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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: Difference Between a Serialized Item and Unit Effective Item

Kathy Barthelt 0 131517 Article rating: No rating

A serialized item is not the same as a unit effective item. A serialized item has a serial number that is used to identify and track individual items, whereas a unit effectivity item has an effectivity unit that provides some information about the item's configuration. However, an item can be both serialized and unit effective.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!
 

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Alternative Materials in BOMs:

Kathy Barthelt 0 396805 Article rating: No rating

Often, multiple items are interchangeable even when these are purchased from various vendors. You can use any of these items as material in a bill of material (BOM). If a shortage of a standard material is expected to delay a production order, LN can automatically select one of the alternative materials. You can define up to nine alternative materials for any material in a BOM.

The use of alternative materials has the following advantages:

  • LN can handle material shortages for some items without user intervention.
  • The use of alternative items can reduce the average inventory level.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Purchase Order “In Use” Reset Feature 8.3.5

Anthony Etzel 0 43159 Article rating: No rating

 

This new feature provides the ability to resolve or reset a purchase order or requisition that is no longer being processed, but the system still indicates it is ‘in use’. We all remember those situations where we could never figure out how the order got hung up.

What we previously had to do was run a behind the scenes script to reset the flag so the order was again accessible. This enhancement provides the ability to resolve the issue and resume processes quickly.

This option is now on the PUR menu, and the user can select the Purchase Order/Requisition in Use Maintenance, PUR940D. The user then enters an order or requisition to remove the “In Use” status.

 

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Advantages / Disadvantages of Virtualization

Kathy Barthelt 0 130462 Article rating: 5.0

I know a lot of our customers are considering virtualization projects. I came across this, and thought it might be useful:

The advantages of virtualization include the following:

• You get more out of your existing resources. Pool common infrastructure resources and break the legacy “one application to one server” model with server consolidation.

• You can reduce datacenter costs by reducing your physical infrastructure and improving your server to admin ratio. Fewer servers and related IT hardware means reduced real estate and reduced power and cooling requirements. With better management tools, you can improve your server to admin ratio so personnel requirements are reduced.

• You can increase the availability of hardware and applications for improved business continuity.

• Securely back up and migrate entire virtual environments with no service interruptions. Eliminate planned downtime and recover immediately from unplanned issues.

 

• Gain operational flexibility. Respond to market changes with dynamic resource management, faster server provisioning, and improved application deployment.

The disadvantages of virtualization include the following:

• Virtualization adds overhead to the CPU, memory, IO, and network.

• Virtualization adds an additional layer to the hardware and software stack. Therefore, additional complexity is introduced in the following circumstances:

  • When sizing the physical server.
  • When planning VM capacity.
  • When planning multiple VMs on the same physical server.
  • When investigating performance issues.

 

Baan/LN Tip of the Week: Setting Up Interest Invoicing

Kathy Barthelt 0 104191 Article rating: No rating

You can set up interest invoicing in Accounts Receivable and in the General Ledger.

To set up interest invoicing, use these sessions:

Invoice-to Business Partner (tccom4112s000)
For invoice-to business partners for which you want to raise interest invoices, select the Charge Interest checkbox.

Mapping Scheme (tfgld4573m000)
Use this session to define the mapping of the Interest Invoice / Revenues Analysis integration document type.

Interest Percentages (tfacr5102m000)
Use this session to define the interest percentages for each financial business-partner group, and for different periods of days.

Interest Invoice Related Data (tfacr5101s000)
Use this session to define whether interest must be calculated on unpaid invoices, partly paid invoices, interest invoices, and/or fully paid invoices. You can also indicate that LN must take advance payments, unallocated payments, and credit notes into account for the generation of interest invoices.

Optionally, set conditions
Example: LN only generates an interest invoice advice entry if these conditions are met: The total of all advice entries in one currency is higher than the allowed minimum amount of an interest invoice defined in the Minimum Amount for Interest Invoice field.

The invoice is overdue for a greater number of days than the number of days defined in the Minimum Days for Interest Invoice field.

FSB North America Streamlines Their Shipping on Infor LN with RMCship

Kathy Barthelt 0 24122 Article rating: 5.0

FSB North America, a leading producer of high quality electrified and mechanical locking devices, has selected the RMCship solution from Crossroads RMC to streamline their shipping process on Infor LN and the integration with FedEx® and UPS Worldship™. Using Web Collect formerly RMCship for shipping increases accuracy by eliminating manual steps, streamlines operations, and process steps, and improves customer satisfaction.

BPCS/LX Tip of the Week: Vendor Evaluation

Anthony Etzel 0 43588 Article rating: No rating

Want to ensure that you have the materials you need when you need them?Want to gain insight into your ability to fulfill current and future orders timely? 

Consider implementing a method of evaluating your suppliers. A good understanding of your suppliers’ capabilities and past performance allows you to better plan and deliver orders on time to your customers. 

Some ERP systems have built in features to track supplier performance data. Reports can also be written to gather the information you need.  By whatever means you can achieve it, getting those results could be eye opening and very meaningful to your business.

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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

Infor LN & Baan Tip of the Week: Reports to Analyze Company Performance

You know what data you need to analyze your company’s financial and production health, but sometimes it's a struggle to get that data in a format that is meaningful. Here are some reports in Baan IV, Baan V, and Infor LN which you may find useful.

As is the case with most ERP reports, with each version progression from Baan IV, to Baan V, to LN, there are improvements in selection criteria and report content. Some may require some setup and others may require some formatting if you would like to export them to Excel.  Contact me if you have questions or need assistance.

BAAN & LN FINANCE:

Baan IV –

Customer Statistics Module

  • Print Customer Statistics by Customer/Credit Analyst (tfcmg3400m000)
    • Prints Average Days Payment, Amount Paid, Average Days Outstanding, Amount Open, Discounts Allowed and Discounts Taken.  
       
  • Print Average Days Outstanding (tfcmg3401m000)
    • Prints Open Amount and Average Days Outstanding.
  • Print Average Receipt Days (tfcmg3402m000)
    • Prints Amount Paid and Average Number of Days for a Payment.


Cash Forecasting Module

  • Print Cash Forecast Summary by Period/Currency (tfcmg3410m000)
    • Prints Total Cash coming in from Sales Invoices, Sales Orders, Sales Quotes, Project Orders, and Budgets. Prints Total Cash going out from Purchase Invoices, Purchase Orders, Standing Orders, and Budgets.
       
  • Print Cash Forecast Summary by Date/Currency (tfcmg3411m000)
    • Prints the same as above but by a specific date.
       
  • Print Cash Forecast Details by Period/Currency (tfcmg3412m000)
    • Prints the same as above but by each period across in columns.
       
  • Prints Detailed Cash Forecast in Home Currency (tfcmg3413m000)
    • Prints each item, purchase order, sales order, etc, with forecast in home currency.


Baan V –

  • Print Finalized Transactions Ledger Account – tfgld1406m000
    • Output can be run to show transactions (debit/credit) by ledger account, transaction type, and time periods. This can be run by range of ledger account and/or range of periods.
  • Print Integration Transactions -tfgld4410m000
    • This has 3 options: a short version of the report, a standard version, and a version by company/ledger account.

Infor LN -

  • Print Finalized Transactions Ledger Account – tfgld1406m000
    • Output can be run to show transactions (debit/credit) by ledger account, transaction type, and time periods. This can be run by range of ledger account and/or range of periods.
  • Print Integration Transactions by Business Flow – tfgld4482m100
    • Output can be run to show all transactions (debit/credit) by business object (production/purchasing/sales)


BAAN & LN MANUFACTURING:

Baan IV

  • Print Actual Cost by Production Order ticst0401m000
    • This report can be run at any time in the production order’s life to show how hours-spent and material-used compare between estimated and actual usage.
       
  • Print Work Center Utilization By Week tiscf1402m000
    • This report shows capacity issues at work centers/machines which help identify production bottlenecks.


Baan V

  • Print Estimated vs Actual Material Costs ticst0401m000
    • This report can be run at any time in the production order’s life to show how actual material-used compares to estimated usage.
       
  • Print Estimated vs Actual Hour Costs ticst0402m000
    • This report can be run at any time in the production order’s life to show how actual hours-spent compares estimated hours.
       
  • Print Work Center Utilization By Week tiscf1402m000
    • This report shows capacity issues at work centers/machines which help identify production bottlenecks.


Infor LN

  • Print Estimated vs Actual Material Costs ticst0401m000
    • This report can be run at any time in the production order’s life to show how actual material-used compares to estimated usage.
       
  • Print Estimated vs Actual Hour Costs ticst0402m000
    • This report can be run at any time in the production order’s life to show how actual hours-spent compares estimated hours.
       
  • Utilization report from– Print Resource Order Plan cprrp0430m000
    • This report from Enterprise Planning will show all orders from planning and production. By incorporating both order types, capacity issues can be seen short range where planning has determined that new orders are needed, as well as long range where planners may find opportunities to shift work or even to plan machine maintenance.

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