Estimated costs are used only when:
items are sold into the negatives (i.e., agrē has nothing left to reference in the Cost History Table).
new items are received into your inventory for the first time and they do not have any costs associated with them yet.
the actual costs for items are not indicated on their inventory receipts.
In order to obtain an estimated cost, agrē checks to see if you have entered an estimated cost for the inventory item. If not, agrē then checks to see if the Update Est With Last? check box is selected for the inventory item. If selected, agrē uses the last known cost (i.e., the cost of the item from when it was last moved into inventory). If neither are specified, agrē uses an estimated cost of $0. For more information on costing, see Costing Overview.
Note
(Config C) You also have the option to use the cost on the next available PO instead of the Estimated Cost.
What you'll find:
You can use either the Manage Estimated Costs window or the Inventory tab on the Add or Edit Product window to enter estimated costs. The benefit of using the Manage Estimated Costs window is that you can add estimated costs for multiple products all at once. However, the benefit of using the Inventory tab is that you can add estimated costs while adding or editing a product.
When you save on either window, the estimated costs you entered are automatically updated on both windows.
Caution
The Export button in the toolbar exports the data you see in spreadsheet/table format, which is NOT the spreadsheet you need for Importing Estimated Costs.
For importing estimated costs, the spreadsheet you need is generated from File > Exports > Data > Inventory/Products > Estimated Costs Worksheet.
To enter an estimated cost on the Manage Estimated Costs window:
Navigate to Inventory > Manage > Costing > Estimated Costs.
The Product Search window opens.
Find the product(s) using the various search criteria.
The search results are shown in the Manage Estimated Costs window.
In the Update Est With Last? column, select the Update Est With Last? check boxes for the locations that should use the last known cost of the inventory item as the estimated cost (i.e., the cost of the item from when it was last moved into inventory, which is recorded on the Cost History Table).
The Update Est With Last? check box is selected by default.
- or -
In the Est. Cost column, enter the estimated cost of the product.
Note
The Last Cost column displays the costs of the products from when they were last received at the specified locations. The Last Cost Date column displays the dates of the products from when they were last received at the specified locations.
Tips
To view an Inventory Cost History report for a product, select the product from the Product list and then click View Cost History.
Export the information in the grid to an Excel file by clicking Export.
Click Save.
To enter an estimated cost on the Product's Inventory tab:
Click the Inventory tab.
In the Update Est With Last? column, select the Update Est With Last? check boxes for the locations that should use the last known cost of the inventory item as the estimated cost (i.e., the cost of the item from when it was last moved into inventory, which is recorded on the Cost History Table).
The Update Est With Last? check box is selected by default.
- or -
In the Est Cost column, enter the estimated cost of the product.
Click Save.
If you are manually managing the estimated costs of many products, you may find it more convenient to export the existing estimated costs to a spreadsheet, make your estimated cost changes to all products involved in a program like Microsoft Excel, then import the updates back into agrē.
To export existing Estimated Costs:
Navigate to File > Exports > Data.
The Export Data window opens.
Click the + sign next to Inventory/Products.
Select the Estimated Costs Worksheet.
Optionally change the Criteria to limit your results.
Click Export to Excel.
(config U) Remember to choose a file location that is available outside of agrē.
In a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel, add your updated estimated costs to the last column: New Cost.
Caution
Please make edits ONLY in the New Cost column.
The other columns and rows contain hard-coded information that agrē needs to import the updated costs correctly. If you make other changes, the data may import incorrectly or not at all.
The New Cost must be a numeric value. If the column contains invalid characters (for example, any text letters), you will receive an error message when trying to import the file.
Once the new cost values have been entered, save the spreadsheet. The new estimated costs can now be imported into agrē.
Please wait a minute or so after closing the spreadsheet for Windows to release its lock on the file. agrē cannot import the file if the operating system still has it locked.
To import updated Estimated Costs:
Navigate to Inventory > Manage > Costing > Estimated Cost Import.
The Estimated Cost Import window opens.
Click Browse Files.
The Select Estimated Costs Worksheet window opens.
(config U) Navigate to where the spreadsheet is saved, select it, and click Open.
The Select Estimated Costs Worksheet window closes and the costs are imported to the Estimated Cost Import window.
Click Import .
The Overwrite Existing Estimated Cost Values? window opens.
Click Yes to continue with the import.
The Import Success window opens. Click OK.
Tip
If you receive errors on import, the spreadsheet may contain active cells with no data. When agrē tries to read active cells and finds no data, the import will fail. This can happen if rows or columns with data were deleted, or if data was entered in rows or columns that were originally blank.
To determine if this is issue, edit the Excel spreadsheet. Set the cursor in cell A1 and press Control + Shift + End. If the selected range (the cells that are grey) contains blank cells, agrē will not be able to import the data.
To resolve the issue, copy only the cells containing data (not any blank cells) and paste them into a new sheet in the same workbook. Delete the old sheet. Save. Now when you press Control + Shift + End the selection should contain only cells with data, not any blank ones. The spreadsheet should now import to agrē successfully.