Re: Invoice numbers - v. 405CD -- BPCS-L

We are also 405 CD ... we send out resupply orders the same way we ship customer orders, and this creates a "B" transaction in the ITH inventory history file. You might take a look at whether there is info there that can help you ... for us, this happens BEFORE the Billing, when the invoice # would not yet exist, but it might be a way for you to get a report of resupply activity to supplement the invoice history requested by the auditors.

First off, you might inform the auditors that there is traffic through BPCS where there is no invoice involved, or the invoice # is "out of sequence" as a normal practice... consider for example BIL600 billing adjustments, RMA credits, and as you noticed resupply orders are for inventory to be used INTERNALLY while Billing invoices are for sales to OUTSIDE customers, so there are no invoices for INTERNAL transfers ... it makes no sense to do a bill to yourself then have to pay it through A/P.

Will INV510 permit you to TRANSFER inventory between facilities without going through resupply orders? Do the auditors need to know about inventory transfers between facilities?

When you looking at SIH and SIL also consider "special charges" as opposed to inventory shipped.

Data in ECH is unreliable for auditor tracking, considering that customer orders can "go away" any number of ways, some of them pretty rapidly after closure. You might consider reviewing Customer Order Change Tracking software.

Second, inform the auditors that BPCS has fields in the system parameters to keep track of the last # used in various systems ... customer orders, shop orders, invoices, and so forth, and that there is a way to reset those #s, the intention being that perhaps at year end, or after a physical inventory, there is a need to restart at 1 if you not need to go thru all 999,999 numbers available, but when a company does this, and still has history on the last time a number was assigned for a different purpose, there is all kinds of misleading results you can get.

We have a problem with shipping delivery ticket #s where we can end up with multiple shipments same tracking #, multiple invoices same tracking #, multiple tracking #s one invoice, other combinations.

There are opportunities for embezzlement that I am not going to spell out here. If a person identifies themselves to me as an ERP auditor, and I am pretty sure they are for real, and not someone posing as one, then I can brief them on some of the areas where BPCS is particularly vulnerable to embezzlement, and what they can be looking for to see if a company has done a responsible job of protecting against that possibility. This invoice # checking deal seems very superficial to me, like your auditors don't have a clue what is important.

Not that I do it, but it would be very easy for me to have the company send $ value stuff to the address of a confederate, and have the BPCS files say something entirely different, and if all auditors are doing is checking that the invoice #s have nothing missing in sequence and the $ adds up, then they would never catch me. A company's safety lies in the honesty of its staff, not in the competence of using auditors who are not familiar with BPCS.

The auditors have asked for a list of invoices.    They are testing the
internal controls verifying the invoice sequence numbering.    I ran a
query of SIH.    I'm missing Order type 9 - resupply orders.   They don't
affect sales  ---  no SIH record.       In ECH there is an invoice number,
   this is the last invoice against this order.    If multi-shippments
were made on the resupply order - there is only one number retained.

Any Ideas?

Roger Henady
Thorco Industries