Re: Surcharge question -- MAPICS-L

Joan,

When we had to handle surcharges (fuel and such), we did them with special
charge lines.  You can add a ton of them, one per item if you want, and you
can pt the item number in the description.  It isn't elegant, but it works.

Advantages:
1.  Easy to report on surcharge amounts by item and/or order (if you use a
programmatically formatted insertion of item#).
2.  Data is easy to extract (MTHACTZ)
3.  Doesn't impact original price of item, so the surcharge is easily
handled by accounting.
4.  Special charge line additions are fairly easy to do programmatically,
especially if you use the Offline Shipping Enhancement.

Disadvantages:
1.  No way to get a "consolidated" price per item for the customer, they
gotta look them up.
2.  Can be confusing to some customers.
3.  Not the easiest to look over via COM inquiry (or CSM, for that matter).

Another thought might me a generic part number called "SURCHARGE" that you
can just add to all orders, below the item, with a base price of zero that
has to be manually (or programmatically) entered.  That would make for
fairly easy data extraction and summarization also.

Good luck!

Dale Gindlesperger
Fleetwood Folding Trailers, Inc.




                                                                                
                                                          
                      "McCready, Joan"                                          
                                                          
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                      07/16/2003 09:53 AM                                       
                                                          
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To all -

Our sales department came to me with an interesting question. We
manufacture
stainless steel parts. Metals prices fluxuate constantly, and at the moment
certain raw materials are fluxuating enough that we need to make a sales
price increase to compensate. We need to track a "metal surcharge" per item
to reflect this fluxuation (updated annually, unless a given material
increases significantly in the shorter term).

Example: part XYZ sells for $125, but we need to add $10 to the price to
cover the increase in raw materials used to make the alloy. The customer
order, therefore, is for $135 each. How/where do we track historically that
the part sells for $125 and the metal surcharge is $10. I.e. how can we
tell
if an historic sale price increase is due to raw materials increases (which
we can't control), or due to manufacuring & overhead increases (which we
can
control), or both (i.e. metal surcharge is $10 and actual price increase is
$5, raising price from $125 each to $140 each; in the future, raw material
prices drop so we don't need the surcharge - sale price drops from $140 to
$130, keeping the actual price increase).

Any suggestions? We have one customer who wants to see these surcharges, so
we have a separate CO line item for the metal surcharge per part (i.e. they
order 10 items, we issue a CO with 20 line items - first the part for $125,
then that part's surcharge ($10), then the next part ($250), then its
surcharge ($15), etc.) However, most customers want to see a single line
item for (using example) $135 each... I know we can't be the only company
having to track this information, so I look forward to your collective
wisdom / experience.

        Thanks as always - Joan

Joan McCready, IS Manager      phone:  636-479-4499
MetalTek International               fax:  636-479-3399
The Carondelet Division             www.metaltekint.com
<www.metaltekint.com>
8600 Commercial Blvd
Pevely, MO  63070

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