Similar to the demand forecasting question; just trying to get a discussion going.
Who uses standard costing? How often do you roll standards? Do you use the AX calculation and make adjustments through the UI, or do you export the results to Excel and review before activating a new costing version?
-Jake
[mention:713992e2cc394574827989c4d4af9bbb:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] should know something about that! 
I had a feeling he might…
Hi
Sorry away on a large go-live and have not really been on any forums.
In the last 5 years I have seen a move away from the traditional approach of standardising costs for a period and then accounting on variances. Modern systems give businesses an accurate realtime view of the costs. Even in the traditional heartland of manufacturing there has been a trend to move from standard. As such in the last 8 years I have never had to implement standard costing in full. I have one at the moment which is a “fluid” standard and they will roll this monthly, but the machine is a standard template, they always build “options” and therefore they cost by fifo but have a separate costing version to enable them to report to a standard item. They roll monthly and simply update the cost with the current material costs. Indirects are fixed on what is known and little cost analysis goes on although they are reviewed annually given the variance analysis so a template item. Everything I have read and understood sees people use the AX calculation, but then you need to decide on any indirects which AX does not do, although I am not a finance consultant and have never implemented cost accounting which may imply something in this area but I am sure I read a long time ago it does not.
In reality any business wanting to go standard and had good business reasons I would obviously support, the time period to adjust costs is defined by the business. Traditionally for me this was always annually because of the work that went into the cost. There would be a lot of this done outside of the system but again this related to the fluid calculations of the indirects, raw materials and labour they can monitor and reflect so the calculation is re-run and then the costing sheet altered. However I have not had to do that so far so I would have to wait and see.
Hey Adam,
Yeah. Good points. I’ve seen people use both - standard costing or one of the other costing methodologies.
Have you used the costing sheet at all? Since AX 2009, the costing sheet has been the preferred way to handle indirect costs and surcharges. It’s sort of a crappy form, though, and not particularly intuitive or easy to use. R3 also has a new report that’s helpful for determining what the previous active is, what the proposed active is, and how inventory might change.
Also, I think the cost accounting module is now being deprecated as of AX 7 - we won’t have worry about trying to figure it out anymore!
Jake
Hi Jake
Yes use the costing sheet all of the time. The issue I find is explaining it, I always thought it was easy to understand and I am not a finance consultant, I suppose it helps I was an early adopter and we modelled it to a very specific level with the customer.
Costing accounting module I have never touched