Inventory reconciliation best practices

To get the most accurate results when reconciling inventory between TMT and your financial system, Trimble recommends that you:

Suspend the processing of all orders while you are
- Generating the Inventory reconciliation SSRS reports.
- Closing your accounting periods in TMT Fleet Maintenance (TMT).

If it is not possible to suspend all order processing, you should, at the very least, perform these reconciliation steps during off-peak hours when the system is not processing as many orders in real-time.

Review the Error Trap and correct issues

Open TMT.
Go to Menu > Activities > Accounting > Accounting. The Accounting page opens.
Select Orders - Error. The Export Preview: Error Trap Orders pane should show one of these items:
- The message "No records to display". This means the program has found no order errors.
- Lines for orders that have been captured by the error trap.
If you find errors, you can correct these disbursement issues using the Disbursements tab:
Select Setup in the left navigation pane.
1. Select Disbursements.
2. Use the filters to find your errant disbursement rule and make sure there is a valid account or account structure applied to the rule.
3. Once proper accounts have been applied to the disbursement, return to Export Preview and redisburse the order by selecting the order and clicking the Redisburse button.
4. Repeat this process for any transactions on the Inventory - Error tab.

How the program processes disbursements

When troubleshooting account disbursement issues, it’s vital to understand how the program manages these transactions. The program’s disbursement rules are set in a hierarchy:

The most complex and specific rules are at the bottom.
The simplest and least restrictive rules are at the top.

When processing transactions, the program:

Starts at the bottom: When an order is closed, the program first looks at the rules at the bottom of the hierarchy (that is, the most detailed and specific rules).
Moves upwards: If the program finds no matching rule at the most specific level, it then moves one level up to assess the next set of rules. If the program finds no matching rule at this level, it continues the process, moving up through the hierarchy from more specific to less specific rules.
Selects Base Rule: If the program cycles through all the available rules without finding a match, the program selects the base rule, which moves the disbursement to the error trap. The error trap identifies transactions that cannot be processed due to missing or incorrect information.

Understanding this bottom-up approach is key to troubleshooting account disbursement issues. It helps identify where the process might be failing and what level of rule specificity might need adjustment. Always make sure that the most specific rules are accurately defined and positioned correctly within the hierarchy to prevent transactions from unnecessarily hitting the base rule or error trap.

Review the Export Preview for accuracy

The Export Preview lets you review transactions before you export them to your financial system.

Open TMT.
Go to Menu > Activities > Accounting > Accounting. The Accounting page opens.
Select the Orders - All tab.
Confirm that the results in the grid match the accounts you are expecting the program to update in your financial system upon export.
Repeat this process for the transactions in the Inventory - All tab.

Export your orders from TMT

Using your chosen accounting export process, make sure all closed orders have been exported from TMT and then posted to your financial system.

Complete the Period Close process (optional)

The close accounting period process gives you another tool for understanding variations in your inventory accounts. The process lets you see changes, by shop and inventory account, from one accounting period to the next.

The first time you close a period, the program posts all closed orders in TMT to the first period, regardless of date. The program then directly computes your current inventory value and marks it as your first period’s ending balance.

After you complete the first period close, the program can calculate the period balance for subsequent period closes. These calculations are based on the difference between the previous period’s ending balance and the increases and decreases in your inventory accounts. The program determines these inventory changes from the orders that have been closed and posted to the new period.

It is important to know that the value of a transaction falls into the period when the order was closed, not the period when the order was opened. That is, if an order was started in Period 1, but closed in Period 2, the program posts the transaction value to Period 2, regardless of whether the charge date of the order line fell into Period 1.
All auditing from the period close process is based on the charge date of the order lines, which (in many instances) can be manually edited by a user.

After you close the period, run the Period Close Account Analysis Report. This report lets you drill into the individual order detail, which audits all the order transactions within TMT and the impact on your inventory accounts from within the accounting period. This includes both increases and decreases to your inventory accounts.

There are two ways to run the Period Close Account Analysis Report:

If you are on the Company page Accounting Year tab, you can select the report from the Reports dropdown list.
Go to Menu > Reports > Reports - SSRS > SSRS Report Viewer > Standard Reports > AMS SSRS Report Library > Period Close > Period Close Account Analysis.

Audit your inventory using SSRS reports

You run each of these reports in TMT by going to Menu > Reports > Reports - SSRS > SSRS Report Viewer > Standard Reports > AMS SSRS Report Library, then selecting the specific report as directed.

Run report 1: Accounting > Current Book Value by Inventory

The Current Book Value by Inventory report gives you a snapshot of your current inventory value in TMT. It also outlines the inventory value TMT expects your financial system should have on record (that is, the book value). This report accounts for parts that have been added to or removed from your inventory accounts in TMT but that have not yet been exported to an external accounting system. This means that the parts have affected the real time inventory total that TMT expects you have on the shelf, but the orders these parts are on have not reached a closed status and, therefore, your financial system is not aware yet of these transactions.

Important: Make sure that all closed orders have been exported and posted to your financial system, as this report does not include closed orders or closed receipt totals in its calculations.

Run the report for the selected shop or shops you want to reconcile with your financial system.
Save a copy of the report. This is important because the report is a current snapshot of your inventory. As you resume processing orders, the program will update values in real time. Critical information from the report includes:
- Value: Current inventory value of the parts on the shelf as tracked in TMT.
- Pending Receipts: Parts that have been received to inventory on purchase orders, but where the receipts have not been closed yet and, therefore, have not been exported to accounting.
- Pending Usage: Parts that have been charged out to repair orders, indirect charges, direct sale, and credit sale invoices that have not been closed yet. This value also includes in-transit parts transfers that have not yet been received at the destination shop.
- Book Value: The value of the parts still on the shelf, minus pending receipt parts and plus pending usage parts. When all your closed TMT orders have been posted to your financial software, the TMT Book Value total is the value you want to compare to your Inventory Account Balance of the General Ledger in your financial system.

The last page of the report contains a total summary of all accounts across all shops you ran the report for.

in TMT V.2024.2 and later, drill-down functionality was added to the report. You can select values and get an exact accounting of all the parts and transactions that influenced these values.

Run report 2: Inventory Month End Balances

This report gives you the balance of the particular parts that you had in your inventory on the shelf at the end of the month or accounting period. This does not include adjustments for pending receipts or pending usage parts.

From the AMS SSRS Report Library, select the Part Inventory folder.
Select the Inventory Month End Balances report.
Run the report for the selected shop or shops. Be sure to select the same shops you selected for the Accounting > Current Book Value by Inventory report.
Choose the current month and year or accounting period you want to run the report for.

Run report 3: Historical Part Inventory Listing

This report gives you the balance of particular parts that you had in your inventory on the shelf at the end of a particular date, not necessarily at the end of the month. This does not include adjustments for pending receipts or pending usage parts.

In TMT version 2024.1, we introduced a new database table called ITEMCOSTCONSOLIDATION. At the end of each day, a SQL job populates this table with the total inventory value for each part you are tracking in your inventory. This feature was introduced to report more accurately on historical inventory values for both the Inventory Month End Balance and Historical Part Inventory Listing reports.
In TMT version 2024.2, we then introduced an option called Purge Part Cost Totals Older Than X Months (dbo.ITEMCOSTCONSOLIDATION). You set this option by going to Menu > Setup > Options > Application Options > Inventory.

Due to the large quantity of data collected in this table, the program automatically purges this data on a defined interval. The default is set to 13 months; this lets you keep at least a year of historical inventory data.

Troubleshooting

What to do if inventory values still don’t seem aligned between TMT and your financial system?

Review your TMT version. If you are working with a version from 2023 or earlier, you may want to consider upgrading to a later version.
Complete a full Inventory Count across all shop locations. Through this process, all inventory on the shelf will be counted. You can adjust and correct any discrepancies within TMT.
As soon as you complete and close out the counts, make sure that you have exported all closed orders GL, AP, and AR (including the inventory counts you just processed) from the TMT system and that they have been posted to your financial system.
Run the Current Book Value by Inventory Account SSRS report. The column Book Value in this report is the value that TMT calculates your inventory accounts should contain in your financial system.
At this point, you will have the true count and value of the inventory as reflected in TMT. To get your financial system back in sync, you should complete a manual journal entry to bring the inventory account values in line with the Book Value you received from the Current Book Value by Inventory Account report.
Continue to process transactions and monitor them closely month to month.