PO freight charges and GL accounts

v7.20.14

We have a problem with the way MAS500 handles purchase order freight charges.  The following communication describes the situation.

 

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From end-user:
There is a problem with the way the MAS500 Purchase Order system handles PO freight charges.  It is defaulting freight to the suspense account.

My response:
This issue stems from the fact that MAS requires one, and only one, GL account to be set up for each Shipping Method defined in 'Common Information.'  During PO entry, in order to enter a freight dollar amount, a Shipping Method must be selected.  The system then uses the GL account that is associated with the shipping method chosen to determine the account to which the freight amount is applied.  This GL account cannot be changed on-the-fly at any point during PO entry, PROG, or PROI; the system simply uses the account code defined in 'CI-Set Up Shipping Methods.'   During setup we had to enter a GL account for each shipping method (e.g., UPS, FedEx, etc.), and in doing so we simply opted for System Suspense.
I realize that you would like to see some way for PO freight charges to be coded to GL accounts that are specific to the items, or at least the category of items, being ordered, rather than having them applied to GL accounts based on the carrier who is delivering the goods.  There are a couple options for handling this issue.  One is to leave it as-is and someone will simply have to periodically go through the POs and GL transactions and make adjustments so that these freight charges are applied to the proper GL accounts.  Or, we could set up a non-inventory item called FREIGHT, with no default GL account, which the person entering the PO could then enter on a PO line-item and subsequently select the appropriate GL account based on what is being ordered.  This would mean that the 'Freight' tab in the 'Enter Purchase Orders' task would simply be ignored.  Also, the freight charge would not appear in the bottom right corner of the Purchase Order as it has been, but instead would appear as a line-item on the Purchase Order.  It would, however, be included in the PO Subtotal and Order Total, of course.

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I've been revisiting this issue and just wanted to start a discussion to get some input on how everyone else is handling PO freight charges and their GL account distributions.   Does anyone have an approach that is working well?   If I recall from our original discussion about the issue here, our accountants said that the more standard practice would be to apply the freight charges to a GL account associated with the item being purchased, rather than to an account associated with the freight carrier.   Are we the only users who wish we could set the PO/GL modules to apply PO freight charges to GL accounts associated with the items being purchased, rather than applying the charge to an account associated with the freight carrier (i.e., shipping method)?
Thanks!

Message Edited by Ralph on 02-05-2010 03:25 PM
  • Has anything changed in Sage 500 in the last seven years that would provide the ability to apply PO freight charges to the inventory items being purchased as opposed to the freight carrier who is delivering them? We are using the Standard Cost method.
  • in reply to Ralph.
    Ralph,

    Standard Cost by definition will not allow this (there is a good article on the support site for this). In receipt of goods entry you can add your 'landing' costs whether actual or a percentage when you use average cost. I believe all of the valuation methods allow this except Standard Cost. I think the entering of actual started in 7.4. We use average and for some warehouses we uses actual freight costs and for others we use a landing factor.

    John