Production orders may have many stages or long cycles during the build process. If you need to consume subassemblies or components prior to building the order, rather than simply committing the inventory, you may want to use the Work in Process (WIP) procedure to assist.
Templates
When an assembly item regularly follows this procedure, you may want to assign a General Ledger WIP Account and a phase on the Template, for subassemblies and components that are consumed prior to building. Having a WIP Account assigned is required to indicate that Work in Process can be performed on the detail. Adding a Phase to a line will automatically assign the WIP account from the default that is defined in Company Settings and the Production section.
Build Phase
When a production order is created, all WIP information from the template will be brought over. You can also edit order components to add or adjust or remove this information.
To create Work in Process, from the Build button, there is an additional Build Phase selection where you choose to process and consume all components that have a Build Phase equal to the current Phase of the order. For expanded subassemblies, the sub-components are included in Work in Process as assigned to the subassembly.
This brings up a confirmation screen that shows the phase and date when this Work in Process will be posted.
After the Build Phase is complete, the subassemblies and components are consumed, marked with a check mark to indicate the status, and the WIP Built On populated with the date. If the phase built is configured to have a Next Phase, that will also be incremented at the same time. If the status of the order had previously been Open, using Build Phase will update the status to In Progress. This includes committing quantity for all components not consumed in this first phase, if the User Setting to Automatically Commit is enabled. It is typical to disable this user setting when using Work in Process procedures, but you are not prevented from doing so.
Build Phase not only consumes the components, but also creates a General Ledger transaction to debit the associated WIP account, and credit the Inventory account.
Build Selected
It is possible to use Work in Process without requiring a Phase. Ensure the WIP Account field has a value, then highlight one component and use the Build Selected button to perform the same procedure as Build Phase. This immediately performs the build without any other prompts or screens.
Continue through all required phases in the same manner. Note that if you use the Next Phase button instead of Build Phase, this will simply increment the order phase and bypass any WIP phases defined on the components.
Final Build
When you are ready to Build the production order, the final Ledger transaction will credit the WIP account(s) and net postings from this order to zero.
When production orders exist with Work in Process components, the Reports tab has two reports that list them, grouped either by Order number or WIP Account. The WIP Account report is used to reconcile amounts to each respective Ledger account balance.
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