Items Used Purely For Descriptions And Quantities

Jonathan2708

Hi,

I have a project where I want to use Item Cards, but purely for their descriptions, units of measure, supplier code etc. Because it's for a distribution company and the stock is all consignment I don't want to use the stock valuations part of the system. It would still be useful to have the sales by product though. My question is what is the best way to achieve this? Can the valuation side be turned off? Should I be setting the 'Inventory Value Zero' flag on all the items? Do I just disable 'Automatic Cost Posting'?

Jonathan

Kowa

"Inventory Value Zero" is sufficient to turn the "Cost Amount (Actual)" in the Value Entries to Zero. The Profit will be 100% if these are sold, because this value is not only used for inventory valuation, but also for the profit calculation.

"Automatic Cost Posting" has nothing to do with this, that is for transferring the inventory value automatically to the g/l accounts which are set up in the inventory posting group (Balance Sheet ->Inventory Account) and the general posting setup (Profit&Loss/Income Statement Accounts -> COGS, Direct Cost Applied, Inventory Adjmt., Overhead, Variance etc.). This can also be done manually with Report 1002 "Post Inventory Cost to G/L"

Jonathan2708

Thanks for the reply, I will probably use the "Inventory Value Zero" flag.

It seems that as a minimum to use an Item on a sales invoice you need to have (other than Gen Prod Posting Group and VAT Prod Posting Group) :

- "Inventory Posting Group" filled in on Item Card
- "Inventory Posting Setup" record for the combination of "Inventory Posting Group" and "Location Code", with the 'Inventory Account' column filled in

It seems to require the 'Inventory Account' column filled in even if you are not posting the stock movement to the G/L.

Jonathan

Kowa

You can't avoid the posting groups, but you use dummy acount nos. outside of the normal balance account number range (not just the inventory acounts, but the purchase, sales and tax accounts as well which are chosen in the general and VAT posting setup) to avoid any influence on the balance sheet.
The test for a fieldvalue for the inventory accounts used to be (up to Version 4) at the latest possible moment when the value flow attached to the item transaction was about to be posted to the G/L, but in Version 5 this was relocated to an "early warning" position, so now it always pops up when the item itself is posted, regardless of the inventory cost posting being used or not.

Jonathan2708

Thanks for the replay Kai, I was unaware of the posting check change in version 5.

jannestig

Why did you say the inventory account needs filling in?

I am setting up a software vendor so they have no costs related to inventory or purchasing. It was sufficent to just create an inventory posting group with a blank setup and the ticking the flag below in a nav 2009 sp1 cronus DB.

I have my correct 3 GL entries correlating to the sales entry of accounts rec, vat and sales.

Kowa

jannestig wrote:

Why did you say the inventory account needs filling in?

Try to post a revaluation for the purchase.
There is a new function SetRunOnlyCheck in Codeunit 5802 "Inventory Posting To G/L" called from Codeunit 22 "Item Jnl.-Post" Line, with sets the parameter CalledfromItemPosting for this codeunit. This leads to a testfield for the specific account which would be needed (depending on the item ledger entry type) if the codeunit is used for posting and not for checking, provided the cost to post is not 0 (as with normal items with "Inventory Value Zero" unchecked)

Jonathan2708

Thanks for all the help guys. So if I've got it right as long as I set the 'Inventory Value Zero' flag on all the items then I don't need to set the 'Inventory Account' field, I can just have a blank Inventory Posting Setup.

Jonathan