IMINVHST Bogus Data?

[AKPolarBear]

I am seeing what appears to be bogus data the QTY_Sold_xx fields. I cannot get supporting data from other Macola reports to verify it.

What I am seeing can be found in the Inventory Item History report. In this case, period 10 shows 3 items sold. None of the other OE sales reports shows this data.

What I suspect is that this is old prior period data from a previous year. Compounding the problem, is that the item location is no longer used and was deleted but the data remains. In fact, another location is also listed that has not been used for 3 - 4 years. All those fields have zero's in them.

We have had some human errors with end of month procedures as in the forgetting to or doing it twice when it came to clearing accumulators. As it is, period 10 is for 9/05. I have other reports based on this and its a hassle to keep them straight. I am converting those reports to calculate the data independently.

The issue I have to resolve is to get all that non valid data out. We base royalty payments on those periods using the sold and usage fields that are dumped into a spreadsheet. Having the wrong number could cost somebody a lot of headaches.

How do I clear out or get Macola to put zeros in the non valid fields? Or is there some other process to clean it up? How do I remove locations that are no longer valid and the history is more than 1 or 2 years old and no longer relevant?

I did read up at Macola's site and understand that these fields are not date driven or date validated.

Sigh, I think this is the first time I have found a Macola report provide bad information.

 

[NEmacGuy]

You are correct in your information. The item period history tables IMINVHST is populated when you run the clear accumulators. It posts to the period listed the IM setup file, then advances that period ahead one month (adds 1 until the max period then resets to 1, up to 24 periods). The location accumulator data is written to the file as an append / update. If an item is deleted it will not be removed from the file. For this data to be correct, you should not delete any item, especaily before you process one complete inventory cycle, else you run the risk if having information that is not accurate. Processing an entire inventory cycle with no data, will write zero's to all of the period data for the item.
Well back to real world, you will need to maintain the data some way outside of the system. I have used SQL update statements, Microsoft Acccess, and Cobol source code in the past. Many clients would clear their last period of the year as a month end,then run a year end clear. This counts as two months. I use to have a program to recalc the IM,AR, IM history file, and OESLSHST based on the IMTRXFIL and OEHDRHST AND OELINHST file we stopped updating the code at 7.5.102e and have since lost our code and coder. It was a slick utility except AR sales transactions caused the AR accumulators problems. We have always advised clients if it effects sales, process it thru OE!

Having said all of that, if you do attemp to adjust your data, be very careful. Backup, and think everything out. I might even call the file a lose, and change to reporting off of the OEHDRHST and OELINHST. None inventory items never hit the IMINVHST.

Regards