Topic: how can i add new Item Type
It seems that Item Types are built in. I need to add an item type 'Procured'. How can i do that? Someone please assist me in this.
Re: how can i add new Item Type
What is the different between procured and purchased?
3 03/28/2014 05:11:25 am (edited by asaha 03/28/2014 05:25:37 am)
Re: how can i add new Item Type
most of the times both are same. But in the food processing industry there is a slight difference between them. let me explain.
purchasing department will take care of buying materials, cost control, find good vendor/supplier and negotiate the price, and so on and so forth. in the food processing industry and especially in the organisation where i work, there is another department called procurement department which works slightly differently then the purchase department does.
i work in a fruit and vegetable processing organisation where we buy fruits and vegetables from farm growers. purchasing price for these fruits and vegetables are fixed for all the farm growers and the price will vary by a couple of cents (fraction of a dollar) depend on the quality fruits or vegetables. due to this we have around 700 products (basically all are same only differentiated by quality) based on the prices as explained above.
now on the other side, we buy our raw material i.e. fruits and vegetables directly from farm growers (more than 2000 of them) who supply fruits and vegetables in very small quantities (on an average 50-60 KGs) twice or thrice a week.
due to this we use to have a lot of transactions of this sort.
now with FrontAccounting, we could do all these transactions with purchase module. only issue is that if we could differentiate the Farm Growes from regular Suppliers and the Raw Material (fruits and vegetables) from regular purchases, due to huge number of transaction it would be more convenient to track invoices, dues dates for payments, transactions, etc.
that is the reason why i wanted to add another Item Type - 'Procurement' through which i could differentiate transactions.
also, i wanted to add 'standard purchasing price' (as you mentioned in your advice and i thank you for that) field to only those products which are procured (cause here the price will be same for all farm growers).
any suggestions in this directions will be appreciated.
further, if i could mention it here in the Items & Inventory section, at the moment, we are handling all the procurement transactions with another application from which we can export them in excel / csv format. so, is it possible to import these procurement invoices in excel and csv format into FrontAccounting? what are the precautions i need to take to do that (importing procurement invoices) on a daily basis?
Re: how can i add new Item Type
Have you considered using Manufacturing. You could use simple assembling. These assembled items could also be bought if needed.
Joe
Re: how can i add new Item Type
dear joe,
thank you for your reply. but i am afraid, i completely missed your point.
let me explain.
we have a procurement activity which is slightly different with regular purchases activity as i mentioned in my above post. due this, we will have huge number of transactions every day in this category. so, wanted to differentiate procurement transactions with that of regular purchasing transactions. for this i wanted to add a new item type 'procurement', but i could not find where should i do that.
could you guide me in this directions? any other suggestions are also welcome.
further, as i mentioned in my previous post, we will have about 1500 to 2000 procurement transactions on a daily basis and we are already using an application from where we can export procurement invoices in excel / csv format. is it possible to import these procurement transactions into frontaccount. please guide me in this. thank you in advance.
Re: how can i add new Item Type
I am not sure if we have an extension for this. Maybe sombody in the audience can help us.
Joe
Re: how can i add new Item Type
There is an extension for importing journal entries from a CSV file, but that's probably not going to help much. And with that number of transactions, you'd be better off writing them to the database directly.
There have been a few attempts at REST and SOAP API's for this kind of thing, but I don't think anything has ever been completed.
- swheeler
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Re: how can i add new Item Type
Hi asaha,
Rather than adding an additional item type, why not use the 'dimension' attribute on the supplier record to distinguish between 'Regular Suppliers' and 'Farm Growers'? You might still need to craft your own report, but the supporting linkages would be there for you to differentiate between the two types of purchases.
Scott
9 03/28/2014 02:53:16 pm (edited by asaha 03/28/2014 02:58:19 pm)
Re: how can i add new Item Type
hi joe,
at the moment i am customizing the code with Item Category along with Item Type. i have added an Item Category 'Procurement' with Item Type as 'Procurement' and based on the Item Category's category_id trying to customize invoices, procurement prices and other reports.
the problem in this is that the user may edit the 'Procurement' category and the whole idea will go down.
1. so, i wish to create a new Item Type as 'Procurement' which cannot be edited by the user.
if that is not possible, please suggest me how could i make the Item Category to be blocked from editing like Stock Location code (which i guess could only be updated by directly editing it in database, please let me know if i am wrong here).
2. i would be greatfull if you could let me know how can i control the supplier / item dropdown lists.
i have created a new procurement invoice entry form and i want to display only producers in the supplier list and only procurement items in items description dropdown list.
3. so far i completed adding procurement invoices and added procurement price list for procurement items. once all procurement related forms and reports are done i would like to develop an extension for the same and contribute it the FA forum with guidance from all you senior members of FA.
hi tm,
i am very much interested and thinking of developing such an extension. any suggestions in this direction will be appreciated.
hi swheeler,
i tried with dimensions without success. i guess, we cannot apply dimensions to the purchase order / purchase invoice just like we could with the sales order / sales invoice. and if we need to apply dimensions to supplier payments we need to make payments through banking and general ledger menu. i did go through a post in this regard in Accounts Receivable section but i could not find a solution for supplier invoices or payments. if i am missing some point here please point it out to me.
thank you all guys for your time.
10 03/28/2014 04:02:51 pm (edited by barbarian 03/28/2014 04:10:56 pm)
Re: how can i add new Item Type
Hello asaha,
Can you give me some example or such case study? I still don't understand the correlation between huge transaction and item type. I think the purpose of item type is to differentiate between service, which needn't GRN, purchased, which normally excluded from sale, and manufactured, which need manufacturing process to re-supply and we must define the BoM for it. The purpose of this type is not related to another process and if you add a new type, I think you must modify FA hugely. My advice is just classify your process and I think the purchased type is sufficient for this type and modify the other part which wouldn't make you to modify hugely. So, if you tell me what you need, maybe I can give some advice for modifying. I myself already modify FA hugely so I know how hard to modify some part which is the core of FA.
Re: how can i add new Item Type
I'm afraid I don't know what utility functions there are for adding stuff to the database, but the "proper" way would be to create a comprehensive API for all kinds of read/write operations.
For the latter, you could look at https://frontaccounting.com/fawiki/index.php?n=Devel.SimpleAPIModule which might provide a good starting point. It's not complete, and I had very limited success with it, but it might get you started. (I had a look at it last year, but put it off hoping the author would clean it up a bit first.)
Re: how can i add new Item Type
hi barbarian,
let me try to explain the differences between the purchases and procurement activity we do in our organization.
1. prices
purchasing prices are different with different suppliers.
procurement prices are same for all suppliers.
2. placing order and invoicing
purchasing process starts from placing a purchase order -> GRN -> invoice (ofcourse, we can jump directly to GRN or to purchase invoice bipassing others).
we directly place procurement invoice (fortunately FA supports this).
3. No of Transactions:
we hardly make 5-10 purchases transactions a day.
on the other hand we make 1500-2000 procurement transactions a day.
4. Payments:
we make procurement payments every monday.
as you can see, though core functionality of both of them are same, the procurement activities are slightly different in the way we handle things. we need to make slight modifications
in procurement invoice generation. the major problem would be differentiating and tracking procurement invoices, due payments and cleared payments from thoses of purchases.
i wish the 'dimensions' feature support purchases and suppliers as extensively as it does with sales and customers.
anyway, i thought of creating a new item type and then cloning the core functionality of item type 'purchase' to new porposed item type 'procurement' and make the
necessary customization to procurement forms and reports. but as you mentioned in your post that it would be very hard to modify the core functionality the FA.
i take your word on that. and may be that is the reason why joe didnot respond for my request for creation of new 'Item Type'.
anyways, for now, as i mentioned in my previous post, i created a new purchase category as 'Procurement' and trying to make necessary customization to forms and reports.
i followed you suggestion (thank you for that) and created a 'Standard Procurement Price' for procurement products. in the purchase orders based on the item category, prices
will be displayed in purchase orders / invoices (i.e. supplier prices for purchased items and standard procurement prices for procurement items).
FA developers and contributors gave a meticulous attention to detail that, so far, the work on the customization has been prety easy (being a newbee in php, i didn't
expect i could reach so far). Hats off to them.
with that confidence, i will be adding a new field to the supplier table to differentiate regular supplier from the 'farm grower'. based on that, will be generating procurement
reports, payments, etc.
at least, that is the idea. any suggestions or ideas in this direction are more than welcome.
further, as i mentioned in my previous psot, i wish to develop a code to import procurement invoices in excel / csv format into FA. if you have any idea
in this regard, please guide me in this.
thank for your time and support.
Re: how can i add new Item Type
hi tm,
you are right about creating a comprehensive API to read and write operations.
i will look into it and see what i can do and come back to you if i need any suggestions.
thank you.
Re: how can i add new Item Type
Hello, Asaha
1. You can modify this easily
2. Fa does support this
3. If the number is so huge, what kind of process do you want?
4. My case is same, the payment is every friday. But I think it's not an issue or do you have some issue with this?
I think the solution to add some flag in supplier is the best because it's the least modification but have some impact rather than you modify the core of FA.
Re: how can i add new Item Type
hey guys,
while doing the customization work a thought suddenly came into my head - whether the FrontAccounting supports such a load I mean around 2000 transactions a day i.e more than 700,000 transactions a year. and don't forget, one need to keep records of at least a couple of years old.
so, what do you guys think. how does the FA perform with such a huge volumes of data? What precautions one should take?
please forgive me if this sounds like a a dumb question.
one more thing i wish to share with you guys. i completed the customization work and i must confess that it is pretty simple to do. hats off to all the FA developers and contributors and thank you all so much for making such a good application and making it so simple to customize.
thank you all once again.
Re: how can i add new Item Type
ok most of these posts are old, hope someone can still answer the question,
How can I add an item type other than purchased, manufactured or service?
I am a farmer who both manufactures pieces of equipment and "grows" crops and livestock, two totally different operations.
Whereas you can take 4 bolts, a sheet of metal, cutting, welding, and bolting together and you manufacture a product.
But when you grow something, a crop for example, you take seed, fertilizer, water, you then plant, weed, fertilize, and harvest and viola you have maybe 200, or 100, or maybe if you have a bad year 0 bushels of product. Tax consequences are totally different too. If you consider livestock as an item they can be purchased or grown which may take multiple years and tax consequences and sales are totally different than a manufactured item.
It would be great to add an item type "grown"
Thanks for consideration
17 02/14/2016 05:48:37 am (edited by apmuthu 02/14/2016 05:51:44 am)
- apmuthu
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Re: how can i add new Item Type
Grown is Manufactured over multiple years just like if the manufacture started in one fiscal year and ended in the next one. In the interim period whilst it is being grown (manufactured) it will be considered "in process". Stock valuation can be based on "accrued value" much like if the exchange rate changed or in semi finished state.
Alternatively, the inputs for "growing" can be considered as stock consumed / applied / expenses or paid in advance to a dummy supplier. Just before sale of grown items, they can be purchased from the dummy supplier at 0 value or at pro-rata of advanced to dummy supplier and then sold at profit to end customer as usual.
Re: how can i add new Item Type
Ok so I Manufacture cattle or beef. So when I sell a steer through a sale barn or commission house I have an item "Steers_sold". Then the commission house charges a fee for the commission, vet checking, yardage, etc off of the sale and sends me a check for the net amount. What item( a discount, a negative charge item, etc) do I need to create on the sales invoice so the invoice they pay is correct with the net amount from the proceeds of the sale not just the gross sale amount. The amount owed the commission house is not a separate check to the commission house. It is a discount or charge off of the sales invoice because it happens at the same time for each "item" sold and I only want to show the net sale amount in the Livestock Sold account and item Steers_sold.
Re: how can i add new Item Type
Sorry, didn't make clear my question. What item, a discount, a negative charge, etc would I need to create on the sales invoice to make it calculate the net proceeds but still track the expenses?
I want to know what the selling price was and also what the commission, vet checking, and yardage were.
Thank you for the earlier response.
- apmuthu
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Re: how can i add new Item Type
You can state all pre-deducted charges in the description and use the net price in your invoice.
Re: how can i add new Item Type
You really dont understand. For example I sell 5 steers_sold @ 198.00 per hundred weighing 500 # each, 6 heifers_sold @ 145.00 per hundred weighing 550 # each, etc all inventory items grown/raised (manufactured) on the invoice. I need to track each item sold heifers, steers, bulls, cows separately all at different weights and prices. You suggest I hand calculate to allocate to each item a part of a hay/yardage bill, vet bill, promotion charge, etc by altering(back calculating the price per hundred) to match the total deductions. So the item price is meaningless.
That would be like sending out an invoice to a customer with each item you sell at a different price; widgets, do-hickeys, etc and charging the customer shipping, handling, etc by back calculating the price of each of those items X(times) the number of items to get a correct net invoice amount. What's the whole point of this program if you have to adjust items for deductions by spending countless hours trying to get an item cost to come out correctly to compensate for those deductions?
If this is how we are to do this lets us fill in the total price of the line item on the invoice and have it back calculate the price per item. By the way Quickbooks has allowed users to do this for over 20 years. And you can also add a negative charge or a deduction on another line of the invoice and track those.
Again thanks for your time.
Re: how can i add new Item Type
The above example with livestock is very similar to a grain sale. You might have corn, wheat, oats, etc., each item grown(manufactured). The buyer and you settle on a price per bushel. Then there are deductions for drying, shrinkage, ethanol tax, wheat tax, etc depending on the grain and quality/condition. There needs to be items on the invoice to account for the deductions on the total invoice amount. So that when you run reports you know what the price each bushel (item) was sold for and also by putting in deductions in the same GL account you can know what net price you received per bushel for the total amount(bushels) of each item for the time frame of the report.
In agriculture sales the big difference is you can sell a (grown) item for a different price to different buyers and have different deductions all changing by the minute. That would be like selling widgets @ $1.23 to Fred at 0800, widgets @ $1.32 to Ernie at 0830, and same item -widgets @ $1.18 to Gladys at 0830 then calculating a drying charge on Fred's widgets of $50.00 making them $1.2145 each, and a weight discount to Gladys making them $1.1643 each. You can't change the number sold because you have to account for the amount in your inventory, so you need to back calculate the price per item. Seems like it would be much easier just to have a deduction line on the invoice and let the program keep track instead of just a memo line.
And yes I already do this by adding a negative cost item(discount or deduction) to the invoice, but of course the program dislikes this by warning of a price below cost, etc.
So again I ask: What is the best way in this program to have a line item on an invoice to account for a charge/fee/deduction and still follow accounting rules and have accurate accounting? Thanks