We are running Baan 4c4 and use Cost Items to invoice special charges to our customers. These cost may be a setup charge, surcharge, dunnage or freight cost to name a few.

Because we have many warehouses we ship from, we have defined dimension 1 of our GL accounts as the Warehouse. Therefore, many of these cost items require a warehouse in order to integrate properly.

Baan has never let us add the warehouse to the Sales Order Line. So as a result, we setup duplicate cost items for each warehouse. (setup-charge-wh1,setup-charge-wh2, etc).

We then use session tfgld4121m000 to define dimension1 for integrated sales transactions for each of these cost items. We would assign Dim1 to be wh1 for item setup-charge-wh1 etc.

Although this works, it does result in needing to define 8 items where we would only need 1 if we were allowed to define the warehouse on the order line.

I do not understand why Baan will not allow the warehouse field for cost items.

Moving on, we actually run nas0 (supply chain).

In supply chain, when you create a supply chain delivery, a sales order is created for invoicing. Cost items can then be added to the sales order prior to invoicing as needed. However, you cannot add cost items to a supply chain delivery. You can only define “Special Charges”.

Supply chain only allows special charge for Setup, Tooling, Packing, Freight, Other and Clause 92 (whatever that is). Item numbers are related via parameters for each special charge. As with any cost item, you cannot define a warehouse for a cost item. At the same time, we cannot use session tfgld4121m000 to define a dimension for the warehouse because the item setup-charge would be used for all 8 of our warehouses. This will cause integration to fail because of the missing dimension.

I do not have a workaround for this problem and Baan seems firm in not allowing you to specify the warehouse the cost is to be attached to at the sales order level.

Can anyone explain why it is improper to define the warehouse for a cost item?

The reason that Baan doesn't have warehouse is quite simple as Baan assumes that it is not stored as inventory. Actually, one solution can be- Define one cost item and then define 8 item groups. When you create a cost item line choose the appropriate item group. You can drive the integration via item group. I guess, you don't get benefit, but atleast it will let you define single item, and I feel it is better than creating 8 items. This will call for a minor customization, but it will work

Arvind Patil