Treatment of Manufacturing Variances

g8trjasonb

My Company is starting a manufacturing business. We are currently only in distribution, so manufacturing is new to us so we've had our work cut out for us to understand the manufacturing module of NAV. I have an accounting background (CPA) and am part of a team that is currently researching the pros and cons of standard, average, and FIFO costing using NAV 5.0 SP1.

My question is in regards to standard costing, but first, let me say this. Since inventory, under US accounting rules/GAAP, must ultimately be reported at ACTUAL cost, this is a major concern of my team to ensure that this happens. However, we realize that Standard costing in NAV is valuing inventory at a Standard rate, but provides the benefit of tracking variances between Actual and Standard so that inefficiencies may be more easily identified and corrected.

So my question: How does NAV allocate the amounts accumulated in these variance accounts to inventory so that inventory is ultimately stated at actual cost in the general ledger? Or does NAV not do this and is this something that must be done manually through journal entries?

I'm curious to hear how other people deal with this situation as I have not found it discussed in the Manufacturing Costing manual, Inventory Costing manual, Manufacturing I or II, or the Microsoft NAV 5.0 Inventory Costing Technical White Paper!

gerrykistler

The movement of variances from the income statement to the balance sheet would be a manual process as NAV does not have a mechanism for this. By nature in standard costing all variances are a current period gain or loss and your inventory and cost of sales are at standard.

Gerry Kistler
KCP Consultores