Product Definition
Product Definition contains the product configuration screens and functions that are used in Purchasing, Inventory, and Procurement Planning. Product Definition is an add-on product used in conjunction with Purchasing and/or Inventory.
You can use the Manage Parts, Manage Goods, and Manage Services screens to define the characteristics of an item (part, good, or service). You can also use the Manage Provisional Parts screen to create and maintain provisional part information for planning purposes in other Costpoint functions. You can also establish provisional part data in Materials Estimating.
Control tables and screens are available in which commodity codes, product types, product classifications, units of measure and conversion, standard text, part preference types, and manufacturers can be managed. The Manage Parts screen contains descriptive information, material planning data and project data about a part, and information for alternate and substitute parts.
You can also maintain item-specific information including standard text, vendors, item cost, and item cost for projects in this module.
Multicompany and Multicurrency Logic
Product Definition's multicompany and multicurrency logic enables you to link specific items (parts, goods, and/or services) to a company in Costpoint. If you select the Separate Items By Company check box (ITEM_SETTINGS_CORP. ITEMS_BY_COMP_FL) in the Corporate Settings block on the Configure Product Definition Settings screen, newly added items are automatically linked to the company of the user entering the items in Costpoint. Users that are logged in to other companies cannot use these items. It is possible to have two item records with the same ID (and revision, if the Allow Multiple Revisions for Each Item check box is also selected in the Corporate Settings block) in the database, as long as they are linked to different companies.
If you do not select the Separate Items by Company check box, all items in the database are available to users in all companies; therefore, two items cannot have the same item ID (or item ID/revision, if you selected the Allow Multiple Revisions check box). In this case, the Item table is treated as a corporate table, and 1 is the new default company (COMPANY_ID) for all new items.
The Configure Product Definition Settings application contains all the company settings (ITEM_SETTINGS table) for the company ID in which the user is logged, as well as all the corporate-wide settings (ITEM_SETTINGS_CORP table). You can view these settings, but you can modify them only if your user ID is linked to the assigned company.
The Commodity Codes and User-Defined Labels tables are also separated by company if you select the Separate Items by Company check box. In this case, only commodity codes or labels linked to the same company as the item can be assigned to that item. If you do not select the Separate Items by Company check box, commodity and user-defined labels are considered corporate tables, and 1 is the default ID for new companies.
Standard Text is always a company table. Users can create, modify, and assign only those standard text codes that are linked to their company ID. Documents and their associated setup tables are created in Bills of Material.
Units of Measure, Manufacturers, Product Types/Classifications, Part Preference Types, Price Catalogs and Industry Classifications are corporate tables, and the data for these tables is available to users in all companies.
The company ID is added to the Item Cost (ITEM_CST) table as a primary key so that items can be used across multiple companies (that is, the Separate Items by Company check box is not selected), and each company can have a different cost (and currency) associated with the item. Users can view and/or modify item costs only for their company. However, since a project can belong to only one company, the company ID is not added to the Project Item Cost table. Users can view only the projects linked to their company.
Sales Abbreviations are tied to specific companies. Users can see only those sales abbreviations linked to their company ID.