Design Details: Expected Cost Posting

Expected costs represent the estimation of, for example, a purchased item’s cost that you record before you receive the invoice for the item.

You can post expected cost to inventory and to the general ledger. When you post a quantity that is only received or shipped but not invoiced, then a value entry is created with the expected cost. This expected cost affects the inventory value, but is not posted to the general ledger unless you set up the system up to do so.

Note

Expected costs are only managed for item transactions. Expected costs are not for immaterial transaction types, such as capacity and item charges.

If only the quantity part of an inventory increase has been posted, then the inventory value in the general ledger does not change unless you have selected the Expected Cost Posting to G/L check box on the Inventory Setup page. In that case, the expected cost is posted to interim accounts at the time of receipt. After the receipt has been fully invoiced, the interim accounts are then balanced and the actual cost is posted to the inventory account.

To support reconciliation and traceability work, the invoiced value entry shows the expected cost amount that has been posted to balance the interim accounts.

Example

The following example shows expected cost if the Automatic Cost Posting check box and the Expected Cost Posting to G/L check box are selected on the Inventory Setup page.

You post a purchase order as received. The expected cost is LCY 95.00.

Value Entries

Posting Date	Entry Type	Cost Amount (Expected)	Expected Cost Posted to G/L	Expected Cost	Item Ledger Entry No.	Entry No.
01-01-20	Direct Cost	95.00	95.00	Yes	1	1

Relation Entries in the G/L – Item Ledger Relation Table

G/L Entry No.	Value Entry No.	G/L Register No.
1	1	1
2	1	1

General Ledger Entries

Posting Date	G/L Account	Account No. (En-US Demo)	Amount	Entry No.
01-01-20	Inventory Accrual Account (Interim)	5530	-95.00	2
01-01-20	Inventory Account (Interim)	2131	95.00	1

At a later date, you post the purchase order as invoiced. The invoiced cost is LCY 100.00.