Part of the strength of integration within Control is to be able to associate the costs entered on a bill with an order. Control allows you to associate these costs and have them automatically treated as part of the order and accrued until the order is completed.

The best way to understand the transaction is to walk through an example.

You order 300 specialty transformers from Parts-R-Us for a particular job at $50 each ($15,000 total cost). The job is currently in WIP.

A bill for Parts-R-Us is created. A line for Other Materials is created (since this is not a defined part), select the Transformer Expenses account, enter a quantity of 300 and the unit price of $50 each.

The GL activity on the Bill is:

AccountDebitCredit
Accounts Payable $15,000
Direct Costs from Bills$15,000

A usage card is also created for the Order when the bill is saved.

The GL activity on the order is:

AccountDebitCredit
Direct Costs from Bills $15,000
Cost of Built-FGI$15,000

As you probably noted, Control uses a system asset account called Direct Costs from Bills to transfer the balance from the Bill to the Order. This is necessary so that the Order's GL entries make sense by themselves, and the Bill's GL entries similarly are intact. The Direct Costs from Bills account will always equal zero when both of these transactions are taken into effect.
When the Order is marked a sale, the GL posting will be (excluding all the other entries normally found):

AccountDebitCredit
Cost of Built-FGI $15,000
Transformer Expenses$15,000

If the Order were a Sale at the time of the Bill's creation (and not in WIP or Built) the Bill's GL would still be exactly as posted above but the order would have posted the charge directly to the Transformer Expenses.


Example #2
You pay a $100 permit fee for Order 1234. You have a part called Permit Fee which uses an expense account named “Permitting”. Order 1234 is currently in WIP.
Create a bill and enter Order 1234 as the default order for bill. Create a line for the part “Permit Fee”. Enter a quantity of 1 and a total price of $100.
The GL activity on the Bill is:

AccountDebitCredit
Accounts Payable $100
Direct Costs from Bills$100

The GL activity on the order is:

AccountDebitCredit
Direct Costs from Bills $100
Cost of Built-FGI$100

When the order is marked sale, the adjusting entries will be:

AccountDebitCredit
Cost of Built-FGI $100
Permitting$100

Example #3
You pay a ditch-digger $150 to dig some footings for Order 3456. You don't have a special part for ditch-digging, but you want to charge this to an expense account called “Miscellaneous Labor”. Order 3456 is in Sale before the Bill is entered.
Create a bill and enter Order 3456 as the default order for bill. Create a line and choose “Other Labor”. Select “Miscellaneous Labor” as the expense account. Enter a quantity of 1 and a total price of $150.
The GL activity on the Bill is:

AccountDebitCredit
Accounts Payable $150
Direct Costs from Bills$150

The GL activity on the order is:

AccountDebitCredit
Direct Costs from Bills $150
Miscellaneous Labor$150

Real-World Usage Notes

  • All costs from Bills are considered as Actual Costs incurred when applied.
  • The Bill's GL entry date is determined by the effective date of the Bill. The order's GL entry date is real time (the time it is applied). This can result in a timing difference between the transfer into and out of the “Direct Costs From Bills” account.
  • When entering a bill, Control will not let you associate a part that is inventoried with an order. In these cases, all purchases go into inventory and the inventory is depleted when used by the order.
  • If you edit the Bill and change the amount of a line item with the costs linked to the order, the corresponding cost in the order will be adjusted to the new amount.
  • If you edit the Bill and delete the line item with the costs linked to the order, the corresponding cost in the order will be adjusted to $0.
  • You may not have two bills linked to the same Part in an order. You can list the part twice (or more) in an order and link a bill to each one, but not mutliple bills (or line items within a bill) to the same one.
  • When you void the order, actual parts costs are not reversed. Therefore, parts from bills would be unaffected.
  • If you edit the order and delete the associated line item, the actual part costs are transferred to the order record.
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