<vendor>
Dear Jan -------------- Lots of interesting suggestions have appeared here
during the last 48 hours. Here's some commentary about what we've seen:
A. EDI was suggested and it is a good idea for BPCS/ERP LX users with an
extremely large volume of raw material supplier invoices. The auto industry
is an example where EDI is a requirement to do business; the whole supply
chain is set up that way. Might be the same way for farm equipment and
snowmobiles. Jan, EDI isn't a red-hot idea for your cosmetics enterprise
because it will only fit with a sub-set of your suppliers. You'd spend lots
of coin to set EDI up but could only apply it for x% of your suppliers.
B. There were at least a couple of smart Excel application products
suggested that permit spreadsheet entry of invoices. The idea is to
short-cut BPCS training for the next new accounts payable clerk. As long as
you screen new A/P candidates for Excel savvy, they are ready to go day one
without any ERP system training.
Well, good luck on the zero ERP training idea. ACP500 has roughly 400
validation checks. Hard to believe even a fancy spreadsheet macro does that
work so I'm speculating that the spreadsheet is uploaded to the iSeries and
an RPG object does the edit checking and then sends back down a spreadsheet
with the errors highlighted. What is an untrained, never-saw-a-BPCS-screen
Excel expert going to do with those yellow-highlighted cells?
The other troubling thing about relying on .xlsx files on PC hard drives for
starting the payment process is that entry efficiency doesn't arrive bundled
with the INFOR's security system. Old-fashioned internal control problems
still DO HAPPEN. Here's news about a $40 million dollar inventory theft at a
BPCS user which exploited a separation of duties flaw in the BPCS user
authorizations:
http://www.unbeatenpath.com/news/SODconflictBrazil.pdf.
Makes me wonder how much more could have been stolen if a crooked employee
had been able to exploit .xlsx file security loopholes too.
C. Jan, raw material and component vendors generate the vast majority of
ACP500 entry work so, if you can find a way to automate entry of invoices
from those suppliers, you've won. For me, whether your A/P staff keys raw
material invoices into ACP500 screens or into .xlsx files, that key punching
isn't efficient nor is it ever accurate the first time. This product
eliminates the keypunching altogether for raw material suppliers:
http://www.unbeatenpath.com/software/hopskipjump/HopSkip
<
http://www.unbeatenpath.com/software/hopskipjump/HopSkip&Jump.pdf>
&Jump.pdf. It automatically creates invoices in ACP500 based on PO
Receipts. That ends keypunching errors (because the purchase order has
already been validated). In our experience, the Hop, Skip, & Jump process
rarely gets hung up unless you forget to open next month's accounting
period. And, since the ACP500 logic is used, no need to re-invent any
connections to the general ledger, the juncture at which Mr. Mleczko
admitted he is stuck (enote below).
With warm regards,
Milt Habeck
Unbeaten Path International
+262-681-3151
(888) 874-8008
mhabeck@xxxxxxxxxx
</vendor>
From: ron.mleczko
Sent: Thursday, May 23, 2013 4:38 PM
To: BPCS ERP System
Subject: Re: [BPCS-L] Accounts payable
I am currently working on the programming to do this for a client. I have
the A/P posting part ok but I'm struggling with getting the CEA posting to
work correctly. If anyone has a home-grown solution I'd be interested in
seeing how they did the CEA part.
Thanks,
Ron
Ron Mleczko
Senior ERP Consultant
Virtutem, LLC
3333 Warrenville Road, Suite 200
Lisle, IL 60532
---- On Thu, 23 May 2013 07:57:23 -0500
Roodt<jan.roodt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote ----
We are currently on BPCS V4.5CD.
Accounts payable (invoice entry) happen through ACP500.
What I want to know is if anybody knows of or have a solution to
update data in a work file
containing the invoice data and process it in a batch run into
BPCS Accounts payable files.
Kind Regards, Jan Roodt
midrange.com
