Inventory Period at Month End

You don't have to close IC on the same day as PO and AP. PO and AP are closed on the last business day of the month, usually by 4 pm. We don't have any weekend activity but we still have some activity in the storeroom until 5 pm on so I wait to close after they're finished. I have waited to close IC the next day on occasion.

Because of this issue, we work closely with AP and they do not close on the last day of the month. All closing is done on the first workday of the next month. So for example, we closed September on October 2nd. As long as IC, PO and AP stay in sync and it is after all transactions it doesn't matter which day it is closed.

For year end, we actually close December in mid-January to give AP a chance to get all of their transactions in that need to hit during the previous fiscal year. Then we close on the same day.

PO and IC are closed and then AP does their closing.

Hope this helps - we've been live since 2008 and it works well for us.

Michelle

I was told long ago that IC should be closed after AP so the final IC130 job posts invoice cost adjustments created by AP175.

Jon - the word we got from our consultant was that it would be nice to do it that way but it's not the a deal breaker. Since the same person closes PO and IC (me), we choose to do them together. AP is processing payments right up until closing; I've had their CA's hit while I'm in the midst and have to run the IC130 a second time to capture the hanging dollars (this month it was .75). Our view is that it isn't worth losing sleep over when it makes the day more efficient.

AP stops all activity when I tell them I'm starting PO close (usually at 3:30 pm) so they're not creating any accruals during or after the PO135 run. When I finish PO I let them know they can close AP. Then they call me after they're closed and I close IC, once inventory activity is finished for the day.

Thanks to you both for your comments. They've helped us kick off the conversation for the need of change with Finance. Some additional questions - Is there a day/time when IC has to be closed? Michelle states she closed September on 10/2. Is that by necessity or preference/best practice? Also when we get the Inventory Period Closed error, is there a downstream effect (ie does it hit the GL), or does the transaction cease to exist at the point Lawson throws the error?

AP closes prior to Procurement here as well for the reason Jon states - Infor/Lawson considers it best practice. Invoices keyed in after IC close may create cost adjustments and skew your inventory balances. Not a show stopper, but annoying.

Here AP closes the last business day of the month, Procurement closes the last calendar day. We begin close 5pm on weekdays, 3pm on weekends to allow the bulk of the inventory transactions to be completed and released for the day. We used to close by 7am on the 1st of every month but pushed it back at Finance's request over 10 years ago.

When you get the errors - the downstream effect depends on which error at which time. Essentially there is a IC190 job that closes IC and an IC199 job that closes procurement. *IF* any IC or AP transactions occur in between the running of these two jobs, those transactions will show up on the GL for the month, but not the IC reports from the close.

It's not typically a large amount.

@Michelle - I met again with Finance yesterday & they liked the idea of closing PO/AP/IC on the 1st business day. We assume that means you have 2 control dates open at the same time? Any issues/things to be aware of? We are going to do a full test in DEV but wondered if you could share some insight or if you have a documented SOP to share. Thanks in advance!

I checked with GL - they haven't had any issues caused by our practice. GL itself closes about mid month when they are done reconciling everything so they are always behind AP/IC/PO.

We changed our practice maybe two years ago to close on the first business day of the month as opposed to last business day. It has made everything easier and doesn't cause any interruptions to receiving or AP like it used to. I do the close for all three, and it allows me close in half the time it used to, plus they don't have to pay me overtime for working on weekends or holidays if that's how the days fell.

We always close on the first business day of the new month for the previous month, and we start closing around 5am. I first run an IC130, then run the processes to close PO, then A/P does their close, then I close IC. We've not run into any problems doing it this way.

@brupp or anyone else - did you make the change during the fiscal year to different close date? If so, were there side effects? Do you happen to have any steps to follow?