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Nine Finance, Cost Accounting and Reporting Processes Running Automatically
IDWs automate Invoicing Job creation, Cost accounting updates, Forecast and Weekly Sales Reports across Global Shop Solutions ERP and connected Reporting platforms.
Client Overview
A family-owned precision manufacturing company specializing in custom-machined components and robotic systems for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). The finance operations rely on Global Shop Solutions ERP, SAP Crystal Reports, Rocket CorVu, and Microsoft Excel to manage billing, job costing, forecasting, and operational reporting.
The Challenge
The IDW Solution
Intelligent automation across the entire workflow
1 Invoicing and Job Creation
The IDW automatically creates customer invoices, generates statements in Global Shop Solutions ERP, and creates new jobs from incoming spreadsheets; populating each sales order with appropriate job, project, and part information before notifying staff upon completion.
2 Order and Cost Updates
The IDW updates order bill dates and refreshes job cost data in the ERP using figures from Excel spreadsheets, retrieving the right order and line records and writing the correct values into each field. It adds any missing cost groups and updates labor hours and rates so the underlying data stays current, ensuring cost accounting data remains accurate for downstream reporting.
3 Forecast and Cost-to-Complete Reporting
The IDW reads job and project details from summary sheets and updates the forecast workbook, pulling source reports from SAP Crystal Report and Rocket CorVu, mapping the data into standardized forecast workbooks, and automatically populating monthly reporting.
4 Weekly Sales and Shipping Report
Every week, the IDW retrieves sales and shipping information from Global Solutions ERP, calculates margins and costs, validates pricing, prepares the final management report, and distributes automatically.
Visual Process Breakdown
Smart Validation Logic
Data retrieval
Retrieves job, order, and line records from the ERP using validated system queries, returning the exact records needed for each task.
Field extraction
Reads the key figures from the Excel sources and writes them into the correct fields.
Cost and forecast updates
Updates material, labor, and cost values for each group and project, adding any missing groups so the forecast workbook stays complete.
Margin and pricing checks
Validates margins, costs and pricing against the source records before publishing reports.
Report Assembly
Copies the source reports into the workbook, maps them to the right columns, and confirms the current month's data populates correctly.
Exception Handling
Flags missing records, empty values, and discrepancies for staff review before any updates or reports are finalized.
Systems & Integrations
Business Outcomes
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This automation pattern applies to manufacturers that manage job costing, cost accounting, forecasting, production reporting, and customer billing within ERP environments, including engineered-products operations: custom machining, industrial equipment, robotics, automotive, aerospace, fabricated metals, and engineer-to-order manufacturers.