EoStar Product Costing

eoStar handles the prices and the cost of goods through a variety of ways. Prices are essentially the amount the item is to sell. Cost is the amount of money used to acquire an item. The cost of a product for the company in eoStar is devised by two methods, either the manual entry or auto-cost calculation. For more information, see below.

The selling of products is dealt with through the use and creation of the front line prices, customer special prices, etc. For more information on how products are priced for customer orders, see Price Calculation.

1 Cost of Goods
- 1.1 Order Entry
2 How Prices Are Calculated During Purchase Entry
3 Costs For a Purchase
4 Product Manual Cost Manager
- 4.1 How-To Edit Costs
5 Excise Tax Class
- 5.1 How-To Create A New Excise Tax Class
- 5.2 How-To Apply a Excise Tax Class To a Product
  - 5.2.1 Additional Information
6 FIFO
7 Editing FOB in Supplier Window
- 7.1 Additional Record Information
8 Laid In Cost Manager
- 8.1 How-To Edit Costs
- 8.2 Quick Entry
9 Product More Panel
10 Enter and Edit Tax and Freight with Laid In Cost Manager
- 10.1 How-To Edit Costs
- 10.2 Quick Entry
11 Additional Cost Components
- 11.1 How-To Setup Cost Components

Cost of Goods

Cost for parts and products can be maintained via “manual” and “auto-costing”. The simplest approach is to maintain a manual cost. This means that you enter a static cost on the product record, and that cost is then used to calculate the cost of goods on various transactions (e.g. orders and product transfers) and reporting purposes.

eoStar can also calculate an auto-cost. Auto-cost uses the average of the last three received purchases to calculate the cost. Additionally, any freight charges applied to the purchase are prorated across the purchased products based on weight and quantity. If no weight is associated with the product record, then freight costs are not allocated to that product.

In addition, customs entry charges (duty, tax, and other charges) are also prorated across the line items based on extended quantity. These charges, like freight charges, are taken into account when calculating the cost of the purchase.

Also, there is a cost overhead percent on the product and part records. This value increases the cost figure displayed during order entry and price rule maintenance. The overhead percent accounts for costs above and beyond the purchase price and freight of the product (e.g. storage costs).

The auto-cost field will still update even if the Use auto cost check box is unchecked but eoStar will not use it for cost calculation.
Businesses that require the importation of goods from foreign suppliers.

Order Entry

During order entry, for performance reasons, the cost of goods will be the Fifo values that were started upon the application's start. Line-item cost will be the Fifo cost as the application started. Changes to the Fifo cost througout the day will not be reflected to the cost, however, running the Fifo scanner will correct these line-item costs. Closing and re-starting eoStar, will cause all future order order-line costs to contain the correct Fifo costs.

This means, if the Fifo cost was $8, and we created a new Fifo cost of $7.50, any orders created during the session will still display $8 as the item cost. After closing and restarting eoStar, any orders then will show $7.50. Running the Recompute FIFO Costs scanner will fix the correct cost to all orders displaying the earlier $8 cost.

How Prices Are Calculated During Purchase Entry

During purchase entry the price used will be the amount listed in the Laid-In-Cost Manager for the chosen supplier, followed by the supplier’s assigned price for the product (located on the Product Records Supplier Panel), then the price entered on the most recent purchase of the product from the chosen supplier.

The purchase price can be overridden during purchase entry.
Freight charges for a purchase can be entered when the purchase is “received” via the Purchase Tracker.
Customs entry charges (duty, tax, and other charges) can be entered when a purchase into a bonded warehouse is “received” via the Purchase Tracker.

The form which supports the addition and maintenance of product information, also allows for the assignment of multiple supplier aliases and prices for the same item. If on file, then supplier aliases and prices are displayed during purchase entry.

Costs For a Purchase

The following is the formula taken to populate the costs added to a purchase when given a supplier, warehouse, and expected ship date in a New purchase. All of these default to zero if no costs are discovered.

Item Purchase Price:

Finds the most recent laid-in cost.
If no laid-in cost is present, then it finds the item in the supplier aliases table for this supplier (Product Records Supplier Panel).
If there is no alias, it finds the item in the supplier purchase history (the last purchase line for this supplier with this item on it) and use that cost. Purchase must be reconciled.

Freight, discount, deposit:

Finds the most recent laid-in cost.
If no laid-in cost is present, it uses the item record to discover a default (Estimated Freight, Standard Discount, Supplier Deposit fields).
If there isn’t a value in the item record, it finds the item in the supplier purchase history (the last purchase line for this supplier with this item on it and use that freight, SPA, deposits).

Excise tax:

If the supplier has Pay Excise Tax To Supplier checkbox set on the Supplier Beverage Panel, the excise tax defaults to zero.
Finds the most recent laid-in cost.
If no laid-in cost is present, it uses the excise tax associated with the excise tax class of the item (located on the Product Records More Panel under Tax Class).
If there is no excise tax associated with the item, it finds the item in the supplier purchase history (the last purchase line for this supplier with item on it) and use that excise tax amount.

Cost components:

If the database Automatically Estimate Using Previous Purchase Cost Components checkbox is off on the Configure Cost Components Panel, the cost components default to zero.
Finds the most recent laid-in cost.
If no laid-in cost is present, it finds the item in the supplier purchase history (the last purchase line for this supplier with item on it) and use the that amount for the cost component.

Product Manual Cost Manager

The Product Manual Cost Manager allows for the changes of Current and Future manual costs. This typically includes Freight and manual costs rather than auto-cost. In order for employees to access this screen, the "Records>Product>Manual Cost Manager" checkbox on the Plugins Panel must be checked.

How-To Edit Costs

Go to Records>Product>Manual Cost Manager.
To edit costs simply click the field where you would like to change something, type the new cost and hit Enter.
For new dates either type the date or select the drop down arrow and click the date.
When finished making changes, select Post.

Excise Tax Class

Records>Products>Excise Tax Class

Excise Tax Class is a type of tax that is specifically added to goods that are created within the country. Excise tax is handled differently than Sales tax (for more information see Taxes). It is possible for a product to have both an excise and sales tax attached to it. Within the GL Sources screen, the GL Rules may be setup for excise taxes.

How-To Create A New Excise Tax Class

Go to Records>Products>Excise Tax Class.
Click the command button New.
Either use the suggested number or type in your own.
Insert Information - Name and Tax Rate.
When finished making changes, click the command button Post.

How-To Apply a Excise Tax Class To a Product

After creating an Excise Tax Class complete with the tax rate, go to Records>Product>Records More Panel.
Using the drop down arrow, select the excise tax class.
When finished making changes, click the command button Post.

Additional Information

Products Panel

This panel lists all the products in the associated selected record.

Reports Panel

The reports panel will contain any reports associated with the selected excise tax class. See Reports Panel.

FIFO

Records>Product>Records FIFO Panel

The Fifo panel on the Records>Product>Records lists any Layers, Usages, and the calculated cost for the selected product. This panel is added with the addition of the FIFO Plugin.

This panel is used to show the FIFO information for the selected product. It is possible to change the warehouse and the From date for the information at the top of the screen. Use the radio buttons to toggle between the Show FIFO Time Line and Show Daily Average Costs screens. All layers are shown in green, while usages are white. Daily average costs and costs are calculated based on the amount of inventory going in and out.

Any changes in costs can be viewed on a line by line basis. The numbers in the layer column refers to which layer either the purchase or sale was applied to. For instance, if a purchase of one hundred came in of a product, any subsequent sales of that product to customers will have the same layer number as that purchase. This is to ensure that the oldest product is sold first.

The Fifo panel will not display Fifo information for Kits because kits can only use the Manual Cost.

In order for employees to access this screen, the "May View Product FIFO Panel" checkbox on the Plugins Panel must be checked.

FIFO Plugin

FIFO (First In - First Out) calculates inventory costing and is the most accurate calculating system because it accounts for cost fluctuations and usage patterns. The FIFO Plugin follows the FIFO method of cost accounting and shows the number of purchases, repacks, and sales and the estimated FIFO cost. For more information see Accounting system. FIFO, unlike auto-cost, is not a weighted average.

FIFO updates ION Reports and the General Ledger through recomputing and adjustments so that the cost of goods is the most accurate.

Additionally, FIFO deals with inventory valuation. Inventory valuation is the overall value of inventory based on layers and usages.

Items that are flagged as either billing codes or empties will be ignored by FIFO.

It added:

On the Records>Product>Records it added a Fifo Panel.
GL>Recompute FIFO Costs menu option.
GL>FIFO Purchase-Cost Adjustments menu option.

Overview

FIFO breaks down all transactions in eoStar into Layers and Usages. Layers are transactions that bring product into the inventory, and Usages are transactions that deplete the inventory.

In December 2009, changes were made to include Kits in FIFO. It will still use the AutoCost or ManualCost for an item if the FIFO cost is zero.

Layers

Purchases
Customer Returns
Repacks
Negative Write-offs
Transfer-in from another warehouse (note: transfers to trucks belonging to the same warehouse have no FIFO impact)

Usages

Customer Orders
Write-offs
Purchase Returns to Supplier
Transfer out to another warehouse (note: transfers to trucks belonging to a different warehouse are treated as a transfer to another warehouse)
Negative Repack Adjustments

FIFO Cost Calculation

The cost of purchases and purchase returns are taken directly from the purchase lines in the system. The cost for all other transactions affected by FIFO are calculated. Since all costs are ultimately derived from the purchase of a product, no cost will be calculated if there are no purchases or only zero cost purchases on file.

To calculate the cost to be assigned to the transactions, eoStar computes a "daily usage" amount. The daily usage is calculated by totaling up the usages for the day, and depleting the layers from oldest to newest. The total value of the usages for that day is then divided by the total quantity of the usage to come up with the daily average usage. Then, all the transactions, except purchases and purchase returns, are updated with the same average usage cost for that day.

eoStar will attempt to account for inconsistent data by looking forward to the next available layer if all layers prior to the transaction for which it is calculating cost have been fully depleted.

In order to prevent some situations that showed some cases as $0.00 cost inventory on return layers (customer returns, reverse write-offs, and re-packs), the logic in eoStar was changed slightly. Now, the inventory is shown as available on the day of the return rather than the following day.

Zero Cost Items in FIFO

When an item's cost comes up as $0.00, the following steps are used to determine why the value is zero, and how to ensure that the proper price is added.

Products coded as "Empty" will not be given a FIFO value.
1. Records>Product>Records.
2. Select the product.
3. Remove the check in the Is an empty from the Product Permission Flags.
Products with no Purchase Order on file have nothing to base their FIFO cost on so you’ll need to add a zero qty purchase order using the cost you want for the products.
1. Inventory>New Purchase.
2. Select an Ordered Date prior to when you purchased the business.
3. Quantity needs to be zero.
4. Costs need to be accurate, list below of products and the associated auto/manual costs.
5. Run this purchase through all the tracker queues.
Next step is to update the FIFO costs.
1. Go to GL>Recompute FIFO costs.
2. Use the date range beginning with your conversion date through today, this will pick up the products that had their last purchase since you went live with eoStar.

GL>FIFO Purchase-Cost Adjustment

This screen is used to manually adjust the cost for items for specific purchases; however, any adjustments made will not change previously paid purchases. This ability is added with the FIFO Plugin.

In order for employees to access this screen, the "GL>FIFO Purchase-Cost Adjustments" checkbox on the Plugins Panel must be checked.

How-To Create A Purchase-Cost Adjustment

Go to GL>FIFO Purchase-Cost Adjustment.
Type in the New Cost amount.
Using the drop down arrow, add the item.
Type in the purchase number.
Click the command button Post Adjustment.

Exclude Products from FIFO Calculation

Exclude from FIFO

A checkbox has been added to the Product record more panel that allows a product to be flagged as not to be used for FIFO calculation. This means that transactions for this product will instead pull their cost from the Auto or manual cost.

Editing FOB in Supplier Window

Additional Record Information

Located in the center Panel

Products Panel

This panel lists all the products in the associated selected record.

Contacts Panel

This segment allows the control of the contact information.

Add New Contact:

Select Add New Contact
Insert Contact Information
Check "Auto email" checkbox to send an email automatically once a PO from that supplier has been received

Additionally, to re-arrange the order of the contacts, select Move selected contact up or move selected contact down.

Notes Panel

This section allows for any additional notes.

Map Panel

This function uses Microsoft MapPoint® to pinpoint the exact location.

Sales Panel

The sales panel is a chart listing the summary of retail sales for the supplier. For more information see Sales Analyzer.

Terms / AP Panel

This panel is used to record the payment terms and general ledger information for the selected supplier. Typically these terms are only used for reports; however, with an export to an attached Accounting system, this information can supply an approximate "Due date" for payments. The General Ledger and accounts payable section of the panel is used to add a vendor ID, a GL Supplier Group, and trading partner information for the selected supplier.

Inventory Panel

This section lists the current inventory the company has obtained from the selected supplier. This panel also lists the location of the products and the attached Audit trail for that item.

Sample Billback Panel

This panel is used to specify information about the sample billback. For more information about Sample billbacks, see Samples Tracker#Sample Auto Billbacks.

Default customer
Warehouse overrides

Rebates Panel

Added in April 2010, this panel assists with the scenario where, although there isn't a promotion setup in the system, a supplier may reimburse a distributor if an item's net sell price is within a maximum allowance range.

Supplier rebates are often given based on the net selling price of an item in relation to the supplier's suggested price-to-retail. In most cases, the distributor is reimbursed up to the max allowance based on a percentage of the difference between the supplier's suggested price-to-retail and the net selling price of an item. This panel supports tiers where the max allowance and percentage used to determine the rebate may vary.

As such, the Rebates panel is situated in such a manner to facilitate such ideas. To use this panel, use the drop down arrows to select the From and Through dates. Use the drop down arrow to select the item and input the Suggested PTR (Price-To-Retail) amount. Input the Net PTR, Max Allowance, and Split % and click the command button Add.

For additional information on rebates, see Supplier Rebates.

Web Panel

The Supplier's website may be linked here.

Beverage Panel

This panel is used to add supplier type information which is used for taxing and reporting purposes. For more information, see Supplier Beverage Panel.

Reports Panel

This segment shows any reports related to the Supplier Records. The selected report can be changed under the Report segment at the bottom and by the time period. The reports shown here can be sent to both the printer and excel. For more information, see Reports Panel.

Laid In Cost Manager

Laid-In-Cost Manager initial start-up

Records>Product>Laid-In-Cost Manager

Changes Detected Popup

When product prices are added to a New purchase, a variety of costs are included per line item. These costs are an estimate of the price that the supplier and shipper bills may include when a purchase is received and reconciled. The Laid-In-Cost manager is used to record changes to the current and future costs of items purchased from a supplier. Because each warehouse may have a different cost associated with products based on location, this manager examines the costs on an individual supplier and warehouse basis. The editable costs are the Price (FOB), Discount (SPA), Freight, Deposit, Excise Tax, and Cost Components. If none of these costs are set, then the program will use the amounts listed in the Product Records Supplier panel, followed by the last purchase price to populate the PO. If the item was never purchased from the supplier then $0.00 is used to populate the purchases.

Upon initially starting the Laid-In-Cost Manager, the manager will not contain any cost information for the products. To add this data to the Laid-In-Cost Manager, click the hyperlink Click Here to Initialized Data. The system will scan all transactions with suppliers for the past year to determine the initial costs. Then it will create grids based on the suppliers and their provided products, as well as any costs. If there are no entries to populate the table with, then the fields will remain void.

It is impossible to edit historical data or prices that have already been put into affect. This means that any prices prior to "today's" date cannot be edited and it is impossible to create a new column with effective prices in the past.

The screen defaults in "View Only" mode. If the user has the correct permissions, then they may edit the values, add items to the supplier's list, and add future prices. To begin editing, click the command button Start Edit. After this command button is selected, a footer will appear allowing the user to make these edits. Clicking Stop Edit will return the screen to "View Only" mode.

When a new product is added to a supplier through this screen, the initial amounts will be $0.00. This is because the item was never purchased from the supplier.

The Laid-In costs may be viewed on a product by product basis through the Laid-In Costs panel on the Records>Product>Records screen.

In order for employees to access this screen, the "May View Laid-In-Costs" and "May Edit Laid-In-Costs" checkboxes on the Plugins Panel must be checked.

In May 2009, changes were made to the Laid-in-Cost Manager to make is more user friendly. The grid now supports grouping, filtering, and sorting. Additionally, the rows in the grid may be individually selected. To add products to the selected supplier, start the edit and click the hyperlink ## unlisted items for Suppler:. This hyperlink informs the user if there is any items related to the supplier that are not currently listed. By clicking on this hyperlink, the user can view and add any products.

If there are multiple warehouses, the default “grouping” will group items as follows: warehouse -> brand -> package.

If a product is not listed under every warehouse, then that product is a candidate to be added. Adding a new product that is listed under a different warehouse will not destroy the history of that product there.

The Laid-in-cost manager does not replace FIFO. Instead it pre-determines the price, wherein FIFO only updates the prices after the Supplier invoice has been received.

The purchase price will follow the following guidelines:

Any amount in the Laid-in-cost manager.
Any amount listed in the Product Records supplier panel.
The price for the product in the last purchase.
If there is no history, then $0.00 will be inserted as the purchase price for the product.

How-To Edit Costs

Go to Records>Product>Laid-In-Cost Manager.
Using the drop down arrows, select the supplier, cost type, and basis date.
Click the command button Start Edit.
To add a new column, click the command button Add Cost Column. Using the drop down arrow, select the effective date for the price changes, and click Proceed.
To add an item, select the hyperlink ## unlisted items for supplier. Select the items off the list and click Add selected Items.
Type in the new prices based on the warehouse.
When finished making changes, click the command button Stop Edit.
In the "Changes Detected" Popup, select either to save the changes (Yes), discard the changes (No), or return to the edit screen (Cancel).

Quick Entry

Go to Records>Product>Laid-In-Cost Manager.
Click the hyperlink Click Here for Quick Entry of Multiple Costs.
Use the drop down arrow to select the supplier and add in the effective date.
Use the checkbox to select the costs to edit.
Click the command button Start Edit.
Make the edits.
Click the command button Post Edits.

Product More Panel

Records>Product>Records More panel

Located on the Records>Product>Records screen, this panel handles additional information for the selected product. The Product More panel is divided into five main sections:

Stocking

Lead Time ### Days - The number of days required to order the product.
OOS Until - (Out of Stock) This is the date when the first purchase shipment will arrive in the warehouse.
Stock Location - This is the actual location in the warehouse where the product is stored. (Example: B5.) The stock location can have up to 10 characters (increased in September 2009 from 6 to 10).
B-Stock Location - This is the actual location of the back stock location in the warehouse for the product. The stock location can have up to 10 characters (increased in September 2009 from 6 to 10).
Pick Sequence - This is used to determine when this item will be picked for an order.
Item is a Kit - See Kits

Costing

Purch. Allowance - This is a discount created by the suppliers for the company.
Overhead % - This is a company created number that reflects the amount overhead should be earned for the selected product.
Manual Cost - see Overview: Pricing
Use Auto Cost - see Auto-Cost

Image

This section is used to display an image of the product. This image is later uploaded into the handheld devices and can help employees identify the product. To add an image, click the hyperlink Browse, select the product image and click Open. If an image is on the clipboard, simply click the hyperlink Paste.

The recommended picture size is 200x200 pixels or 96 dpi. The files size should be about 32k. The acceptable image formates are jpg, gif, or bmp files.

Note: It is possible to find images of some products through Google Image or MS Live Image, but be mindful of copyright information.

Other

Acquired Date - This is the date where the product was first entered into eoStar, or the product was first purchased by the company.
Commission % - This is a company issued amount which is used for reporting purposes to show the commission amount for the product.
Volume - The total volume for a product.
Gross Weight LBS - This is the weight of the product in pounds.
Unit Per Pack - The number of individual units in a pack.
Packs Per Case - The number of packs per case.
Estimated Freight - This is the estimated cost of freight.
Shelf Price - This is the estimated price of the product on the shelf.
Shelf Life ### Days - This is the length of time it can stay on the shelf.

Company - Assigns the product to a specific company.

CRV Container Type - This field is added with the California Tax Plugin. It assigns the product to a CRV Container Types.

GL Group - see GL Item Groups
Manufacturer - see Manufacturer
Tax Class - See Tax Classes
Excise Tax Class - see Excise Tax Class
Price Basis - see Product Price Basis Records.
Price Basis Weight or Measure - This section is used to add the specific amount for the price basis.

Return Reason

Return Reason - Using the drop down arrow, select the default return reason for this product. This means that whenever this product is returned, the system will always record it for the selected reason. For more information on return reasons, see Product Return Reasons.

Enter and Edit Tax and Freight with Laid In Cost Manager