Product Cost Element

[Jonathan Fanny Lie]

Hi all,

I created new product but the cost element of the product is not by default inhirited from client:material policy:fifo and product category:material policy:fifo

It's defaulted to standard costing and cannot be edited. I tried to create new record of product:costs:cost element but still only standard costing appeared.

Both fifo and standard costing are active under cost element master record.

Is this a bug?

Thanks

[Jonathan Fanny Lie]

Anybody can help to give hints about this?

Thanks

[orlando....@dcsla.com]

Hi, you can try posting a purchase order, invoice and finally receipt of products? remember that once you change values in the accounting scheme must restart the server to make the changes.

 Regards

[Jonathan Fanny Lie]

Hi,

I restarted the server and fifo did apprear. Thanks

But after created new PO, I got this posting error on material receipt :

Posting Error (java.lang.NullPointerException) - .Doc_InOut (MMR - DocumentNo=1000002, DateAcct=2015-03-20, Amount=0.0, Sta=E - PeriodOpen=true, Balanced=true, Schema=Standar UKM UN/35 Rupiah

Do you know why?

Thanks

[redhuan d. oon]

I don't think we have FIFO costing other than Standard and Average PO. In Material Movement there is FIFO policy perhaps. Has anyone else gone thru that?

[Jonathan Fanny Lie]

We can select various costing types in client setup and product category from fifo, lifo, standard, average etc..

Actually what this error means? It must be something was missing. I looked through the product settings and accounting schema but didnt find any ideas why the posting failed.

Warehouse did receive the material but posting to accounting failed.

I think needs to add constraint inside the syatem so that when posting fails then warehouse don't receive the material too. Otherwise there's inconsistency between operation and accounting side.

Thanks

[redhuan d. oon]

Indeed we can find that http://red1.org/DocBook/ProductCategory.html model has such costing policy but this feature does not exist in code, i.e. Doc_InOut.java which handles final accounting consequence of a Product costing method:

                //get costing method for product                   
                    if (MAcctSchema.COSTINGMETHOD_AveragePO.equals(costingMethod) ||
                        MAcctSchema.COSTINGMETHOD_AverageInvoice.equals(costingMethod) ||
                        MAcctSchema.COSTINGMETHOD_LastPOPrice.equals(costingMethod) )
                    {

Thus we may have to make a note somewhere that such options in the settings are not implemented (yet). Otherwise it be misleading others too.

[Jonathan Fanny Lie]

So only standard costing, avg PO/invoice, last PO price are implemented in idempiere 2.1?

In product category:material policy only has 2 options : fifo/lifo. As I know costing method cannot contradict with material policy?

Is fifo/lifo costing going to be implemented on next stable release 3.0?

Thanks

[redhuan d. oon]

I don't think so Jonathan. An SAP expert told me that even SAP finds it hard to do so. It has to be a specialised custom module specific to distinct user requirement as it has to take into account many business types. (see link below).
For us, we started way back during Adempiere time with e-Evolution attempt at the subject matter but faces many bugs and even the Average costing is a challenge by itself. You can read deeper here http://www.adempiere.com/index.php/Cost_Engine/Testing#Use_Cases
Eventually i believe, Hengsin solved the Average costing as we using now (supported by our sponsors).
Having said that, to me, in my humble opinion, we need good data test plan that is well documented. For coders, it is only 10% of the work. Many users wish for functionality but cannot give a good description with complete test data. It is like asking for coffee at Juan Valdez shop without referring to what type, size and addons. :)