The purchasing cost source history app allows you to view and sometimes edit the cost source history which is generally used for purchased part cost estimating. Click on the relevant main menu to access Purchase Cost Source history.

Here you will see a list of all purchased part cost source history items or materials/part numbers on:

• Purchase orders
• Contracts and long term supplier agreements
• Supplier quotation responses to RFQs
• Manual cost estimates such as cost analyses and cost/price analyses (CAPAs)

The most important columns annotated above - though you can of course modify the columns in view - are:

1. The category or kind of purchasing document per the bullet-point list above
2. The purchasing document number (all items on a single contract or PO or quotation share the same document number)
3. The part number or product/service which was ordered etc.
4. The description of the cost source item, which normally is the same as the product or service text
5. The supplier the order or quotation was for
6. Your company or segment (or purchasing organization) which created this contract, PO or quotation
   • You can also see the site or department (often = SAP plant code) and buyer
7. The unit price or cost of one quantity on this cost source. For purchasing documents which have date ranges or quantity scales, outlined below, this is the latest, highest quantity of all the price conditions
8. The pricing or delivery date for this document. The following dates are tracked separately:
   • When the pricing data is valid until
   • When the pricing data should be escalated from for inflation calculation purposes
   • When the overall contract or quotation is valid until (must be ordered before this date to be valid)
   • When the expected or actual delivery date is for the ordered products or services
   • When the cost source or purchasing document was created in iPE, or interfaced from SAP
9. For supplier quotation responses, they will normally reference an RFX or request for quotation number, which is the request created in the system and sent to suppliers to respond to. All supplier responses to the same request will share the same RFX number
10. A checkbox to indicate if the cost source was created manually in iPE vs. interfaced over from SAP
11. A checkbox to indicate if the purchase cost source was a commercially priced item. A commercially priced item is something with a readily available catalog price which provides proof the cost is reasonable
12. Any remarks or notes

There are additional columns which you can unhide for buyer, commodity, estimating cost source code, purchasing document type, award type (competitive/sole-sourced), contract type (fixed, cost-plus etc.), proposal number and whether the cost source is specific to one proposal, indicators for subcontract or parts provided, minimum or maximum quantity or upper range of pricing, revision, and document status.

You can filter this view to only shows cost sources for certain part numbers or commodity codes, buyers, site/departments or company/segments, document categories, types, award or contract types, dates, suppliers or estimating cost source codes.

Click on any document to open its details or items as shown below.

The first tab you will see is the key info or header tab of the cost source, showing attributes which apply to all the line items below. As annotated in the screen capture above you can view or edit:

1. The type of purchase order, contract, supplier quotation or manual cost estimate this is. Type is also used for automatic cost source numbering of manually created cost sources in iPE
2. The document number, imported from SAP or another procurement/sourcing tool, or automatically assigned by iPE for manually created cost sources
3. The supplier you are procuring these products or services from
4. The overall pricing date for the document as a whole
5. The buyer responsible for this supplier or product grouping
6. The requester who originally requested these products or services, or requested a manual cost estimate
7. The valid from and until for a contract, long term agreement or supplier RFQ response
8. The company or segment and site/department or SAP plant code for this document. Site/department can vary from item to item within the same purchasing document (see below)
9. The purchasing document version or revision. Multiple revisions of a purchase order or contract might be created for example to indicate changes in commercial or technical requirements being procured
10. Indicates whether this cost source was created manually in iPE or imported directly from SAP
11. Currency of the items in this cost source
12. Estimating source code for this document. Estimating sources are set up in discussion with your implementation consultant and mapped in the purchasing cost source interface from SAP/sourcing tools. They are used to limit the cost source history applicable to each estimating cost source in the costing hierarchy
13. Award type e.g. sole-sourced or competitive bid
14. Indicates whether parts are being provided to this supplier to do further work on (subcontract)
15. If this cost source was created for a specific proposal it can be indicated here. Cost sources created for a specific proposal can be proposal-specific or not permitted to use for other proposals (for example, before they contain proposal-specific terms making the cost useless on other proposals) or they can be created for a specific proposal but generally applicable to all proposals. Proposal-specific cost source prices are always selected in preference to generic cost sources
16. You can upload RFX etc. files such as quality/technical/engineering requirements documents, terms and conditions etc.
17. You can also maintain specific purchasing notes or remarks.

Click on the Items tab to see the list of products, services or commodity codes being procured.

Here you can see the list of items or products/services ordered on this purchase order, contract or supplier quotation, with columns for:

1. Add/delete or copy row - which is only available if you are authorized and for cost sources manually created in iPE
2. The item number
3. The product or service code ordered or quoted. When there is no product or service code, the commodity code + description is used instead to identify what is being ordered or quoted
4. Description, which defaults to the product/service code or commodity code text, but can be further edited here (when authorized)
5. The valid from-to dates for the item, if it has a valid from-to. Validity is managed on the pricing conditions (below) as well as for contracts and supplier quotations, on the header (above)
6. The quantity ordered on a purchase order. For contracts and quotations spanning a range of quantities you will need to drill down to the Pricing Conditions tab to see the different quantity scales
7. The delivery date for a purchase order
8. The site or department (often = SAP plant) the parts are being or were delivered to
9. The unit price of the purchase order item. Drill down to the Price Conditions tab for contracts and quotations spanning a range of prices for different validity dates or pricing volumes/quantities

You can also unhide columns for escalate/adjust for inflation based on anticipated PO placement date instead of delivery date, minimum buy quantity or lot-size/multiple of, maximum quantity of highest pricing condition, pricing and escalation from date, quantity adjustment factor for estimating cost for quantities mid-way between pricing scales, RFX number for supplier quotation responses, indicators for subcontract, drop-shipment item or commercially priced item, status and proposal specific quotations or manual cost estimates.

Either clicking on the Pricing tab or clicking on the coins icon for any item showing the different pricing conditions or quantity scales/date ranges for all items (Pricing tab) or just the one item (Coins icon).

The pricing tab has mainly columns for the different price conditions in SAP or your procurement system, across the range of valid from-to periods (also called date ranges) and quantity from-to ranges (also called quantity scales). Most price conditions are for the unit price meaning the price for one unit, with total cost increasing in proportion to the quantity of the item. 

You can also maintain non-recurring and recurring special charges or non-unit based fees, such as supplier certification, test, design, engineering or shipping fees which are not part of the unit cost. These special charges are indicated through a special charge type, and optionally an SAP condition code, as either:

• Non-recurring special charges normally apply only to the first instance of a purchase order for a given product or service. Subsequent buys for the same product or service do not incur non-recurring fees
• Recurring special charges apply to each and every purchase order for a given product or service, but are not dependent on the quantity ordered as they are flat-fee charges. So one purchase order for 100 pieces will incur one recurring special charge whereas two purchase orders for 50 pieces each will incur two recurring special charges each one for the same amount, i.e. double the fee in total.

While you can unhide columns in the pricing tab for view-only data inherited from the items tab such as product or service code, description etc., the main columns in this tab comprise:

1. Item or sequence number of the price condition (optional)
2. Price validity dates (from-to) or when the price is valid. Escalation or inflation is normally calculated from the valid-to date of the price condition. There is technically a separate (currently hidden) column for the escalation date which is by default set in the interface from SAP as the valid-to date for pricing which spans a year or less or the mid-point of the valid from-to dates for price conditions which span more than one year. Negative escalations (inflation adjustment for future prices) are not calculated
3. Quantity range or how many parts the price is valid for. Per unit pricing is typically fixed at the unit price given in this table for any quantity required between the from-to range, with pricing for quantities below the minimum and above the maximum quantity determines based on the quantity curves applicable. You can optionally indicate how quantities between the from-to range should be priced or adjusted based on these scales, from the Quantity Adjustment Factor in the Items list above
4. SAP condition code is used to identify which pricing condition the price came from within SAP, to help identify the exact cost source within your SAP ERP system. There is only one unit price condition applicable but you can have multiple special charge (recurring/non-recurring flat fees) price conditions
5. Special charge type is for non-unit based prices or flat-fees which can be recurring or non-recurring as explained above.