The Advanced Costing module adds time and vendor aware pricing capabilities to FORMULATOR costing based on a list of raw material costs, dates, and (optionally) vendor(s) and freight. Once entered into the cost matrix, the raw material cost data is available at formula level and bill of materials level, with persistent cost availability. The cost matrix adds a means to edit, audit, and integrate this data into the FORMULATOR database. Packaging costs can also be manipulated with the same utility; the cost impact can be seen in bill of materials level.

An unlimited number of “cost future days” can be set up for analysis and costing purposes. Each “cost future day” is a whole number, either positive or negative, but never zero (0 = the current cost, i.e. today’s cost). A future day may be negative. In this case, the future day reflects the cost that number of days in the past from the current date.

Each “cost future day” will manifest itself as follows:

Formulation maintenance – Select columns to display - will provide a unit cost column based on the past or future cost of the raw material in question. The column’s total reflects the formula’s aggregate cost on the future date, in the same units as the base formula. Also includes the future cost date and vendor.

For each “cost future day”, a new variable appears in the Equation Editor. The current cost is already represented by the variable “Cost”. The new variable(s) will appear as COST+n, where n=the cost future day. If the cost future day was negative, for example, minus 90, the variable would appear as Cost-90. Future freight is provided in a similar fashion.

Access to future formula costs: Future costs are stored as intermediate cost records. Performing a data update creates these records to reflect the current day’s future pricing. This data can then be extracted and used elsewhere in the enterprise.

Raw Material & Packaging Costs

• The advanced costing module manages future raw material and packaging costs, and:
• Provides the ability to enter any number of raw material – packaging – cost – date – vendor combinations.
• It also provides a means to increase or decrease a given vendor’s raw materials or packaging materials by a given percent on a given day.
• All records can be tagged for “what if” analysis.
• Tagged records can be deleted “en masse”.
• Includes a function to copy futures prices into current prices, to keep the currentprices up to date based on the future price.
• Provides copy and print functions for the cost futures table.

Once the future raw material and/or packaging costs are entered, they are kept on file indefinitely or deleted without any impact on accounting cost(s). These costs are then available for use in projecting the cost of intermediates, formulations, and filled products (SKU’s).

Multiple Vendor Cost

Multiple Vendor price quotations can be entered in the raw material cost section. Cost can be in any unit of measure which will be automatically converted to the primary vendor cost unit of measure for cost comparison. Freight costs can also be captured and are totaled into the final cost of the material for all vendors. Multiple vendor costs by raw material can be displayed in formulas to evaluate the impact of cost differences on the formula cost. This data is carried into the final bill of materials for production batches and packaged products. Links are available to connect to any vendor document or web site on the network or internet. Useful to reference vendor price lists, web sites, technical information.