Unit expenses explained

Summary

The following article explains how Platinum deals with unit expenses.

More Information

Units: Unit is a general term used to cover all types of vehicle and machinery, including items such as motorcycles, scooters, cars, trucks, vans, caravans, motorhomes, boats, tractors, ATVs, agricultural equipment, wholegoods and construction equipment.

• First of all, follow Selling a unit for details on how to create a unit sales order, add extras and accessories where necessary, and then print and accept the order.

Unit Sales

• Items added to the sales order will show as an Expected Expense against the unit. This shows what the sales department expect to pay for the items that the customer has purchased with the unit.

• These items added to the sales order can be flagged as either 'W' - Workshop or 'S' - Stock or 'F' - Financial items.
  • Workshop items are passed across to the estimate side of the workshop job created for the PDI or preparation of the sale unit. This type is intended for items that need to be fitted to the unit, but can be used for any items.
  • Stock items are dropped onto Sales Ordering for the parts department to check and order if necessary. This type is intended for items such as clothing or helmets which don't need to be fitted to the unit - some customers find it easier to treat these items as 'W' - Workshop items since it keeps all the items on the deal together.
  • Financial items (Road Fund Licence, First Reg Fee etc) should be tied up by either accounts or unit admin when the money is spent to purchase these items. This type is intended for non-tangible items, such as Road Fund Licence. This could include warranty for example.

W - Workshop Items

Handling items by this method is both simple and effective.

When the workshop PDI/Prep job is invoiced, the parts that were transferred from the unit sales order will post an Actual cost to the unit that the system will match against the Expected item. Labour to fit these items should appear as an actual expense against the accessories, not the unit, so this should be shown as a separate item or items.

Items transferred from the unit sales order are matched up by part number. It is therefore vital that any incorrect items from the unit sales order are not deleted from the workshop job or amended to enter the correct item. You must inform the sales department that the items are wrong, and they must correct the unit sales order, and reprint it. This will feed the corrections back to the workshop job, and they can be processed there. This will prevent doubling of the charges against the unit, with items sold to the customer being shown as Accessory expenses, and the corrected item being shown as a PDI/Prep expense against the unit as well.

• Items required to PDI or prepare the unit should be added to this job in the usual way, and these will be shown as expenses against the unit, not against the Accessories sold with the unit.

S - Stock Items

When the unit sales order is printed and accepted, the system creates a stock sales order for these items. This sales order is retrieved like any other customer order, stock levels checked and the items charged to sales and allocated to a unit stock number. This creates the Actual expense to match against the Expected expense. As with the 'W' items above, any incorrect items must not be corrected here - it must be passed back to sales as above, otherwise we end up with duplicated expenses.

F - Financial Items

These items should be anything that is not a stocked item. Accounts or Sales Admin will pay for Road Fund Licence and First Registration Fee where relevant, and any other items where the cost can be entered directly against the unit (i.e. no involvement of the workshop or parts department) should be dealt with in this method. When the cost is incurred, either from a purchase invoice or a journal, it should be matched up against the expected financial expense on the unit record.

Pitfalls and Items of Note

Duplication of expenses

Using 'W' or 'S' type items from the unit sales order, it is very tempting for the Parts or Clothing staff to notice an item that is incorrect, and to sort it out themselves. This WILL cause problems of duplicating expenses against the unit. They must notify sales of the error and get sales to correct the unit order.

Late Costs

Some items sold with the unit may not be available at the time that the customer takes delivery, and you intend to fit these either at first service time or when they become available. The system incorporates the cost of these items as Expected expenses against the unit, but any labour costs to fit these items are not shown against the unit, nor is any provision made in the Accounts system for the costs of items not supplied. Once the items are supplied, then any costs incurred at this point will be allocated as Actual costs against the unit, and these will be reflected in the Accounts system at this time.

See also

• Selling a unit
• How are unit expenses classified?
• How do I log a purchase invoice as an expense against a unit?
• How do I post expenses against a unit?

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Keywords AND Misspellings

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