What's the Cost Cutoff Date?

Cost Cutoff Date is a new feature that is available in Oracle Applications 11.5.
7 (DMF Family Pack G).  This functionality is developed to allow businesses the
option of changing labor rates and overhead rates at the beginning of the
accounting period while transactions in the next period wait for these new
costs to be completed.  This feature exists for all the perpetual cost types
available in 11.5: Standard, Average, FIFO and LIFO.  This will allow period
close, cost updates, and rate changes to occur without impacting or
interrupting business operations.

When using the Cost Cutoff Date, all cost processing for the new accounting
period is stopped for that organization.  This allows the accountants the
opportunity to close the previous period.  Once the new costs are set, then the
costing is started for the new period.  This occurs by changing the cost cutoff
date to a date in the future.

To use this functionality, the Cost Cutoff Date field must be populated with a
date.  This is in the Organization Parameters form. 

The Navigation Path is Inventory > Setup > Organization Parameters >
Costing Tab.

If this field is left blank, then the old cost processing will occur.  If the
field is populated, then no processing of costs will occur from that date
onwards.  The cost cutoff date will use midnight as the start of the period and
also inventory quantities are recorded at midnight.

With this new functionality, the Standard Cost Update can now run in one
organization while other organizations are still costing transactions. 
Standard Cost Workers are launched based on organization, so this improves the
speed of costing transactions.

To use this Feature:

For standard costing organizations if the start of the new costs is to be
January 1 2003, that is the date that is entered.  New standard costs can then
be established prior to January 2003, in December 2002 for example. These costs
will not impact the December costing activities as they will not be active
until Jan 1 2003.  No transactions that occur after the start of the day
January 1, 2003 are costed.  This will allow the accountants to complete the
costing for the December transactions, close the period, and run the reports
for review.

A standard cost update can be performed using the new cost type for January
2003.  This will update the cost of the costed items up to the end of the day
(midnight) December 31, 2002.  The reports can then be rerun with the same
quantity and newly updated costs.  Still NO January 2003 transactions will be
costed.  This is true whether it takes a few days in the next period or a few
weeks to finish the costing of the previous period.  The uncosted transactions
will remain in the MTL_MATERIAL_TRANSACTIONS with costed_flag = N waiting for a
cost worker to process them.  The Cost Manager will spawn no cost worker until
the Cutoff Date is changed.

To cost the January 2003 transactions once December 2002 is properly closed,
the Cost Cutoff Date is changed.  This can be changed to the start of the next
period or next quarter or next year---whenever the rates need to be changed
next.  Once changed the cost processing begins for the transactions that have
been waiting.  For standard costs the processing of the transactions is
immediate.  For Average, FIFO, and LIFO costing the process takes longer
because of the need to process the transactions sequentially to keep the costs
accurate.

For Average, FIFO, LIFO cost organizations , Rate Cost Types are created and
the old rates are copied to that new cost type.  This rate will not be used for
cost processing until the Cost Cutoff Date is changed.  The cost type and the
cutoff date need to be changed to allow the new costs to be used and the
transactions can be processed for the new period.

For Shipping transactions, the costs also use the cutoff date.  The shipment in
the new period will be uncosted.  If another organization receives the shipment,
the receipt will also be uncosted.  .
This is due to the fact that the
receiving transaction requires the accounting distribution from the sending
organization.  In standard costing, once the cutoff date is changed, the
shipments are costed immediately.  In Average FIFO LIFO costing, the first
uncosted transactions will cause an error.  Once the cost cutoff date is
changed and the errored transaction reset, the transaction will be costed first
for the shipment and then for the receipt.  All subsequent transactions will
then be processed as well.

***Important  Note***
If this functionality is not required or desired, the Cost Cutoff Date field
must be BLANK.  If there is a date entered in that field, no costing will occur
on transactions for that organization from that date onwards..