Landed Costs module – Reconciling Costs

Posted on: November 19, 2021 | By: David Occhionero | Microsoft Dynamics AX/365

Reconciling costs

Landed costs can be applied to purchase and transfer orders, but this blog will focus on the purchase order side.  The landed cost functionality provides accounting with appropriate tools that simplify the reconciling of costs related to overseas material.  This specifically relates to the cost types that are setup as part of the configuration of the module.  These cost types can be manually added to orders or come through as automatic costs based on a voyage, container, folio etc.  The costs that are added can be viewed through the purchase order line by clicking Financials –> Cost inquiry.  The first time you open the screen you will want to click the View button and toggle the information you would like to see.  Otherwise, much of the information will be condensed to one or two rows.

These cost types will come into play when posting invoices through the AP invoice journal.

 

AP invoice journal

The next area where accounting will interact with these cost types will be when they have to post the invoice from the broker/customs agency.  The process for creating the AP journal will be the same, but the difference in landed costs comes with the selection of lines that will selected for settlement.  Upon entry of a vendor, invoice number, and invoice date on the journal lines, users will enter in the dollar amount of the invoice and select Functions –> Select voyage costs.

Once here, select the voyage, container, or folio of the invoice and click ok.  Users will then be brought to the settlement screen where cost type codes for the vendor can be selected.  Note: Only dollar amounts up to the value entered on the invoice line can be marked against.  Once the selection has been made click OK.

 

 

The record will populate the AP invoice journal and users will see the offset that is setup on the cost type code.   After that post the journal.  Users can now see how simple it is to find outstanding cost type codes that are entered on the PO line from the landed cost.  This simplifies the reconciliation of these costs because they are no longer treated as charges.

Viewing outstanding invoices

Another feature of this module that makes reconciling easier relates to the report in the landed cost module that shows outstanding invoices related to a voyage.  In the example above we posted an invoice for customs on Voyage VOY0000018.  If I ran the Outstanding Invoices report in the landed costs module, I’d see what I had open for that voyage.

 

 

The customs cost type code for $110 falls off the report.  This makes End of month processing extremely easy for AP for determining what is still open.

Default GL Descriptions

To aid in the research of Voucher postings it is also helpful to setup a default GL description for AP Invoices.  These can be setup under GL à Setup à Journal Setup à Default descriptions.  When this screen opens create a new record and select “Inventory – Close” as the description.  Under the text field enter in %4.  This will then populate the voyage number on your voucher transaction that resulted from the inventory adjustment.

Once this has been configured, vouchers will now post with the voyage number in the description.

As you can see from this post this is just one of the many features that the landed cost module has which improves processes in Accounts Payable.

For additional information around this new module in D365  please feel free to reach out to us at info@loganconsulting.com or (312) 345-8817.

All the best!

Logan Consulting
www.loganconsulting.com



2020 Nucleus Research Report on ERP Technology

Free Download:

2020 Nucleus Research Report on ERP Technology

Download the guide ›