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Rolling Up Standard Costs

A cost roll-up works out what one unit of a made item costs: the material in its structure, level by level, plus the labour and overhead from its routing. You use it to price a product, to set the standard cost that work orders and standard-costed stock are valued at, and to see which components have no cost at all.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → ERP - Operations:

  • Structures — the console: the Cost roll-up tab
  • Standard Costs — the rolled-up cost rows, one per item and cost version
  • Items — each item's Cost history tab shows its rolled-up costs

Admin Panel → Inventory & Production:

  • Structures — the same console for planners and cost staff

Where each cost comes from

For each component the roll-up uses, in order:

  • rolled up: a sub-assembly is rolled up first, recursively;
  • cost version: a Standard Costs row for the version you chose;
  • item standard cost: the item's own standard (for the "standard" version);
  • current stock cost: the item's current cost (for any other version);
  • NO COST: counted at zero and listed as missing.

Conversion cost comes from the structure's routing if it has one; otherwise from any labour and overhead typed on the item's own cost row.

Rolling up a cost

  1. Open Structures, enter the Item and the Effective on date in the bar, and go to Cost roll-up.
  2. Enter the Cost version. "standard" is the default; use another name (for example "quote-2027") to cost a scenario without touching standards.
  3. For the standard version, decide whether to tick Also make it the item's standard cost and and revalue stock on hand.
  4. Click Roll up cost… and confirm with Roll up. This writes the cost of the item and of every sub-assembly beneath it, replacing their existing costs in that version.
  5. Read the result: Material, Labour, Overhead and Total per unit, then the Cost of one X by component table with quantity, unit cost, extended cost and where each cost came from.

Rolling up needs ERP: Inventory and write access. Validation runs first: a structure with a loop or more than 25 levels is refused, because a roll-up over a loop stores a wrong cost that nothing downstream can spot.

Making it the standard

With Also make it the item's standard cost ticked, the new total becomes the item's standard cost. A standard-costed item with stock on hand keeps its old standard unless you also tick and revalue stock on hand, which re-prices that stock and posts a revaluation journal in the same step (see Stock & Inventory). Work orders created afterwards use the new standard; existing work orders keep theirs.

What goes wrong

  • "Not rolled up - … Fix the structure first": run Validate and remove the loop.
  • Components counted at zero: the warning lists them; give them a standard cost on the Items console.
  • "… Its standard cost was NOT changed: that stock would need revaluing first": tick and revalue stock on hand, or leave the standard alone.
  • "A cost version is a short name of letters, digits, spaces, '.', '_' or '-'."

Worked example

A planner rolls up the standard cost of a pump after a new routing is saved. The result is material 46.90, labour 9.52, overhead 4.98, total 61.40 per unit, with one component marked NO COST. They give that component a standard on the Items console, roll up again (total 62.15), tick both boxes, and the 30 pumps in stock are revalued from 61.40 to 62.15 with a journal of 22.50.

Recommendations

  • Roll up after any structure or routing change.
  • Clear every NO COST line before trusting a total.
  • Use named cost versions for quotes and what-ifs, and keep "standard" for what stock is valued at.
  • Change standards at a period end, with revaluation ticked, so variances compare like with like.