Departments

A department groups similar work centers. Departments are like product lines because they are used to organize information on planning reports and to determine the GL accounts on transactions. Each department is set up with a fixed daily labor capacity and a set of GL accounts.

Example: A manufacturer of sunglasses has a department for lens fabrication with several work centers for lens grinding and lens polishing. A separate department does lens coating.

The department load reports in the Capacity Requirements Planning (CRP) module use the department labor capacity when calculating the total department capacity for a period of time. The labor capacity should correspond to the sum of the total capacities of all work centers in the department.

Department account codes are similar to the GL account codes for product lines. They are used:

• When reporting labor and downtime in the Shop Floor Control and Repetitive modules

• When backflushing inventory and closing the accounting for completed work orders

A department code is independent of the GL accounts, sub-accounts, and cost centers defined for it. In the General Ledger module, cost center codes are often used to organize transactions by department. However, you do not have to use the same code for the cost center and department.

Department GL Accounts lists the accounts for a department, the account type, and the transactions where the account is used. All department accounts must be of GL type Standard.


Account	Type	Use
Cost of Production	Expense	Non-Prod Labor, SFC Transfer
Labor (Absorbed)	Expense	SFC, Repetitive, WO Close
Burden (Absorbed)	Expense	SFC, Repetitive, WO Close
Labor Usage Variance	Expense	SFC, Repetitive
Labor Rate Variance	Expense	SFC, Repetitive, WO Receipt
Burden Usage Variance	Expense	SFC, Repetitive
Burden Rate Variance	Expense	SFC, Repetitive, WO Receipt

Use Department Maintenance (14.1) to set up departments. You must define at least one department before setting up work centers or routings.

Account numbers default from Domain/Account Control (36.9.24). The Default Sub-Account/Cost Center and Override fields let you enter the same sub-account or cost center code for all accounts in a department. These fields are useful if you use standard account codes, but differentiate departments with sub-accounts or cost centers.