Articles

Warehouse Book & Valuation

 

warehouse

This is one of the main and most complex applications of Greece Localization.

According to Greek legislation, SAP's ways of valuating materials can be only used for estimations and provision and are not accepted as a legal way of valuating materials.

For this a special application responsible for material valuation according to Greek GAPS and producing the Warehouse Book has been created by SAP.

Material Valuation

Material Valuation is a period end procedure –determines the actual value of remaining stock via predefined valuation methods (like FIFO, LIFO, WMA etc.) There are determined by the law two different ways to valuate materials a) Period valuation and b) Year to date valuation.

Valuation methods supported by SAP are:

  • First-In-First-Out (FIFO) for raw materials and trading goods (a variant for produced materials also exists but involves many assumptions). In this case the remaining stock is valuated first       using the period's goods receipts on a first-in first-out basis and the consumptions are valuated afterwards. Thus the consumption and remaining stock prices are in principle different
  • Last-In-First-Out (LIFO) for raw materials and trading goods. In this case the remaining stock is valuated first on a last-in first-out basis and the consumptions are valuated afterwards. Here also the consumption and remaining stock prices are in principle different
  • Weighted Moving Average (WMA). Remaining stock and consumptions are assigned a uniform price.
  • Fixed cost (FIX). Used for by-products. Assigns SAP Value to the production cost and uses the WMA to find the consumption and remaining stock value of the by-products.
  • Weighted Moving Average with Work-In-Progress (WMAW). Variation of WMA in that the cost of production used to determine the input part of the valuation equation is modified so as to take into account Work-In-Progress (WIP).
  • Weighted Moving Average for Plant-Level Valuation (WMAPL). Variation of WMA in which plant transfers are treated as input with values determined at the source plant. This makes sense for valuation at plant level and requires the treatment of potential circular transfers. 

Valuation Equation: A dual equation (per quantity and per value) relating initial and final stock for each valuated material within a period. There are many ways to write it down but the most generic one reads:

Qinitial stock + Qinputs = Qend stock + Qoutput

and similarly for values:

Vinitial stock + Vinputs = Vend stock + Voutputs

The left-hand side (LHS) of the equations contains known values while the right-hand side (RHS) contains objects that receive values. The valuation equation essentially amounts to a prescription of how to split the total LHS value into remaining stock and consumption values. The specific algorithm of how to do this is prescribed by the valuation method (FIFO, LIFO, WMA etc).

The ‘inputs’ to the LHS include several types:

  • Goods Receipts from Purchasing.
  • Goods Receipts from Production (direct material + expenses).
  • Other goods receipts with ‘own value’.
  • Goods receipts from subcontracting.
  • Goods receipts from other stores assigned a value and accompanied by a legal document (‘λογιστική αυτοτέλεια υποκαταστημάτων’) .
  • Material to material transfers (‘μετατάξεις’).
  • Goods receipts from material assembly.
  • Goods receipts from plant transfers (plant level valuation)
  • Other Invoiced expenses (e.g. shipping costs).

There is one such ‘double’ equation for each ‘valuated object’. The precise definition of what this ‘valuated object’ is depends on the valuation level. In the simplest form it can be identified with the ‘material’ concept (valuation level = company). Other possibilities exist, though:

  • Valuated object = material + plant (valuation level = plant)
  • Valuated object = sales order line item
  • Valuated object = project etc

Warehouse Book Ledger

  • Every Greek Company is required by law to produce a “Warehouse Book”(WHB). The WHB is a report containing both inventory and financial information on every incoming and outgoing material movement, as well as other postings having a financial effect on the stock.
  • The report is produced once per period (saved in a CD), approved by the tax authorities.
  • Looking into this report the auditor should be able to see all the material movements, the current available stock, the historical cost, the sales proceeds, the gross margin of each product and the cost of all material consumptions in the examined period.
  • The columns of WHB should be in correspondence with Analytical Ledger Accounts.
  • The value assigned to each material movement depends on the nature of the movement.
  • Negative Balances are not allowed
  • Continuous page numbering is obligatory during the fiscal year.
  • Supplementary to Analytical Ledger , General Ledger (Purchasing and Sales)
  • All Company owned stock materials (with Significant value) at company owned plants, or at third party plants and all third party stock materials stored in company’s plants should appear at WHB.
  • All Movements creating an accounting document, concerning plant to plant transfer and movements in and out a plant should appear. Movements within a plant (e.g. st.location to st.location, batch to batch etc.) are not included.


Solution description and brief application Logic

whb

The application consists of the following elements:

  • A central table which is updated on-line through user-exits from SAP ERP transactions. This table can also be updated off-line with a special program (either for performance reasons or because of wrong update due to errors in customizing) on request. Finally there are fields of these table (values) which are updated only after the productive run of the valuation.
  • A set of customizing tables where the basic parameters are defined (valuation method, printouts layout, Analytical Ledger accounts etc).
  • Programs for material valuation, print out of the warehouse book report and Analytical Ledger postings.
  • A set of tables where data are stored after the productive run of the programs mentioned above.
  • A set of utilities (programs) which perform control tasks or error corrections tasks A user exit of MM for updating the central table mentioned before (from material movements and from FI movements) 

Program logic – Sequence of execution

The application has prerequisites and specific sequence in order to give correct results.

The prerequisites are:

  • Data are entered in the system based on the posting rules and the respective customization is correct.
  • All postings that concern the period under review have been performed (Sales, Purchases etc)
  • All CO-activities for expenses allocation have been performed

The execution sequence is the following:

  • Valuation of consumables/spare parts for CO- reposting
  • CO-Activities performed for allocating/distributing the expenses to the produced materials
  • Valuation of all materials
  • Printing of Warehouse reports
  • Postings in the Analytical Ledger accounts

Customers: