At the end of accounting periods, monthly, yearly or other, a sequence of cost control and auditing tasks must be performed to report a correct and balanced inventory value to the finance department. Apart from the posting routine that transfers the individual item value entries to dedicated general ledger accounts, several reports, tracing functions, and a special reconciliation tool are available to the auditor or controller responsible for this business-critical work.
The following table describes a sequence of tasks, with links to the topics that describe them. These tasks are listed in the order in which they are generally performed.
| To | See |
|---|---|
View the inventory value of selected items, including information about the quantities and values of increases and decreases in inventory over a selected period. | |
View the inventory value of selected production orders in your WIP (work in process) inventory, such as the quantities and values of consumption, capacity usage, and output in ongoing production orders. | |
View the inventory value of selected items, including their actual and expected cost on the date specified. | |
Use a report to analyze the reasons for cost variances or to gain insight into the cost shares of sold items (COGS). | |
Periodically post the value entries of item transactions from the inventory ledger to the related G/L accounts to reconcile the two ledgers. | |
Use one window to audit the reconciliation between the inventory ledger and the general ledger. | |
Track the originating inventory transaction that relates to a G/L entry and vice versa. | |
Determine the WIP amount that needs to be posted to balance sheet accounts for period-end reporting. | |
View the value of work in progress on a job compared to the amount posted to the general ledger. | |
Post WIP that is calculated using the Job Calculate WIP batch job. |