Command Centre
Resources
The Resources File is essentially the stock file (and is sometimes referred to as such), but in reality it is very much more versatile than that. It must contain a Record Card for each material stock item you use, for each assembly and subassembly that you make, and should also contain a record card for each Manufacturing Process (Labour item) if you wish your Shop Floor activity monitored or your production processes costed. So the Resources Centre provides a convenient, one-stop container for everything that goes into the manufacturing process.
Merlin is able to identify which of these records is which when running processes reports, etc. From here on, if you see a reference to your "Stock File" it is synonymous with your Resources File.
Stock control is at the very heart of your Merlin MRP 2000 system. As Merlin tracks and progresses your production jobs, allocating and issuing materials, and as Merlin generates Purchase Orders, and receives Goods In, the Resources File and Stock Movements Log are constantly being updated to reflect all of these movements and keep your stock figures up to date.
And when you run Assembly Costing, the Resources File is updated for the relevant assembly or assemblies to reflect the latest valuation. Please see the Important Note: Stock Costing/Valuation at the foot of this page.
Resource Record Cards are set up for both physical items (materials, assemblies and subassemblies), and non-physical items which carry a cost and need to appear on your BoMs, such as manual labour. The Merlin Resource Record Card is not simply a dumb listing. Behind the scenes is some powerful processing to give you a large amount of valuable information about each item you view. [Please see Resource Record Cards section.]
Stock Movement allows you to make manual stock adjustments to individual items, where necessary. This should not be used for Goods-In or Materials Issue.
Stock Movement Reference allows you to store common references for use with the Goods Out option in Stock Movement (above). You can add, edit of delete reference items that will appear for selection in the drop-down box on the Goods Out screen Reference field.
You do not have to use this feature, but it will save time if you have regular, repeating entries.
Stock Take or Adjust gives you the tools for quickly updating your physical on-shelf stock figures whenever a stock-take or partial stock-take has to be performed.
[Please see Stock Take section.]
DATA EXPORT enables you to export your Stock Costing data, and outstanding Purchase Orders and Sales Orders data to to Microsoft ExcelŽ files for interchange with other software which permits this, such as accounts packages. The files are called merstock.xls, merpurch.xls and mersales.xls, and are written to your \merwin\export directory.
Please refer to the destination software for directions for importing data.merpurch.xls contains the following fields: ordno [order no.], ordate, supcode [Supplier ID], partno, exp_5 [balance outstanding], and duedate.
merstock.xls contains the following fields: partno, desc [description], stock [on-shelf], picked [WiP], exp_5 [on-shelf stock + picked stock (WiP)], batch [Pack Quantity], batcost [cost of pack, calculated taking into account any price-breaks into which the stockholding would fall], exp_8 [cost of stock].
The pack cost and cost of stock [exp_8] are calculated according to the quantity in stock, the default supplier, and any price breaks which have been set up for that supplier. In other words, if price breaks exist, the stock will be costed according to the price band into which the held quantity fits.
(Please see the Important Note: Stock Costing/Valuation below, under Reports.)The table also contains fields showing Allocated Stock and Stock Category.
merstock_and_supps.xls which contains all of the merstock.xls data (as above) plus supused, which is the currently selected supplier (1, 2 or 3), plus full costing details for all three suppliers (or as many as as associated with each item) in fields beginning s1... for supplier 1, s2... and s3... for the second and third suppliers.
mersales.xls contains the following fields: saleno, date, client, custordno, jobno, product [top-level assembly], run [build quantity], runwas [quantity built or released to date], exp_9 [balance of sales order or job outstanding].
This report includes Sales Orders or jobs for top-level assemblies only, and therefore excludes internal subassembly jobs.
This data has been processed and must never be exported back to Merlin!
Reports
Numerous report options are available, and in many cases you will be given further choices after you make your initial selection by clicking one of the buttons in the Reports panel.
When you click the Full Listing by Group option you will be offered a simple stock list list sequenced by the Part Description. If you say No to this option, you will be offered the full listing sorted by Stock Group. The valuation of your inventory has to be based on a set of rules, and unfortunately many people have opposing ideas on what the correct formula should be. So, please see the Important Note below which analyses this subject.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Stock Costing/Valuation
Merlin uses intelligent logic to attempt to keep your internal stock costing/valuation meaningful to the manufacturing process. A different logic is used for Data Export (see above), which may result in a different valuation. This will be explained below.
Assembly Costing (and therefore Job Costing) is obviously based upon what the component parts cost to purchase, but in a situation where you have multiple supplier options and/or multiple price breaks, where you may or may not be currently holding stock, and where any stock you are holding might or might not have been purchased all at once, and therefore possibly at different prices, what does a component part actually "cost" in manufacturing terms? Alternatively, (depending upon your point of view), what is its value?
You might have stock of 1,000 pieces of a particular item which, if purchased in this quantity from your Default Supplier, takes you into a favourable price break. However, you might actually have purchased these in 2 blocks of 500 at a higher price. Or you may have needed to use an alternative supplier, who might or might not offer a price break, and who may or may not be competitive in price terms.
So, is the "cost price" (from a manufacturing costing point of view) what you would pay if you bought 1,000 in a block from your Default Supplier, or what you actually paid according to where and how you bought them? Unfortunately, opinions upon this vary.
Merlin is constantly checking your purchase data to maintain the most realistic manufacturing "cost price". Every time you change your Default Supplier (or the Next Order Supplier) or Pack Costs or Minimum Purchase Quantity* for a stock item, Merlin will re-evaluate the nominal cost price of that item, based on all this data.
For example, if you set a Minimum Purchase Quantity, and this takes you into or out of a better price break (which is a very good reason for using this feature), the nominal cost price will be adjusted to reflect this.
If you purchase items using [Buying Office / Run Main Buy] or [Buying Office / Shopping List], the nominal cost price will be adjusted to reflect the supplier used and the price break appropriate to the quantity purchased.
Cost Prices calculated in these ways are used for all stock reporting and costing within Merlin.
The exception to this rule is Data Export (see further up this page), where the data is prepared for use outside of Merlin. Here the pack prices are calculated against the price break appropriate to the number of pieces you hold, taken from your Default Supplier data.
* Please see [Resource Record Cards] for more information.
[Resource Record Cards] [Stock Take]
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