The inventory parts are not showing up in the service for intercompany flow.

Just to add, to simplify the materials setup, it would be good to make purchase parts visible automatically on the Payment Lines on the Contractor Orders if the connected part already has the supplier for purchase part record and supplier agreements. This means customers will not need to do extra admin by setting up supplier for purchase part records and the service contractors purchase part records for all materials. This is particularly important when contractors can supply 100s different parts on the job. This also would mean there is no need to setup the “default” purchase part on the service contractor record for the material cost type as associated inventory part from the Materials tab should be the default purchase part for the payment line (works the same way as sales part gets automatically populated on the Sales tab after the inventory part is issued on the Request Task).

Hi Erika, thanks for the question and for the detail on the setup burden — we are looking at how to improve contractor material charging so customers can reuse existing supplier prices without duplicating purchase parts.

To make sure I am in the correct context: can you just confirm whether the contractor is another IFS company in the same environment (one company owns the customer, another executes the work), or an external supplier that happens to be set up in the same IFS instance? 

Hi Matt,

It’s actually both.

I have scenario where there are 2 companies within the same IFS environment where one is a service contractor for another. In this scenario the service contractor provides both labour and materials on the Request Task meaning we need to move materials from one company warehouse location to another. Intercompany financial transactions should be accommodated for both companies - revenue should come to the service contractor company for materials and labour sold (supplier company invoices receiving company), but also should take into account the cost of these materials and labour. Receiving company should pay service contractor’s company for materials/labour (cost) and invoice external customer to get revenue.

I also have examples where the external supplier is used as service contractor and provides both materials and labour on the Request Task. This external supplier is not using IFS and just receives a PO from IFS to do the job. With the current solution I cannot have 1 PO for both materials and labour however the desired improvement is that the external supplier would receive 1 PO for all things they provide (materials, labour, expenses) for a single job. 

Thanks Erika — that helps a lot. These are two different processes then. You know this already, but just to reiterate for wider audiences:

For External suppliers, one PO covering labour, contractor-sourced materials, and expenses is the intended model. Payment Lines today use a non-inventory purchase part so the PO is a payment, not a stock receipt. We are looking at using the physical inventory part as a price reference so the existing Supplier for Purchase Part / Supplier Agreement prices can be reused (this would hopefully give confidence to the scenario that a single PO could be used that was accurate on agreed inventory part prices).

For Intercompany, moving stock between the two companies’ warehouses is an inventory transfer. Charging labour (and optionally materials) between companies is the Contractor Order. If the same material is transferred and also put on a Payment Line, it is charged twice. Material demand therefore stays operational in the executing company; Intercompany Payment Lines are the agreed service recharge, not the stock move. Combining warehouse transfer and material revenue on one Contractor Order would be a separate enhancement to the above. Something that we can look at in detail once we’ve investigated it properly.

Appreciate your patience and support in moving this forward. For the stock move between the two companies in your scenario, should cost follow the inventory value on the transfer, or should the executing company be paid an agreed/sales price for the material as well?

The way I see it is that the supplier company cost should be the inventory value but the executing company cost is whatever executing company paid to supplier company (often you get special discounts between companies e.g. 40% off sales value). So cost on the executing company should really come from the PO to the supplier company. Which I believe it works like that already for the intercompany labour cost/PO from contractor order, just doesn’t accommodate materials.