costing to update the Costing. This provides an automatic pricing structure where the Unit Price varies according to the Qty selected. If the Unit Cost is less than 1, it is converted to a Unit Cost / 1000.

General Settings

To set the General Settings for a Costing Transaction Type:

• Main Menu > Setup > Settings and Defaults > Items & Inventory > Transaction Type - Item Costings - Select the Transaction Type that will be used for Costings and ensure that Estimating (#3 in the image below) is enabled on the selected Transaction Type.

• Main Menu > Setup > Settings and Defaults > Items & Inventory > Item Costings update - Select Unit Cost or Fixed Cost & Unit Cost.

Setting up a Costing Transaction Type

From Setup > Transaction Types > Costing, complete the setup as explained below.

• 1. Description - The Description Costing is added in the install scripts.

  2. Code - This is the nickname for this Transaction Type, such as COST.

  3. Estimating - This specifies what tabs are visible when adding Estimates to the Transaction Type - in this case, Components, Services, Materials, and Outwork.

  4. Create - This determines whether or not the user can create a new Transaction in the module, or only copy to it from an existing Transaction.

Estimates - Cost Price - When Cost Price is used in Materials, and the Material being added is auto-updated from a Costing Price (Supplier or Estimate price), the Cost + Adj% is now added to the Estimate.

eg. The following Item...

...will be added to the Estimate as follows: