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Infor LX Tips, Infor LN Tips, BPCS Tips, Baan Tips, Infor M3 Tips & Infor ERP News

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Infor ERP Tips & News from the Experts

Infor LX | Infor LN | BPCS | Baan | Infor M3

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: The Product Configurator

Kathy Barthelt 0 94934 Article rating: No rating

What is it?
The configurator consists of a set of features (questions). The options (answers) to these questions are used to generate the custom bill of material and routing. These questions may be answered at the time of order entry, prior to order entry (in a project or quote) or after order entry (in the project). The order of the questions do not need to have any relationship to the bill of materials. The configurator may also calculate the selling price, create a unique “smart” item number, custom description and text. Simple rules are used to interpret the answers.

Who uses the configurator?
Companies whose products have options. The configurator eliminates the need for part numbers for all combinations of options. The configurator ensures that the pricing and bills are correct. The configurator also keeps statistics on the frequency the options are selected.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Understanding What Goes On – Out on the Factory Floor

Anthony Etzel 0 17146 Article rating: No rating

Ok… so you want to know the status of a specific shop order that was released two days ago.

What do you do?

It’s a sure bet that you have a manager, supervisor, or planner who can walk the floor and find the order at whatever work center it happens to be at. He/she can then answer “what operations have been completed and how many were completed?” All this requires leg work, and of course, a fair amount of time.

Now, if you have set up your BPCS master files properly, and you report transaction activity, you should be able to get those shop order statuses much faster using the SFC300 Shop Order Inquiry Screen.

At your fingertips you can see:

  • Release date & due date
  • How many hours remain in total and at each operation
  • The quantity required, what was finished, and the remaining quantity
  • What components (materials) have been issued

Pretty basic information, right? Are you getting what you need to know? If not, then you may want to reexamine how your BPCS files are set up and what transactions along with their frequency are captured.

PDIC selects NextTrack Dashboard for Costa Rica Wire Plant

Anthony Etzel 0 54239 Article rating: No rating

The Analytics Dashboard will be used in combination with the existing Crossroads MES system to provide real time machine status across the plant. In addition, KPI’s like OEE and Downtime % will be monitored and displayed at the wire machines and to the production management.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Changing the Master Schedule

Anthony Etzel 0 73385 Article rating: 4.5

You can change your master schedule by specifying the type of master schedule update to perform. You can run a Net Change or Regenerative Schedule.

You also have the ability to clear the lower level requirements out of the Planned and Firm-Planned Order file.

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Optionally Include Tax Amounts In Order Balance

Kathy Barthelt 0 106988 Article rating: No rating

In Baan IV, the order balance amount always includes the tax amount. Consequently, the tax amount must be recalculated every time an order line is modified in order to update the balance correctly. If the tax provider is activated, this requires an API call for every re-calculation of tax.

In Infor LN, users can select or clear the new Include Tax in Order Balance check box in the COM Parameters (tccom0000s000) session to indicate whether users want to include tax amounts in the order balance amount. This parameter has an effect on various sessions in Order Management.

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Default Order Frequency

Kathy Barthelt 0 114285 Article rating: No rating

In Baan IV, requirements for an MPS item with the order method lot-for-lot result in daily planned MPS orders.

For example, if a plan period contains 10 working days and the net requirements for an item in that period is 2000 pieces, an MPS planning run generates one planned MPS order of 200 pieces for each working day in the plan period.

In Infor LN, requirements for a planned item with the order method lot-for-lot result in one planned order per plan period.

For example, if a plan period contains 10 working days and the net requirements for an item in that period is 2000 pieces, a master planning run will generate a single planned order of 2000 pieces for the first working day in that plan period. To influence the order quantity of the planned orders, enter appropriate values in the Maximum Order Quantity field and the Order Interval field in the Items – Ordering (tcibd2500m000) session or choose a fixed order quantity.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: What is Lean Make to Order?

Anthony Etzel 0 70894 Article rating: No rating

This is a simple way to go from the customer order to making the order and shipping the order. It involves a few simple steps:

  1. Receive and enter the customer order
  2. Automatic credit review
  3. Automatic release of the shop order tied to the customer order
  4. Issue material, report labor to the production order receipt
  5. Pick the order, ship the order, invoice the customer

With lean, you can skip processing the demand through MRP. You can go directly from the customer order to the shop order creation.

PDIC Goes Live with Crossroads MES

Anthony Etzel 0 52553 Article rating: 5.0

PDIC, a leading producer of wire products, went live with the Crossroads MES solution on June 30th,2014. PDIC needed a better way to deploy and report shop floor information to BPCS 6.02. Their goal was to eliminate all their manual reporting and position themselves to take advantage of the Crossroads Dashboards.

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Tips:  LX | BPCS | M3

Improves control over PO costing changes during invoice entry by replacing passive warnings with an intentional override action.

  • In ACP500D3 (Invoice Entry PO Costing), users previously could unintentionally accept changes by pressing ENTER, even when quantity to cost or amount to cost values had changed.

  • A new “F14 to Override” warning message replaces the old message:
    “Details have changed. Press enter again to accept data.”
    This ensures users acknowledge and confirm significant changes explicitly.

New System Parameter:

  • “Apply GRN Costing Tolerance for PO Costing” (optional):

    • Within tolerance: Displays the original message —
      “Details have changed. Press enter again to accept data.”

    • Outside tolerance: Triggers the new override requirement —
      “F14 to Override”

Benefits:

  • Enhances oversight and reduces unintentional cost acceptance.

  • Enables better control of PO costs when invoice details differ from expectations.

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Tips: LN | Baan

Kathy Barthelt

Infor LN & Baan Year-End Processing Checklist for Period and Fiscal Year Closure

The conclusion of the fiscal year is inevitably a hectic period, making it crucial not to overlook essential tasks within your ERP system to ensure a seamless year-end close and set the stage for a successful start to the upcoming year. Below are critical items to include in your comprehensive checklist:

Year-End Close Process:

  1. Remove discontinued items.
  2. Eliminate sold purchase receipts.
  3. Clear lot attributes for sold lots.
  4. Update standard cost based on the current cost field (for environments without Manufacturing only).

Prepare for Year-End Close:

  1. Conduct a comprehensive physical inventory and update quantities before the actual year-end or establish a robust cycle-counting program.
  2. Review and post any applicable sales and purchase invoices/returns.
  3. Prepare users for a year-end push to complete all year-to-date inventory adjustments, receipts, and invoicing.
  4. Determine procedures for handling new year transactions without immediate posting.
  5. Establish new standard costs for the upcoming year (Manufacturing).
  6. Discuss cutoff dates for removing Archived BOMs and Closed/Canceled Mfg Orders (Manufacturing).

Finance Specific Items:

  1. Set up financial periods for 2024 (fiscal, reporting, and tax, as applicable).
  2. Open January period in 2024.
  3. Finalize any outstanding transactions from the current year (2023).
  4. Perform a soft-close for any open periods in 2023.

General Baan/LN Tips:

  1. Issue any pending old sales invoices.
  2. Resolve outstanding financial integration errors.
  3. Establish new integration mapping for 2024 as needed.
  4. Test the mapping in a controlled environment before the new year.
  5. Review and update jobs to ensure they will process in 2024.
  6. Determine, for cash-flow purposes, which purchase invoices won’t be paid until 2024.
  7. Verify that calendars are set up for the new year with holidays correctly indicated.
  8. Check jobs to ensure that any with hard-coded dates will point at the new year.

For additional insights and tips on year-end processing, refer to the relevant documents in the Infor Knowledge Base.

 KB 

 Content 

 1879191  

 Document including step by step procedure, possible error/warning messages, and more (Infor LN) 

 1147023 

 Step by step procedure description (Infor LN)

 1116239 

 Step by step procedure description (Infor LN)

 1117334

 Step by step procedure description (Infor LN; Portuguese)

 1171300 

 Step by step procedure description (Baan IV) 

If you require assistance or have any questions, feel free to reach out to us, and we'll gladly guide you through the necessary steps to ensure a thorough and accurate completion of your year-end processes. Contact us at 1.800.762.2077 or via email at solutions@crossroadsrmc.com. Your success is our priority, and we're here to help.

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Kathy Barthelt

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