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ERP Reference Data and Creating Records in Place

ERP records choose many of their values from short lists: units of measure, customer classes, accounting books, account types. These lists now have a section of their own in the Architect Panel, so you can add your own values without searching through every datastore. The ERP consoles can also create the one record they are blocked on without sending you elsewhere.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → ERP - Reference Data:

  • Units of Measure — units items are counted, weighed and timed in, with their conversion to a base unit
  • Customer Classes — how customers are grouped for pricing, credit and reporting
  • Asset Classes — fixed asset classes and their default treatment
  • Depreciation Methods — straight line, reducing balance and the other methods
  • Expense Categories — what an expense claim line can be for
  • Absence Types — holiday, sickness and the other reasons time is booked as absence
  • Location Types — warehouse, bin, quarantine, in transit
  • ABC Classes — stock classes for count frequency and replenishment
  • Inspection Types — goods-in, in-process and final inspections
  • Severities — how serious a non-conformance is
  • Structure Types — bills of material, routings and the other structure kinds
  • WBS Levels — the levels of a project work breakdown
  • Cost Types — labour, materials, subcontract
  • Dimension Types — the analysis dimensions postings and reports can be cut by
  • Accounting Books — local statutory, IFRS, US GAAP, tax, management
  • Account Types — asset, liability, equity, income and expense

Adding your own values

  1. Open the tile for the list you need, for example Customer Classes.
  2. Add a row with a code and a name. Keep the code short and stable: records store the choice, and reports group by it.
  3. Use the enabled flag to retire a value rather than deleting it, so records that already use it keep a readable label.
  4. Open the record screen that uses the list and check the new value appears in its picker.

The shipped values are shared by every company. A tile appears only when the list is installed on your system.

Lists with no tile

Some lists look similar but are not yours to extend: document statuses, access levels, account roles, period statuses and cash-flow categories. The engines act on their codes, so a value added by hand would do nothing. They are deliberately left without a tile. Two finance lists are edited elsewhere:

  • Statement headings (revenue, cost of sales, current assets and so on) are renamed on Ledger & Finance, Chart of accounts tab, Statement headings…. You can change the wording a statement prints, not add or remove a heading.
  • VAT Box Mapping is under ERP - Finance; see Tax & VAT.

Creating the record a console is blocked on

An ERP console often depends on a record it does not own. Ledger & Finance cannot post without accounts; ERP Analytics needs measures; PunchOut needs a supplier. Where that record is missing, the console's empty state now carries a button such as Add an account or Add a supplier. It opens the platform's own create form for that datastore in a window over the console, with the same fields, sections and field security as its tile. Save it and the console refreshes with the new record in place.

Some dead ends need a screen rather than one new row, such as granting access on Entity Permissions. There the console offers an Open button to that screen instead.

The button is only shown when it will work: the datastore is registered, has fields, and your security group may add to it. Otherwise you see the console's original instructions, which say who can do it.

Worked example

A business that sells by the pallet opens Units of Measure and adds PAL, converting to 48 of the base unit EA. It then opens Customer Classes and adds TRADE and RETAIL so pricing can tell them apart. Later, a new company opens Ledger & Finance before its chart exists; the warning carries Add an account, the controller adds the bank account there and then, and imports the rest of the chart from the template.

Recommendations

  • Agree list values before go-live. Renaming a code later leaves records grouped under the old one.
  • Retire, do not delete. A deleted value leaves records pointing at nothing.
  • Leave the engine lists alone. If a list has no tile, the engine owns it.
  • Grant Add New on the datastores your administrators need if you want them to see the create buttons.