LocPlus MLS has some powerful features that can assist you in tracking equipment costs. Using these features require that you enter and maintain all costs and income.

For each piece of equipment there are several cost figures.

PRICE:
The asking price for the item. This will be the default price for any quote prepared. You may override this price after you create the quote.

ESTIMATED INCOME:
This field is for informational information only. It is intended to be a 'best guess' as to the actual selling price. This estimate could help you evaluate your transaction. It could also be placed in a report so that could evaluate the income 'potential' of your inventory.

ESTIMATED EXPENSE:
This field is also for information only. Like the 'Estimated Income' it is intended to be a 'best guess' to aid you when evaluating your purchase.

REPLACEMENT COST:
Again this information is for informational purposes only. You can place the cost of a NEW item. It may help you to evaluate how you want to market the item.

EQUIPMENT COSTS:
You may detail the actual costs (and income) of every item you sell. To be accurate, all income and expense transactions must be entered. Information is only as good as what is entered into the computer.

Because this can provide an accurate analysis of each items profitability, entering actual equipment cost can be valuable to some dealers. There are four types of transactions that together determine equipment profitability. They are Purchase Costs, Labor Costs, Adjustments, and Sales invoice (INCOME).

If you are going to track actual equipment profitability, then you have to enter transactions for each of the four types of transactions listed above. The following is a list of each of the costs with some pointers about how to use them. All of the costs are accessible from the "EQUIPMENT INFORMATION" window. Select the "COST / MISC." tab on the bottom half of the window.

Previously entered income and costs for an item will be displayed in the grid titled "EQUIPMENT COSTS (DOUBLE-CLICK TO VIEW DETAIL)" in the middle of the tab section. The column titled "TYPE" indicates the type of cost listed below. If you want to view (or change) the detail for any of income or cost, you may point the mouse at that line and double-click with the mouse. To add a new income or cost press the button to the right of the grid.

PURCHASE COST (PURCH):
Anytime you purchase equipment, parts, or services for your equipment, you should enter the cost under this option. This should include any transaction that can be specifically attributed to the item. It could include the initial purchase, freight, rigging, storage, repair, and rebuilding.

You can enter the date, your P.O. number, the vendors invoice number, and the vendor you purchased equipment, parts, or services from. It obviously is important to enter a date, description, and amount for the data to be useful. Entering the vendor and other information should be useful to you, but is not mandatory. If you do enter the vendor, the cost may be crossed reference from the vendor.

LABOR COSTS (LABOR):
Anytime one of your employees works on some equipment, you can track a cost for that employees time. You should first make sure every employee that works on equipment is setup in the LocPlus MLS User file. Put a labor rate in the user file so that you don't have to enter in a rate for each work order processed. To setup employees, from the menu bar select "TOOLS / SETUP INFORMATION". Pick "LocPlus MLS USER SETUP". Make sure you enter a code, person's name, and labor rate. If that person should not use LocPlus MLS software, then assign a password and set all the security levels to 0.

To enter a labor cost you really only need a date, description, number of hours, and cost per hour. A work order and employee can be a benefit to you. Include time spent for unloading, cleaning, painting, repair, or just moving equipment around. You should include any cost that can be directly attributed to a piece of equipment.

ADJUSTMENT (GLADJ):
Adjustments are used to move income or costs from one piece of equipment to another. These are typically accounting transactions where no payment has changed hands.

For example, if you have a line of equipment and sell only part of the line, you may want to shift some of the cost from the original line to the new item.

An adjustment requires only a date, description, and amount. A positive amount indicates income to the piece of equipment (or lowered costs). A negative amount indicates and expense (or lowered income) to the current item.

SALE INVOICE (SALE):
When you sell an item (or part of an item) or take a deposit, enter the amount as a sale. It is preferable to enter who is purchasing the equipment as well as amount.

There is an invoicing option that allows you to invoice a customer (available from the customer information window). If you use the invoicing option, the invoice amount will automatically display under each equipment item.

LocPlus MLS does not do any accounting functions. If you enter detailed costs, you may be able to have Koala Software develop a custom interface with your software to reduce data input time. This can be worthwhile if you have a large number of transactions. This can be expensive and costs and capability will depend on the accounting software you use. Call Koala Software for more information.