Part of a business process that depending on the type of activity requires a certain action by LN or an LN user:

• Manual activity

  A task that cannot be automated

• Business process

  A hierarchical expansion of the business process

• Application

  A program that can run on the client or server and is defined within a component release

• File-based (client)

  A file for which, based on the file extension, the associated application on the client is started

• Sending trigger

  An attached business process that is started without user interaction

The smallest part of the activity structure used for a time-scaled budget. An entity that is used to represent a part of a project in an activity structure.

LN distinguishes these activity types:

• WBS Element
• Control Account
• Work Package
• Planning Package
• Milestone

A step in a warehousing procedure. An activity corresponds with a session of the Warehousing package. For example, the inbound activity Generate Inbound Advice is performed using the Generate Inbound Advice (whinh3201m000) session.

An activity budget functions in more or less the same way as an element budget whose budget method depends on the way you structure your project.

Advantages of an activity budget over an element budget are:

• An activity budget is defined on a time horizon.
• You can use an activity budget for planning purposes in external scheduling packages.
• You can copy an activity budget to a top-down budget.
• You can use earned value methods to measure project performance.

You can either create activity budget lines in LN or in external scheduling packages.

A person responsible for planning or carrying out a project activity.

Activities are sequenced with respect to work and specific dates to provide realistic schedules. An activity relationship indicates that a certain activity (successor) cannot start or end until another activity (predecessor) starts or ends.

You can define the following dependencies between the predecessor and the successor activities:

• Finish-to-Start

  The initiation of the task of the successor depends upon the completion of the task of the predecessor

• Finish-to-Finish

  The completion of the task of the successor depends upon the completion of the task of the predecessor

• Start-to-Start

  The initiation of the task of the successor depends upon the initiation of the task of the predecessor.

• Start-to-Finish

  The completion of the task of the successor depends upon the initiation of the task of the predecessor.

A hierarchical structure that organizes and defines the total scope of the project. Each level represents an increasingly detailed definition of a work project. In contrast to the element structure, the activity structure is activity time oriented.

The real costs incurred on a project. These costs are logged in Project Cost Ledger. Example: Inventory Cost, Purchase Invoice Cost, Price Variances, Manual Costs, and so on.

The real cost amounts that are booked in the General Ledger. To control the actual costs, you can compare budgeted costs.

User-defined fields of various field formats that can be added to various sessions, in which users can edit these fields. No functional logic is linked to the contents of these fields.

Additional information fields can be linked to database tables. When linked to a table, the fields are displayed in the sessions corresponding to the database tables. For example, a field defined for the whinh200 table is displayed as an extra field in the Warehousing Orders (whinh2100m000) session.

The contents of additional fields can be transferred between database tables. For example, the information specified by a user in additional information field A of the Warehousing Orders (whinh2100m000) session is transferred to additional information field A in the Shipments (whinh4130m000) session. For this purpose, additional information fields with identical field formats and field name A must be present for the whinh200 and the whinh430 tables (whinh430 corresponds to the Shipments (whinh4130m000) session).

A full set of address-related details, which include the postal address, access to telephone, fax, telex numbers, and email, Internet address, identification for taxation purposes, and routing information.

In LN, a modification to a frozen bottom-up budget. Modification will only increase or decrease the budget, for extensions the contract is also changed.

A way to efficiently manage your cash flow by requesting to pay an agreed amount before the project or a specific part of the project starts. The advance payment will be settled with the final invoice. For example, you can select a project and request an advance payment for certain project materials. The advance can be linked to an installment. For unit rate and cost-plus invoices, the advance payment request is settled with the next invoice(s).

To total figures or amalgamate amounts; to merge items in a higher plan level. Opposite of explode, disaggregate.

A lumpsum contract or a reimbursable contract. In a reimbursable contract the customer agrees to pay all acceptable costs up to a fixed fee.

A payment that is not entirely executed yet, or is on its way to be executed.

These anticipated payments can be created:

• Automatically, for example when a check is generated by the automatic payment procedure.
• Manually, for example, when a check is written.

A receipt that is not completed yet.

Anticipated receipts can be created:

• Automatically, for example, in case of direct debit.
• Manually, for example, when a check is entered.

The party indicated in the bank guarantee as having its obligation based on the relationship supported by the bank guarantee. In a general scenario, applicant and the instructing party are the same.

If the beneficiary of the bank guarantee is an external business partner, by default, the name or address of the own company of the applicant is selected.

The rate used to calculate the internal overhead costs for the contract or the project. Example, administrative costs.

To make a proportionate division or distribution for the earned value. When activity Y is apportioned to activity X, the earned value method of Y and X is the same. Y will copy X. X can have any earned value method.

A company created for the purpose of archiving historic documents and data. You can store redundant data in an archive company.

To access and retrieve data from an archive company, you must change company to the archive company.

Projects that are stored in an archive company. The project archive company can be used as a repository for historical project data.

A region used to group business partners, customers, suppliers and employees on a geographical basis.

The actually built structure of a product including the serial numbers.

The actual pieces of property, plant, or equipment that are uniquely utilised and used by an organization for a defined life time.

The asset number and asset extension create a unique identifier for the asset in the selected company.

A task for which hours lines are defined. For example, a weekly recurrent meeting.

Characteristics of the data that is specific to a business process to which the permission is linked and are used to define permissions. For example, in Project Management a characteristics of a project, such as project group, can be used to define permissions for employees who are only allowed to work with projects of a certain project group.

An indication of the type of activity for which a resource is available. With availability types, you can define multiple sets of working times for a single calendar.

For example, if a work center is available for production on Monday through Friday and available for service activities on Saturdays, you can define two availability types, one for production and one for service activities and link these availability types to the calendar for that work center.

A calculation that determines how many products are available (to sell or consume in a project) at a certain moment in the future.

An unfilled customer order, or partial delivery at a later date. A demand for an item whose inventory is insufficient to satisfy demand.

The number of items to be delivered at a later stage. This quantity does not need to be equal to the rejected quantity.

An independent documentary undertaking by which a bank (or other legally qualified entity; the guarantor), issues an irrevocable guarantee to pay a sum of money to a third party, at the request of its customer, based on a complying demand/document(s).

A guarantee from the bank ensuring that the liabilities of the business partner are met.

A bank account of your company. The bank relation definition includes details such as your bank account number, account type, the international bank account number, the bank's currency and whether other currencies are allowed, and whether the account is a blocked account.

The baseline is a snapshot of the active plan's scheduled activities' start and end dates for a specific date and time.

If quantities expressed in alternative units are used in calculations or formulas, these quantities are first converted to the base unit.

For each company, base units must be defined for weight, length, surface area, volume, and time.

The party in whose favor, a bank guarantee is issued.

A statement of the price, terms of sale, and a description of goods or services offered by a supplier or contractor to a prospective buyer. The customer data, bid values, and payment terms are contained in the header; the data for the actual goods or services is specified on the bid lines. A bid is usually considered as an offer to sell, when a response is sent to a request for quotation or proposal.

The time interval defined to generate billing statement for the contract.

The rate used to calculate the external overhead costs that are billable to the business partner. The billing rate is used to invoice the business partner.

A list of all parts, raw materials, and subassemblies that go into a manufactured item and show the quantity of each of the parts required to make the item. The BOM shows the single-level product structure of a manufactured item.

A special account for transferring money to the national tax authorities. The blocked account is used when subcontractors are contracted. They must deposit part of the invoice amount into the blocked account.

This budget method defines all work that must be accomplished to complete the budget. A bottom-up budget is made for elements or activities.

A plan that includes the budgeted quantities and/or amounts by period for the sorts selected; the budgeted or expected sales or purchase figures.

An analysis of the bottom-up budget. You can run several cost analyses for the same budget. Each budget is stored with a combined project code and budget cost-analysis code, so you can compare the budgets.

The date of a budget line.

This date is used for:

• Currency conversions that relate to the project. A currency conversion is date-effective. The budget date determines which currency rate is used.
• Prices. These can also be date-effective. The budget date of a bottom-up budget line determines the price or rate of the cost object.

The way to budget and measure expected productivity.

LN distinguishes two methods in the bottom-up budget:

• Production Rate: the number of production units produced per unit of time.
• Labor Norms: the number of hours required to carry out one unit of the cost object.

A search path that determines which cost and labor sales rates from which sessions are used in labor budget lines: labor, trade group, project. The default labor rate that is used is defined as the level 1 labor rate. If this is not available, level 2 is used, and if this is not available, level 3 is used.

The most detailed level of a bottom-up budget. The elements or activities in a budget can contain an unlimited number of budget lines. Each budget line includes a quantity of a cost object, a cost component to which the cost object is assigned, and a budget date.

The status of the budget line. The status defaults from the element or activity to which it belongs.

LN distinguishes these statuses:

• Free: the general data for a budget line has been recorded, and can be changed.
• Actual: you can still change the budget data and generate the control data. You can also log the budget history.
• Final: you cannot change the budget data anymore. You can only add or change the budget lines through a budget adjustment. You can also log the actual budget history.

The budget status of an element or activity.

LN distinguishes these statuses:

• Free: you can enter and change budget lines.
• Actual: you can change the budget data and the budget lines. In addition, the control data can be generated and the actual budget history can also be logged.
• Final: you cannot change the budget data without using budget adjustments.

A business related object, such as a purchase order or an organizational unit. A business object has information stored in the business object attributes, such as the purchase order number or the organizational unit name. A business object also contains a set of actions, known as business object methods, that can manipulate the business object attributes, such as Create Purchase Order and List Organizational Units.

From a development perspective, a business object is a collection of tables, and functions that manipulate these tables, implemented simultaneously during the development phase. A business object is identified by the combination of a package code, module code, and business object code.

An XML message used to exchange data between enterprises or enterprise applications. The BOD is composed of a noun, which identifies the message content, and a verb, which identifies the action to be taken with the document. The unique combination of the Noun and the Verb forms the name of the BOD. For example, noun ReceiveDelivery combined with verb Sync results in BOD SyncReceiveDelivery.

A transaction identification more detailed than the business object, for example, a receipt number or an order number. You can use the reference during reconciliation to match transactions if the business object alone does not provide enough information, for example, during GRNI reconciliation.

A party with whom you carry out business transactions, for example, a customer or a supplier. You can also define departments within your organization that act as customers or suppliers to your own department as business partners.

The business partner definition includes:

• The organization's name and main address.
• The language and currency used.
• Taxation and legal identification data.

You address the business partner in the person of the business partner's contact. The business partner's status determines if you can carry out transactions. The transactions type (sales orders, invoices, payments, shipments) is defined by the business partner's role.

The employee or department of the business partner that is used as the contact to your own company or department in case of problems or questions.

An area of commercial endeavor. Projects can be categorized according to the business sector to which they refer.

The employee of your company who is the contact to the concerned buy-from business partner. The buyer is also known as the purchasing agent.

A set of definitions, that are used to build a list of calendar working hours. A calendar is identified by a calendar code and availability type combination.

A list of workable days, that is used to build a calendar.

A project used for internal use in which deliverables can be booked as fixed asset but delivery of goods to customers is not possible. In a capital project, you are the business partner.

An option in Freight that prevents the load building engine from overwriting the carrier selected by the user for a given freight order line.

A user-definable classification for projects.

A classification or division of items. The classification can be by form, fit, or function.

Used to classify an asset and provide data entry defaults during asset entry. Categories have associated subcategories, which are assigned by default.

A financial obligation that represents future costs.

A working environment in which you can carry out logistic or financial transactions. All the transaction data is stored in the company's database.

Depending on the type of data that the company controls, the company is:

• A logistic company.
• A financial company.
• A logistic and a financial company.

In a multicompany structure, some of the database tables can be unique for the company and the company can share other database tables with other companies.

A company that competes for the same sales orders. Generally, a competitor operates in the same market segment as your company.

Indicates that an item requires a conformance document check at source inspection, which must be executed before shipment of an item. The purpose of conformance reporting is to deliver the related documents to the customer.

The person with whom you discuss business transactions. For example, you address questions, quotations, and follow-up calls, direct mail, and promotional gifts to the contact. The contact's data include the name, telephone number, e-mail address, and other details.

An agreement between two parties to purchase or sell an unspecified quantity of material over a certain period of time. A contract can be linked to one or more orders or schedules.

An agreement with the business partner that defines the terms and conditions like deliverables, billing plan, payment terms and so on. A contract can be linked to one or more projects.

The total amount of the project contract.

For a time-phased budget version, the contract amount is expressed as follows:

contract amount = profit fee + management reserve + distributed budget + undistr. budget

The contract amount is used to determine the invoice limit.

A contract deliverable is a tangible or intangible item that is produced or purchased as a result of a contract.

An amount that is paid as an award or an incentive to the contractor, based on the terms and conditions of the contract.

An agreement of one customer with one supplier, about both commercial and logistic conditions, related to the supply of one item, during a period of time.

The identification of a stage or a phase during the execution of the contract, for example, bidding, printed, sent to customer, and so on.

A way of categorizing contracts based on similarities and shared characteristics.

Each contract type is identified by an alphanumeric code of up to three characters.

The only type of activity that can be linked to an organization breakdown structure. At this level functional responsibility for work and costs can be assigned. You can detail short-span jobs in control accounts and use it for the execution of a project.

A common parent cost-object level, a level above the special cost object.

A control code is used for control purposes. For analysis, you can group cost objects of the same cost type under a control code. If you use a cost object to categorize a group of cost objects, it can be its own control code. You cannot have more than one control code in a tree. This is used for the frozen bottom-up budget.

Data that is used to monitor a project.

The multiplication factor used to convert an alternative unit to the base unit. The conversion factor is calculated as follows: (alternative unit/base unit)

The value given for accounting purposes to the stock of an article or commodity at the end of an accounting period. In a retail business, the cost is usually prime cost, that is, the price paid to the supplier. However, other amounts to cover storage and transportation are sometimes added. In a manufacturing business, the cost is usually a prime cost or production cost.

A cost component is a user-defined category for the classification of costs.

Cost components have the following functions:

• To break down an item's standard cost, sales price, or valuation price.
• To create a comparison between the estimated production order costs and the actual production order costs.
• To calculate production variances.
• To view the distribution of your costs over the various cost components in the Cost Accounting module.

Cost components can be of the following cost types:

• Operation Costs
• Material Costs
• Surcharge
• General Costs
• Not Applicable

A cost component is a collection of cost objects with a certain characteristic. A cost component does not depend on the cost type, therefore, for example, a project can be monitored from another dimension. For example, all the costs that refer to electrical work, for example, cable and installation work, are visible if the applicable cost objects are linked to the cost component Electrical work.

The method that LN uses to control project costs.

Cost control involves:

• Recording actual costs against the expected costs entered in the budget.
• Reporting on any differences between budget, forecast, recorded costs and progress. If an element or activity uses cost control, the expected costs of the individual element as entered in the project budget are carried over to the control budget. If an element or activity does not use cost control, its budgeted costs are aggregated to the next, higher-level element in the budget structure for which cost control is applied.

In this period project-related costs and revenues are booked.

Are used to break up and redirect costs related to a project, to project pegs that are linked to specific attributes, such as items, item groups, or work centers. The project costs are no longer linked only to the top demand project peg, but are spread over lower level pegs for the specified attributes (breaks), which improves project management.

An administrative item that represents certain expenses. The item is not a physical product and cannot be handled logistically.

A type of cost carrier for the resources used in your project.

These cost objects are available:

• Material
• Labor
• Equipment
• Subcontracting
• Sundry Costs
• Overhead

Cost objects can be standard or specific for a project. The cost object is related to a control code for cost controlling purposes.

A contract based on calculation of time and material after parts of the project are finished. Agreement on prices and labor is made before the project starts.

A contract that is carried out based on cost reimbursement and a profit percentage.

The price, budgeted or actual, per reference unit. For example, the price of a machine per hour.

A way of categorizing cost objects and control codes according to the nature of the costs that they represent.

LN Project distinguishes these cost types:

• Materials
• Labor
• Equipment
• Subcontracting
• Sundry Costs
• Overhead

Categories that are used to register the type of costs. Cost types enable you to have a more detailed view of the source of costs.

The correction form for a (partly) returned purchase or sales order. The credit note states the quantity and value of the goods concerned and the reason for the credit.

A generally accepted medium of exchange such as coins, treasury notes, and banknotes.

The following currency types are available in LN:

• Home currency, which is used internally by companies to calculate costs, record budgets, and register tax amounts
• Transaction currency, which is used in transactions with business partners, such as orders and invoices

An item supplied by the customer being used as material in the production of an end-item for that same customer.

An item produced on a customer specification for a specific project. A customized item can have a customized BOM and/or a customized routing and is normally not available as a standard item. A customized item can, however, be derived from a standard item or a generic item.

The latest date for which transactions are processed. Transactions with a transaction date later than the cut-off date specified for a process are not included in the process.

Abbreviation of DD Form 250 or Material Inspection and Receiving Report.

A transport document that provides information on a consignment contained in one truck (or other vehicle) and refers to an order or a set of orders for one consignee at a delivery address. If the truck load contains shipments for various business partners, the load includes more than one delivery note. The information on a delivery note includes the delivery date and address, the customer's name, the contents of the consignment, and so on. In Italy, a delivery note is a legally required document, where it used to be called BAM (Bolla Accompagnamento Merci). Currently it is called DDT (Documento di Trasporto). In Portugal and Spain delivery notes are also used, but there they do not have the same legal status as in Italy.

An address specification within a delivery address. For example, a warehouse dock location.

The supplier uses the delivery point in the shipment building process: the shipments are grouped by delivery point.

The agreements with the business partner, concerning the way the goods are delivered. Relevant information is printed on various order documents.

A company's organizational unit that carries out a specific set of tasks, for example, a sales office or a purchase office. Departments are assigned number groups for the orders they issue. The department's enterprise unit determines the financial company to which the financial transactions that the department generates are posted.

The default project warehouse to which goods are sent before they are used in the project.

The output device selected for the report such as a printer, a screen (device: display), an ASCII file, and so on.

An allowance of deduction granted by the seller to the buyer, usually when the buyer meets certain stipulated conditions that reduce the price of the goods purchased.

Three types of discounts exist:

• A quantity discount: an allowance determined by the quantity or value of the purchase.
• A cash discount: an allowance extended to encourage payment of an invoice on or before a stated date.
• A trade discount: a deduction from an established price for items or services made by the seller to those engaged in a certain business.

The discount given to a business partner, calculated by unit and expressed as a value. For instance, 3 euro.

The percentage that you can subtract from the gross sales price or purchase price.

Bottom-up estimate lines that are not attached to any primary structure element.

The top-down budget part that is distributed across the activities.

You can look at a distributed budget on various levels:

• For activities: the distributed budget equals the budget that is already distributed to the lower level activities.
• For the version: the distributed budget equals the budget assigned to the top activity of the activity structure. This can at most be equal to the sum of the contract amount minus profit fee minus management reserve

A generic term for objects, such as orders or order lines. Also used to refer to printed matter, such as reports, shipping documents, order documents, or user documentation.

The identification of a transaction.

The document code is a combination of:

• Transaction-type code
• Series number
• Sequence number

The requirement for documents such as sales orders, purchase orders, or shipments to be compliant with the settings specified for the global trade compliance functionality, the letter of credit functionality, or both.

Parameter settings and settings for individual items, contract deliverables, sales orders, or purchase orders determine whether the document compliance includes letters of credit, global trade compliance, or both.

Document compliance checks are performed at various stages in the document handling processes.

A user-definable classification of project-related documents.

Abbreviation of Defense Priorities and Allocation System. DPAS is used to provide priority ratings for contracts related to orders from the US Department of Defense. DPAS-rated orders have higher priority than unrated orders.

A time-phased method for measuring project performance. It compares the amount of work that was planned with work that was actually accomplished to determine if cost and schedule performance are as planned.

There are a number of different ways in which you can use the earned value method to determine how budget amounts are to be earned:

• Milestones

  Milestones are attached to the activity and a percentage or amount of the budget is assigned to each milestone. When you reach a milestone, the assigned budget is earned.

• Start and End Percentage

  Percentage values are assigned to the start and end points of the activities. In other words, the start percentage is earned when the activity starts and the remaining percentage is earned when the activity is completed.

• Percent Complete

  Budget amounts are earned in proportion to the percentage progress of the activity

• Level of Effort

  Budget amounts are released in proportion to effort. This method is appropriate for time-driven activities where it is assumed that there will be no discrepancy between scheduled work planned (PV) and work performed (EV).

• Apportioned

  Apportioned efforts are those which have an intrinsic performance relationship to some other discrete activity. Budget amounts are earned in the same way as for the linked charge.

A reference number, for example a sales order line or a project deliverable line, that is used to model deviations for a unit effective item.

The smallest part of an element structure. An element is used to define the (structure of the) work of the project, so that you can carry it out.

A general term used for entities defined in LN, such as items, business partners, currencies, and so on. The details of an element are registered in the database as a record. In an overview session each element or record is represented by a line.

The bottom-up budget or control budget that consists of elements. The alternative is an activity budget. The elements can be related in a multilevel hierarchical structure, and each element can contain cost-object budget lines.

The advantage of an element budget over an activity budget is:

• Multiple parents makes budgeting easy for repeating work.
• With the use of frequencies calculation of amounts needed of one element is faster and easier.

The way to determine the positioning of elements in comparison to other elements. Element relations are the basis of a layered (multilevel) element budget. The elements can also be linked to activities, a relation that is used when you generate control data for an element/activity budget. Elements use frequency as a tool to calculate element amounts fast and can have a multiparent structure.

The multilevel, multiparent, hierarchical tree-like structure of elements that can be the basis of a budget.

A person who works at your company who has a specific function such as sales representative, production planner, buyer, or credit analyst.

A human member of an organization model. Typically, employees are users who carry out activities with the Worklist Handler.

A document that certifies that the end user of exported goods is a trustworthy party who is the final recipient of the goods sold, and who has no intention of reselling the goods. Many governments require end user statements (EUS) to restrict the export of goods to undesired destinations, such as embargoed countries, or countries with poor human rights records.

This applies in particular to sensitive or highly controlled items such as military grade weaponry. An end user statement is linked to a demand order such as a sales order or a contract deliverable.

A financially independent part of your organization that includes entities such as departments, work centers, warehouses, and projects. The enterprise unit's entities must all belong to the same logistic company, but a logistic company can contain multiple enterprise units. An enterprise unit is linked to a single financial company.

When you carry out logistic transactions between enterprise units, the resulting financial transactions are posted to the financial companies to which each enterprise unit is linked.

A separate and independent building block for a cluster and/or an enterprise unit. For example, warehouse, work center, employee, sales department, purchase department, project, customer, supplier, financial company.

Reusable items used to produce or to ship goods for a project. Equipment is not consumed while the project is carried out. Equipment can be internally owned or externally rented. Equipment items can range from tools such as electric drills and wheelbarrows, to machines, large cranes, trucks, tug boats, and so on.

A type of cost object representing reusable resources that are not consumed while the project is carried out. Equipment can be purchased (rented or hired) from a third party for the project or internally owned. Example: machinery and tools such as cranes or welding machines .

A special equipment cost object that acts as a grouping to other equipment cost objects. This is a useful way of grouping together similar equipment cost objects.

A detailed estimate breakup. For example, if you require item A for the estimate, you enter this item with its specifications on the estimate line.

The way in which the calculation of the estimate is performed. An estimate type is either top down or bottom up.

• Top Down

  In calculating the cost or sales amount in a top-down structure, you distribute a top amount to the lower level elements.

• Bottom Up

  In calculating the cost or sales amount in a bottom-up structure, you enter exact amounts for lowest level elements and aggregate them to make the top amount.

A means to compare estimates. An estimate can have various versions. Each version is stand-alone and is not derived from the previous version. A version can, however, be copied or compared.

A short standardized message that LN generates to advise the user to change or correct a specific planning parameter, value, or constraint to avoid undesired results or conflicts in planning.

The price at which one currency can be exchanged for another currency. In other words, the amount which one currency will buy another currency at a particular time.

A way to group currency exchange rates. You can assign different currency exchange rates to different invoice-to business partners and/or to different types of transactions (purchase, sales, and so on).

An internal purchase cost that can be booked on a non-finalized project. The transaction costs are posted separately if direct delivery occurs. If a delivery is made through a project warehouse, the expense tax is included in the valuation price or fixed transfer price (FTP).

The specific agreements within or in addition to the initial contract. An extension falls outside the initial contract with the sold-to business partner. Extensions can be assigned to the bottom-up budget.

LN distinguishes four extension types:

• Scope Change
• Provisional Amount
• Fluctuation Settlement
• Quantities to be Settled

The parts of projects for which special arrangements are have been made that concern invoicing, such as variations, provisional amounts, quantities to be settled, and fluctuation settlements. An extension can be attached to one or more budget lines.

A company that is used for posting financial data in Financials. You can link one or more enterprise units from multiple logistic companies to one financial company.

Part of an LN database in which you can store all data concerning financial transactions.

A separate period, or year for financial purposes.

Three financial period types exist:

• Fiscal, in which all transactions are recorded (for example, 12 months).
• Reporting, for management requirements (for example, 52 weeks).
• Tax, for tax regulations (for example, 4 quarters).

A way to characterize the project's financial results.

LN distinguishes three different financial result statuses:

• Free

  This status applies until the project is finished.

• Determine Result

  If the project status is Finished, you can select this financial result status.

• Result Determined

  The final result is determined and the project status is changed to Closed.

The first available number within a series. When you create orders, and so on, this number is offered by default. Series enable you to group orders of the same type by assigning order numbers starting with the same figures.

A contract that is carried out for an agreed fixed price, also called a lump sum.

The time between two activities, expressed in days.

Example

If activity A and activity B have a end-start relationship with a delay of three, the network planning shows that activity B starts three days after activity A has finished.

An extension type. The settlement of the price fluctuations' influence for invoicing purposes. You cannot define this extension type for Cost-Plus contracts and for contracts with Invoicing Method set to Unit Rate.

The demand for an item, calculated by the customer that purchases that item, and aggregated to forecast periods according to the agreed terms and conditions.

The customer sends the forecast to the supplier that plans the item supply.

Data that is not project specific. This data includes generic information on business partners, countries, elements, and so on. You can either enter this data in the Project Definition or in LN Common.

Functionality used to lay down, audit, and automate global trade compliance data, such as the international rules, regulations, and licenses required for conducting global trade. This data is used to validate items, business partners, and import and export documents, resulting in a success or failure for the compliance check. For example, if the compliance check results in a failure for a document such as an order or shipment, the document may be blocked and a user must take action.

Global trade compliance reduces the risk of trade delays, additional costs, or penalties for violating import or export regulations.

The total amount from which taxes, rebates, discounts, and so on are to be deducted to reach the net amount. The gross amount is calculated by multiplying the order quantity with the (book) price.

A group of activity sets.

Code that identifies group of items in order to collect and report statistical data on the export and import of goods in the countries of the European Union (EU). The reporting authorities determine the harmonized system codes.

A percentage amount that the customer withholds from the contract amount. This serves as a guarantee that all activities are performed, and that contractual obligations are met. In other words the holdback amount is paid after the project activities have been satisfactorily performed.

One of a company's base currencies in which LN registers and reports amounts.

In a multicurrency system, up to three home currencies can be defined:

• The local currency
• Two reporting currencies

LN uses hours control periods.

LN uses hours control periods to:

• Carry out periodic control of labor hours
• Realize hours accounting
• Process wages and salaries

International Financial Reporting Standards, previously International Accounting Standards (IAS)

An event-driven and XML-based messaging engine. This is the standard message bus. The message bus and its message standards provide the infrastructure for transporting messages to other application modules in a secure way.

A set of serialized items that have the same location and are owned by the same business partner. Grouping serialized items into an installation group enables you to maintain them collectively.

The amount invoiced to the customer when a project completes its corresponding element/activity or reaches a milestone or progress of elements/activities.

A commission to buy, sell, or transport goods, or render services between organizational units that belong to the same organization.

For example, a sales office and a warehouse belong to the same organization. The sales office instructs the warehouse to deliver goods to an external customer to fulfill a sales order. The warehouse incurs costs for the goods delivered and the sales office is indebted to the warehouse.

An intercompany trade order consists of a header and transaction lines. The header data include the organizational units involved and the applicable transfer pricing rules. The transaction lines display the amounts of the individual items and the dates and times. Depending on the transfer pricing rules, some pricing details are maintainable.

The temporary financial result that you can consult while you carry out the project and which you can transfer to the profit and loss account.

Two interim result types exist:

• Cost: transactions associated with costs.
• Revenue: transactions associated with revenues.

A type of project for which no sold-to business partners are defined and no invoicing is performed. The delivery of items does not apply. An internal project can optionally be capitalized, the value can be sent to the Fixed Assets module in Financials.

LN distinguishes two project types:

• A capital project: deliverables can be booked as fixed assets, delivery of goods is not possible.
• An internal project: cannot be booked on the balance, and delivery of goods is not possible. The result is only visible in the profit and loss account.

The unit of measure in which the inventory of an item is recorded, such as piece, kilogram, box of 12, or meter.

The inventory unit is also used as the base unit in measure conversions, especially for conversions that concern the order unit and the price unit on a purchase order or a sales order. These conversions always use the inventory unit as the base unit. An inventory unit therefore applies to all item types, also to item types that cannot be kept in stock.

A user-definable way to categorize invoices by their delivery method. LN prints invoices grouped by the invoice delivery method. Per invoice delivery method, LN sorts and prints the invoices within each ZIP/postal code by address.

You can select a default invoice delivery method for each invoice-to business partner.

The business partner that sends invoices to your organization. This usually represents a supplier's accounts receivable department. The definition includes the default currency and exchange rate, invoicing method and frequency, information about your organization's credit limit, the terms and method of payment, and the related pay-to business partner.

The business partner to which you send invoices. This usually represents a customer's accounts payable department. The definition includes the default currency and exchange rate, invoicing method and frequency, information about the customer's credit limit, the terms and method of payment, and the related pay-by business partner.

The way to calculate project invoices for a given contract type. The invoice type determines when to issue invoices to the sold-to business partner.

LN distinguishes these invoice types:

• Cost-Plus

  The amount is based on the financial amounts entered at cost object level plus a profit. This method is only available if the contract type is Time & Materials or Cost Reimbursement.

• Unit Rate

  The amount is based on the financial amounts per unit entered at element or activity level. Unit-rate invoicing applies to both Fixed Price and Time & Materials contract types.

• Installment

  The invoice amount is a subdivision of the value. This method is only available if the contract type is Fixed Price.

• Progress Invoice

  The invoice amount is based on progress for element or activity. Two types of elements are allowed: direct and indirect. The calculated amount of the direct elements depends on their own progress. The calculated amount of the indirect elements is based on the progress of the project as a whole and can never be more than 100%.

• Delivery Based

  Invoicing is based on the sales amounts of the contract deliverables that are linked to the contract shipments.

Selects the order types and orders to be invoiced. If you process an invoicing batch, LN selects the invoicing data and generates the invoices for the order types and orders selected through the invoicing batch.

A set of parameters that defines, among other things, the types of orders and orders lines that can be combined on an invoice, and the type of invoice to be generated and the costs to be aggregated on Project invoices and Service invoices. You can define different invoicing methods for your invoice-to business partners.

This method is only used for contract projects to invoice to Financials.

Capital projects have no invoicing. Sales order projects use Invoicing for invoicing.

A code from a coding standard set up by the International Organization for Standardization. These standards and codes are internationally accepted. For example, codes for the representation of names of languages (ISO 639.2), codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions (ISO 3166), and so on.

The raw materials, subassemblies, finished products, and tools that can be purchased, stored, manufactured, and sold.

An item can also represent a set of items handled as one kit, or which exist in multiple product variants.

You can also define nonphysical items, which are not retained in inventory but can be used to post costs or to invoice services to customers. The examples of nonphysical items:

• Cost items (for example, electricity)
• Service items
• Subcontracting services
• List items (menus/options)

A standard maintenance item.

External, alternative methods of coding items. Item-code systems can be general standard systems (for example, EAN) or specific, customer-dependent or supplier-dependent systems.

A group of items with similar characteristics. Each item belongs to a particular item group. The item group is used in combination with the item type to set up item defaults.

A classification of items used to identify if the item is, for example, a generic item, a service item, or an equipment item. Depending on the item's type, certain functions will only apply to that item.

The names of functions or titles of employees in an organization, for example sales manager, financial director, or accountant.

Costs related to tasks performed by employees. Labor costs are based on the employee's labor rate and the number of hours spent on a task or activity.

This search path determines which cost and labor sales rates are used in hours registration.

The search path consists of four levels, each of which you can set to one of these:

• Employee
• Task
• Project
• Trade Group
• Department

The default labor rate used, is level 1. If this level has no entry available, level 2 is used, and so on.

The classification of work performed, and the time of day at which the work is performed (either normal working hours or overtime). Based on the kind of work and the hour type, you can use labor types to specify surcharges so that LN can calculate the actual labor costs in People.

Lag is the modification of a logical relationship that directs a delay in the successor activity. Negative lag or lead allows an acceleration of the successor activity.

The cost amount plus surcharges.

The total of all costs that are associated with the procurement of an item until delivery and receipt in a warehouse. Landed costs typically include freight costs, insurance costs, customs duties, and handling costs.

In LN, landed costs can be part of multiple landed costs sets.

Attribute that allows users to link a logistic transaction to a specific landed costs set, overruling the landed costs settings of that transaction. If required, users can specify a landed costs classification and use this classification on the transaction.

The percentage that is charged over the goods amount or over rendered services that the recipient of the invoice must pay if the invoice is not paid within a specified period.

To copy an estimate version to a project budget. The version estimate lines are copied to project budget lines.

The time between the production start date and the delivery date. The lead time can include order preparation time, transportation time, and inspection time.

An estimate type category that determines which estimate lines are used in aggregating totals.

A number that determines the sequence in which records are displayed in an overview session.

A group of customers, suppliers, or employees that work in the same business sector.

Lines of business can be used as selection criteria when generating reports or inquiries of statistical and historical data.

Groups of customers and/or suppliers working in the same business sector. You can use lines of business as selection criteria when generating reports/inquiries of statistical or historical data.

The currency of the country in which the company is located. Otherwise, the currency in which you report to the local tax authorities.

In a multicurrency situation, you can use three home currencies. The three home currencies that you can define for a company are:

• The company's local currency
• Reporting Currency 1
• Reporting Currency 2

The physical location that is associated with the data or transaction, such as a warehouse, production facility, city, or country.

Location is a mandatory field in Business Object Documents (BODs) for transactional data.

An LN company used for logistic transactions, such as the production and transportation of goods. All the logistic data concerning the transactions is stored in the company's database.

The identification code for the LN user. This code is used for system security.

A number of items produced and stored together that are identified by a (lot) code. Lots identify goods.

The specific conditions that can be established for lot items on order lines.

These conditions are:

• Any

  The goods to be received or shipped are not subject to specific lot conditions. You can use more than one lot.

• Same

  You can select any lot for receipt or shipment, but the entire receipt or shipment must have the same lot.

• Specific

  You can receive or ship only one, specific lot.

The end result of a production order.

A main item is either be changed to an end item (for delivery to a warehouse), or delivered directly to the customer in bulk.

Orders that are used to plan, carry out, and control the maintenance on customer-owned components, products and the logistic handling of spare parts.

A contingency fund for unanticipated occurrences, which reduces the risk of scope changes. In a time-phased budget version, this is the amount that is withheld for control purposes rather than distributed to the activity structure or retained for profit.

Management reserve is expressed as follows:

management reserve = contract amount - profit fee + distributed budget + undistr. budget

An invoice without a related sales order or goods receipt and which is directly created in Invoicing.

The items that can be manufactured end products and subassemblies. A manufactured item is usually associated with a bill of material and a routing that describe the components used to assemble it and the manner in which it is assembled. Manufactured items are also referred to as production items and can be purchased.

A set of operations that can be carried out. The reference activities based on which operations are added to a master routing, must have the same characteristics, such as item, functional element, and service department.

Example

All the inspections, tests, cleaning activities, assembly activities, disassembly activities, and repair activities that you can carry out on an engine.

The substance of which an item is composed, such as wood, nylon, copper, and gold.

The raw materials, components, and subassemblies used to manufacture an item. A cost item, for example, electricity, can also be treated as a material.

The maximum quantity of items to be purchased or produced at once.

When planned orders are generated, the quantity of items to be purchased or produced at once is never more than the maximum order quantity. The maximum order quantity prevents the purchase or production of an item in quantities that are too large.

An activity of zero days that usually represents a significant event in the project. In many cases the completion of a phase of major deliverable. Milestones can be used for the moment of invoicing and the calculation of earned value.

The minimum quantity of items to be purchased or produced. When planned orders are generated, the quantity of items to be purchased or produced is never less than the minimum order quantity. The minimum order quantity prevents the purchase or production of this item in quantities that are too small.

An inventory valuation method for accounting purposes.

The MAUC is the average value for each unit of the current inventory. For each new receipt the MAUC is updated.

From a logistical point of view, multicompany relates to the flow of goods or information between multiple locations, which are implemented in different logistic companies. Typically, these locations are situated in various regions or countries.

From a financial point of view, multicompany relates to the financial flow between financial entities, represented by departments and warehouses, which are implemented in different financial companies. Typically, these warehouses and departments are located in various countries or belong to different business units.

The gross amount minus discounts. The net value is always stated in the transactional currency.

If multiple discount levels are used, the net amount is calculated from the gross amount minus discounts at previous levels.

The network planning includes all the activities required to carry out (plan and control) a project. The relations within the network show the interdependent activities.

The report that identifies non-conformance of material during QM/warehousing inspection or during the movement of the materials and/or when the material is in stock.

The number of hours required to carry out one unit of labor. Used in an activity budget with cost type Labor, Equipment, or Subcontracting.

Number of hours = number of labor	units * norm 

This norm is useful in situations where the unit of measure for the labor cost object is not a time unit.

A group of first free number series that you can assign to a specific use.

For example, you can assign a number group to:

• Business partner codes
• Purchase contracts
• Sales orders
• Production orders
• Service orders
• Warehousing orders
• Freight orders

Within a number group you can define multiple series. Each series is identified by the series code. The series numbers that LN generates consist of the series code followed by the first free number in the series. Series codes of the same number group have the same length.

A nonphysical entity that is defined in Data Management to manage the life cycle of the product in a simple way. For example, an LN main table is considered an object. Objects are classified as Data Management objects and LN objects. Data Management objects are related to Data Management, for example, libraries, documents, changes, folders, queries, and so on. The non- LN objects are item, BOM, sales order, purchase order, and so on.

An unpaid transaction, for example a purchase or sales invoice.

One of a series of steps in a routing that are carried out successively to produce an item.

The following data is collected during a routing operation:

• The task. For example, sawing.
• The machine used to carry out the task (optional). For example, sawing machine.
• The place where the task is carried out (work center). For example, woodwork.
• The number of employees required to carry out the task.

This data is used to compute order lead times, to plan production orders and to calculate standard cost.

The production time of an item expressed in hours or days, based on the lead time elements as defined in the routing operations.

The time required to obtain a purchased item, subcontract a service, or rent a piece of equipment. This time includes order document preparation, sourcing, and supplier lead time.

A group of order numbers or document numbers starting with the same series code. The numbers consist of 9 characters.

Series identify orders with certain characteristics, for example, all sales orders handled by the large accounts department start with LA (LA0000001, LA0000002, LA0000003, and so on).

A group of orders that are processed according to the same procedure (series of order steps = sessions). In addition, these orders share a number of other characteristics (return order y/n, collect order y/n, subcontracting order y/n, and so on).

The document that includes the transactions for the finalized and approved purchase invoice. The original document does not include adjustments.

Overhead expenses are indirect costs (for example, electricity) that impact all manufacturing costs, except for direct labor and direct material that change depending on production volume.

allows you to define three types of overhead costs:

• Indirect materials

  These are costs that indirectly add up to the total cost of an item, such as light, heat, supervision, and maintenance.

• Indirect labor

  Indirect costs such as an hour of labor, administration and general meetings.

• Miscellaneous expenses

  Taxes, insurance, depreciation, repairs and so on.

An overhead application base determines the project for which overhead must be calculated and applied.

The costs which are not linked to cost objects, but are planned and controlled in cost centers.

Data that influences the way a package or module operates. You define parameters in the Parameters session of a package or module to adapt the parameter to the specific requirements of your organization.

Generic term to indicate parent and child elements in any multilevel structure. For example, this relationship is used for companies, financial accounts, dimensions, product families, customers, suppliers.

The business partner from whom you receive payments. This usually represents a customer's accounts payable department. The definition includes the default currency and exchange rate, the customer's bank relation, the type of reminders you send to the business partner, and the frequency of sending reminders.

The way in which the payment (purchase invoice) or the direct debit (sales invoice) takes place. The payment method defines details such as, the maximum amount, the type of due date, if foreign currencies are allowed, and which details must be printed on the report.

These details are default values that you can change on the order or invoice as necessary.

Agreements about the way in which invoices are paid.

The payment terms include:

• The period within which invoices must be paid.
• The discount granted if an invoice is paid within a given period

The payment terms allow you to calculate:

• The date on which the payment is due
• The date on which the discount periods expire
• The discount amount

A combination of project/budget, element and/or activity, which is used to identify costs, demand, and supply for a project.

An amount paid to the business partner by the contractor, in case the terms of the contractual agreement are not met.

An earned value method in which time-phased budget amounts are released in proportion to the progress of the project in terms of percentage.

The budgeted costs according to the progress at the end of the current period. In most cases, LN calculates the performed as follows: performed = budgeted amount * progress

Periods divide a year into regular intervals, such as weeks, months, or quarters, that can be used for statistical, hours accounting, planning, and cost controlling purposes.

A table that consists of any number of time units, for example, months or weeks.

A period is used to define the time horizon during which, for example, a schedule is valid.

An assembly that is produced as part of a manufactured item, and that can have its own routing.

A phantom is usually not held in inventory, although occasionally some inventory can exist. The planning system does not create material requirements for a phantom, but drives the requirements straight through the phantom item to its components. Phantoms are mainly defined to create a modular product structure.

Example

The door of a refrigerator is defined as a phantom item in the bill of material of a refrigerator. The materials of the door are listed on the production order's material list for the refrigerator.

In Project, a user-defined project subdivision. Typically, a phase consists of a number of project activities leading to a deliverable.

The telephone number, including area code, at the contact's work location.

A serialized item's composition and structure, defined by the parent-child relationships of its constituent items. The physical breakdown can be displayed in a multilevel structure or a single-level structure.

The progress in amounts. This is different from percentage completion, which is the progress in time.

Specifies the activity structure, the schedule, and the start and end dates. You can maintain alternative plans for a single project. The active plan is the one you actually use to track progress.

The date for which delivery of a shipment is planned.

An order in Enterprise Planning for an internal supplier or sister company to deliver a quantity of an item.

The date on which you intend to print an invoice and send it to the business partner.

A supply order in Enterprise Planning that is created for planning purposes, but which is not an actual order yet.

Enterprise Planning works with planned orders of the following types:

• planned production order
• planned purchase order
• planned distribution order

Planned orders are generated in the context of a particular scenario. The planned orders of the actual scenario can be transferred to the execution level, where they become actual supply orders.

A planned order in Enterprise Planning to purchase a certain quantity of an item from a supplier (buy-from business partner).

The employee or department responsible for planning the production, purchase and distribution of items. The planner takes into account the inventory levels, availability of materials, and capacities of resources, and reacts on signals such as rescheduling messages that LN generates.

The person or organizational unit associated with a particular project plan.

A planning group is used for segregation in planning for project specific demand and supply. Commingling rules and cost transfer rules can be defined at planning group level to control supply planning behavior of project pegged items within the planning group as well as with other planning groups.

A type of activity. Planning packages are identified during planning to time phase major activities within a control account. You cannot book costs on this activity type.

The point at which the legal ownership changes. At this point, the risk passes from the seller to the buyer.

The warehousing order line number. If the order is generated by a package other than Warehousing, this number is the same as the original order line number.

An indication of the entry origin or how the entry is posted to Financials. Read for entry: transaction, revenue, order, and costs, and so on.

An entity in which you can store price information that is valid for a given period of time.

A price book includes the following elements:

• A price book header, which contains the code, type, and use of the price book.
• One or more price book lines, which contain the items.

A quantity or value break discount schedule can be linked to a price book.

Group of items with the same prices and discounts. Price groups for customers are linked to items in Item Sales Data. Price groups for suppliers are linked to items in Item Purchase Data. The price groups are used in price and discount matrices.

You can use the price policy to calculate the equipment, item and subcontracting cost or the purchase price. The sundry costs cost object does not use this policy and labor has its own price search path.

A categorization of the price based on the phase of the price negotiation process. Using price stages, companies can negotiate the price while continuing the order process with restrictions. The order processing restrictions that apply to the price stage are specified in the linked blocking definition.

Example

The unit to which the (sales/purchase) price applies.

Pricing information includes prices, discounts, promotions, and freight rates. If pricing matrices are used, pricing information is maintained for sets of attributes and values. The attributes are defined in matrix definitions and the values in the relevant pricing matrix.

Example

You can define a price for the following attributes and values:

A Pricing matrix is an entity in which prices, discounts, freight rates, or promotions are maintained for customers, suppliers and/or items.

In Pricing, these types of matrices are available:

• Price matrices
• Discount matrices
• Promotion matrices
• Freight Rate matrices

Essentially, a Pricing matrix includes the following elements:

• A matrix type
• A matrix definition
• A set of matrix attributes
• Pricing information, such as price books, discount schedules, promotions, or freight rate books

The matrix type and the matrix definition determine the available matrix attributes. The pricing information is determined by the type of Pricing matrix.

Example

In a price matrix, you can specify a price for the following attributes and values:

When an order is entered for Apex Wholesalers for item Can opener aw10, and the delivery terms are CoD, the price maintained in the price matrix is used to calculate the price for the order.

The unique identification for a record in a Table.

The only structure, linked to the estimate version, that can be used to calculate the estimate. This structure is used to check the top-down constraints (if any). The primary structure is one of two structures that you can use to sort estimate lines. Alternatively, you can use the sort structure to sort estimate lines.

The company or the organization that originally acquires the contract.

An item that is purchased, subcontracted, manufactured, or assembled.

An order to produce a specified quantity of an item on a specified delivery date.

The quantity of items that is produced for a specific time unit.

Example

The production rate can be, for example, 300 gallons per hour, or 20 pieces per minute.

A unique configuration of a configurable item. The variant results from the configuration process and includes information such as feature options, components, and operations.

Example

Configurable item: electric drill

Options:

• 3 power sources (batteries, 12 V or 220 V)
• 2 colors (blue, gray).

A total of 6 product variants can be produced with these options.

In a time-phased budget version, the profit retained by the company that performs the project.

The profit fee is expressed as follows:

profit fee = contract amount - management reserve + distributed budget +	undistr. budget

A group of related projects managed in a coordinated way to obtain more benefits and control.

The process by which an element or activity is completed over the lifetime of the project. Progress can be recorded at cost type, cost object, or at control code level.

An invoicing method based on progress for elements and activities. The difference with unit rate is twofold.

Unit rate has:

• Invoices based on the progress and element or activity sales rate per unit.
• Invoices settled with the contract amount.

Progress payments requests are created based on the cost incurred by the business partner as the work progresses for a contract.

The output from progress registration while a project is in progress. You can switch interim results on or off by project or by cost object within a project. If you switch it off, you can only report completed.

An endeavor with a specific objective to be met within the prescribed time and financial limitation, and that has been assigned for definition or execution.

The budget you work in. Control budget is the frozen budget where progress registration, customer invoicing, cost control, and input for project requirements planning are found. The purchase budget is also derived from the project budget.

The unique code of a main project, a subproject or a single project. By means of a project code, the complete production can be managed on the basis of customer orders.

If the project is performed in another country, the project currency is useful for monitoring. This currency can be an external currency that is not specified as one of the home currencies.

A tangible or intangible item that is produced or purchased as a result of a project. A project deliverable is intended to be shipped to an internal or external customer.

An item that is produced or purchased for a particular sales order. The item's project provides a link with the sales order.

A project item can be recognized by its item code. If a code has been entered in the project segment, the item is a project item.

A project item can be customized to the specifications of a customer, but it can also be a standard-to-order item.

You can use the project management office (PMO) to group projects by department or to link employees to the department.

The way to characterize a project.

LN distinguishes these statuses:

• Free

  A project definition has been recorded, but the project has not yet been executed. Changes are still possible.

• Active

  During the execution of a project you can release, purchase, and register cost transactions.

• Finished

  The project is completed but it has not (yet) been financially closed. You can still register cost transactions. Actual purchase orders cannot be present for the project.

• Closed

  The project has been financially closed, the project definition can no longer be changed.

• Archived

  The project is stored in an archive company. The project archive company can be used as a repository for historical project data.

A warehouse that only stores goods that are used for projects. In contradiction to a normal warehouse goods are administrated for a project and its details. The goods in the default project warehouse represent inventory value. The inventory value of a project warehouse is not part of the project costs. When the goods are transferred to the project, they add to the project costs. A project warehouse can be used by one or more projects.

A warehouse at which logistical transactions occur, but on which no integrations are logged. In project terms, it is as good as a project site in financial terms. In Warehousing, the warehouse type must be Project and the Project WIP Warehouse field must be selected.

An extension type that you must use if you are not sure of a certain part of the project costs when you develop your project. Settle the differences with the provisional-amounts budget and the actual costs at a later stage.:

Example

You are building a house with a standard kitchen costing $ 10,000, which is the provisional amount. When the house is almost finished, the customer determines on a more expensive kitchen, which brings the actual costs to $ 12,000. The customer is invoiced for the extra costs of $ 2,000.

A budget which defines a particular demand on a more detailed level than defined in the bottom-up budget. You can also use this to purchase cost objects with a manual order system.

A set of budget lines selected from the project budget to buy certain cost objects that are needed to carry out a project.

Purchase contracts are used to register specific agreements with a buy-from business partner that concern the delivery of specific goods.

A contract is comprised of:

• A purchase contract header with general business partner data, and optionally, a linked terms and conditions agreement.
• One or more purchase contract lines with (central) price agreements, logistic agreements, and quantity information that apply to an item or price group.
• Purchase contract line details with logistic agreements and quantity information that apply to an item or price group for a specific location (warehouse) of a multicompany corporation. Contract line details can exist only for corporate purchase contracts.

An agreement with a supplier for the supply of goods or services.

An item that is typically procured from an outside source. A bill of material and routing can be linked to a purchased item.

A department in your organization that is responsible for buying the materials and services required by your organization. You assign number groups to the purchase office.

An agreement that indicates which items are delivered by a buy-from business partner according to certain terms and conditions.

A purchase order contains:

• A header with general order data, buy-from business partner data, payment terms, and delivery terms
• One or more order lines with more detailed information about the actual items to be delivered

The price you pay for an item, expressed in the purchase currency.

The price at which you buy cost objects expressed in the currency in which you bought them.

A purchase order property that enables you to identify the kind of purchase made and in this way, the kind of payable. This property is used to post the purchase to the correct Accounts Payable account when the invoice is created. To post a purchase invoice, LN retrieves the control account from the purchase type linked to the purchase order line.

The unit in which you purchase an item, also referred to as the purchase quantity unit.

An extension type, which enables you to invoice the difference between the budgeted quantity and the actual quantity for a range of cost objects. Use this type when you are unsure of the quantities that you will spend in the project.

A written proposal that offers goods or services for a certain price and terms of sale to a prospective purchaser upon request.

A charge or payment fixed according to a standard scale, for example, the currency rate of the transaction.

The exchange rate (purchase or sales) of currencies.

The method to decide which date is used to determine the exchange rates.

During the composing process, all amounts in foreign currencies are converted to the home currency, based on the determined exchange rate.

The factor by which the amount in the transaction currency or the invoice currency is divided before LN converts it to a home currency. A rate factor is often used for currencies that have a relatively low price, for example, Korean Won.

A user-defined standardized description of the reason for a particular decision or choice. A reason's type determines for which purpose you can use that reason.

To include additional information about an action, you can select and enter a reason from a list. LN can also print the reason in the relevant report.

A user-defined description that is based on a transaction and its type. Reason codes assist in selecting data for inquiry and for reporting.

A repetition of dates, such as “Biweekly on Mondays and Fridays”, “The 27th of each month”, or “The first Monday in June of every 5th year”.

The first extra reference by which the order or request for quotation can be identified. This reference is printed on various order documents and lists.

The smallest unit of work that is required to carry out maintenance.

The smallest unit of work that is required to carry out maintenance.

A group activity or a single activity (directive) that is planned for a serialized item or installation group.

The second extra reference field that you can fill with extra information. This reference is printed on the order documents and lists.

A user definable date that is used to check the validity of change orders and configuration entities such as:

• User roles
• Features
• Configuration resources

In the case of effectivity control the reference date is checked against the effective date and expiry date. If the reference date is greater than or equal to the effective date the configuration entity is valid. If the reference date is greater than or equal to the expiry date the configuration entity is not valid anymore.

The numbering system used to identify outgoing messages. This number uniquely identifies the message and is created when an EDI message is generated. Because the actual data belonging to the message is distributed over multiple ASCII levels, this number is also used to identify which parts of the message belong together.

The date of registering the time that an employee spends on a specific project or activity.

One of the companies' home currencies that you, for example, use to report financial results to management.

In a multicurrency situation, you can use three home currencies. You can define the following three home currencies for a company:

• The company's local currency
• Reporting currency 1
• Reporting currency 2

A purchasing document that is used as a request to bidders to submit their terms, such as price, discount, delivery time, and payment terms for delivering a (quantity of a) product.

You can send the RFQ to several bidders. A bidder can submit an RFQ response for the specified items.

You can record the responses, negotiate, and compare the prices and discounts that are offered by different bidders.

An accepted response can be copied to a contract, an order, or a price book.

An entity such as employee, work center, or machine.

A service engineer that executes a service order or a department that is responsible for executing a planned activity or work order.

A liability on an individual or groups to perform assigned actions.

A purchase or sales order on which returned shipments are reported. A return order can only contain negative amounts.

The reason why the delivered goods are rejected and returned.

The amount received or gained, usually measured in money.

A way to categorize invoiced amounts of the same invoice type in order to analyze revenue history.

For a given contract, revenue recognition is the process that leads to the calculation (and subsequent posting to the General Ledger) of the total revenue that is estimated to have been earned, on the basis of the progress of the contract.

Line of travel from your warehouses to the ship-to or ship-from business partner's warehouse and vice versa. Use routes to group business partners that are located in the same area or along one convenient route.

You can arrange addresses by routes to print picking lists and shipping notes sorted by route.

The sequence of operations required to manufacture an item.

For each operation, the reference operation, machine, and work center are specified, as well as information about setup time and cycle time.

A subset of master routing. A predefined set of operations that can be carried out. Each operation is identified by a unique sequence number.

A list with information about the origin, value, etc., of invoices.

Companies established in European Union (EU) countries are obliged to use this document to make a tax declaration for their goods transactions within the EU.

LN bases the sales listing on the financial transactions that result from export transactions when the related invoices are processed.

A department that is identified in the company business model to manage the business partner's sales relations. The sales office is used to identify the locations that are responsible for the organization's sales activities.

The price for which an item is sold.

Gives insight into the structure and composition of the sales prices for product variants.

The sales price structure:

• Is used when calculating the sales price for a product variant on a sales order or sales quotation.
• Provides insight into the price structure and can be displayed in the Product Variant Sales Price Structure (tipcf5530m000) session. In addition to or instead of the product variant options, it can be printed on sales order documents.

The price or rate of cost objects, elements or activities, at which you sell, that are used for your project.

An employee of your company who maintains contact with the sold-to business partner. The employee number of the sales representative is also used as a sorting criterion in the sales statistics.

A sales order property that allows you to identify the kind of sale made and the kind of receivable. This property is used to post the sales to the correct Accounts Receivable account when the invoice is created. To post a sales invoice, LN retrieves the control account from the sales type linked to the sales order line, project contract, and so on.

The location where all separate requirements of one specific item delivered by a combination of the same buy-from business partner and ship-from business partner, ordered from a single purchase office, are located.

Unusable material or rejects of intermediate products, for example, because of faulty components, or products lost in cutting or sawing operations. The gross material requirements and/or an operation's input quantity must be increased to account for anticipated scrap.

In the BOM, you can define scrap as a percentage of the net material requirements, which is the scrap factor, and as a fixed quantity, which is the scrap quantity. A scrap quantity is mostly used to define the amount of material that is lost every time when you start producing, for example, to test the equipment.

For an operation, you can only define the scrap as a fixed quantity.

An alternative form of a description used for convenience during searching. Typically, it is an abbreviation, an acronym, or a mnemonic alternative to a full description.

A set that is used to define the structure of a schedule. A segment set consists of a number of segments.

The segment set is used for schedule regeneration and for clustering schedule lines. No segment sets are used for pull call-off schedules.

User-definable item grouping data. Use selection codes to select items by color, diameter, product expiry date, and so on.

The number that identifies a data record or a step in a sequence of activities. Sequence numbers are used in many contexts. Usually LN generates the sequence number for the next item or step. Depending on the context, you can overwrite this number.

The sequence number of the warehousing order line.

A physical occurrence of a standard item that is given a unique lifetime serial number. This enables tracking of the individual item throughout its lifetime, for example, through the design, production, testing, installation, and maintenance phases. A serialized item can consist of other serialized components.

Examples of serialized items are cars (Vehicle Identification Number), airplanes (tail numbers), PCs, and other electronic equipment (serial numbers).

The unique identification of a single physical item. LN uses a mask to generate the serial number. The serial number can consist of multiple data segments that represent, for example, a date, model and color information, sequence number, and so on.

Serial numbers can be generated for items and for tools.

A number that, together with the item code or manufacturer part number, uniquely identifies a component, an item, a machine, or an installation.

This serial number is usually shown together with the manufacturer part number and other identification data on an identification plate that is attached to the item.

A group of order numbers or document numbers starting with the same series code.

Series identify orders with certain characteristics. For example, all sales orders handled by the large accounts department start with LA (LA0000001, LA0000002, LA0000003, and so on).

The department that is responsible for the execution of a work order.

A product that serves as a repository when you define serialized items and service contract terms.

In Service, the items are specified by the item code. Item codes enable you to the use the LN functionality for purchase and inventory control. For service and maintenance applications, you must separately identify the various states in which items can occur in the process. For example, you must be able to identify defect items and repaired items.

Groups of service items with common characteristics that are used in Service.

Service item groups can be used to define the material terms for a group of items. The material terms are used in service-contract templates, service-contract quotes, service contracts, service-order quotes, and warranties.

A department clearly identified within the company business model to manage the services provided to a customer. The service office is used to identify the locations that are responsible for the service activities within the organization.

Orders that are used to plan, carry out, and control all repair and maintenance on configurations as present on customer locations or as present with the company.

An elementary part of LN the user can start to run an application's functionality. Usually, a session is linked to a main database table and a program script. In addition, a session uses zero or more forms, reports, and charts.

The code of a session consists of a package code, a module code, four digits that indicate the main table number and the session type, an m or an s, and three additional digits, for example, Countries (tcmcs0510m000).

A code used, together with the ship-to type, to identify where goods are shipped to.

A warning message displayed if you enter or select an item to which a signal is linked. Item signals can also be used to block the issue and/or requisition of items.

Business-partner signal

A warning message displayed if you select a business partner to whom a signal is linked.

A business location of an enterprise that can maintain its own logistical data. It includes a collection of warehouses, departments and assembly lines at the same location. Sites are used to model the supply chain in a multisite environment.

These restrictions apply to sites:

• A site cannot cross countries. The warehouses and departments of the site must be in the same country as the site.
• A site is linked to one planning cluster. Consequently, all warehouses and work centers of a site must belong to the same planning cluster.
• A site is linked to one logistic company.

You can link a site to an enterprise unit or an enterprise unit to a site.

If an enterprise unit is linked to a site, the entities of the site belong to the enterprise unit. Conversely, if a site is linked to an enterprise unit, the entities of the enterprise unit belong to the site.

The specific know-how or technical expertise that an employee must have to carry out activities. For example, knowledge of electricity, specific equipment, and so on.

For a project, when a purchase order is approved and due for receipt, it is called a soft commitment.

The business partner who orders goods or services from your organization, who owns the configurations you maintain, or for whom you perform a project. Usually a customer's purchase department.

The agreement with the sold-to business partner can include:

• Default price and discount agreements
• Sales order defaults
• Delivery terms
• The related ship-to and invoice-to business partner

A structure that you can use to sort the estimate lines if the amount of estimate lines requires sorting.

The places, events, or methods where or through which business partners come in contact with your company (for example, a trade fair or an advertisement).

The cost object's standard cost.

Standard cost valuation is an inventory valuation method. The standard cost is a calculated inventory value, based upon calculated material costs, operation costs, and surcharges. The standard cost valuation includes the surcharges by warehouse.

A purchased item, material, subassembly, or finished product that is normally available.

All items that are not built according to customer specification for a specific project are defined as standard items. Opposite term is customized item.

A group of items for which statistical information is collected and represented.

A step in a project procedure. An activity that corresponds with a session of the Project package. Example: the activity generate control data is performed using the Generate Control Data (tpptc1230m000) session.

A generic term for a project estimate structure element that can have a number of structure types, such as a project element, activity, cost type, an organization breakdown structure element, or an element of a reporting structure. A primary structure element is part of the primary structure that is linked to the estimate version.

Arrange for part or all of the work to be carried out by a third party.

The Freight functionality involved in subcontracting freight order lines or planned loads to a carrier. When freight order lines are subcontracted, the carrier is to carry out the transport planning and the transportation of the goods listed on the freight order lines. When planned loads are subcontracted, the carrier is to transport the goods listed on the loads. The carrier does not have to perform transport planning for the loads, because planning has already been carried out in Freight.

Hiring certain services from another party, for example the execution of a part of a project or an operation of a production order.

Allowing another company (the subcontractor) to carry out work on an item. This work can concern the entire production process, or only one or more operations in the production process.

A type of cost object representing services purchased from a third party for use in a project.

A business partner that is hired to perform certain services, such as the execution of a part of a project or production order. The services are delivered via a purchase order.

A business partner from whom you buy service to perform or execute part of a project or production order.

A tax or levy that is payable to a local or municipal authority to compensate for a disruption caused for the duration of a project. For example, a compensation for removing a sidewalk or part of a street to install the water pipes or sewer while constructing a high-rise apartment building.

Indirect cost and costs that do not belong to other cost types are booked as sundry costs, for example, insurance costs or expenses by employees such as meals and hotel costs.

A means of defining indirect project costs. Typically, surcharges are used to cover general overhead costs, including storage, handling, and maintenance costs, management overheads, and so on. Surcharges are calculated as a percentage of direct costs and are posted to a sundry-cost object. Surcharges can be calculated based on costs, budgets and revenues.

A specific task. You can use labor codes to control the costs of a labor code or of a group of labor codes.

A specification of the type of work that is carried out by a service employee. You can use tasks to specify the labor required to carry out an activity. A specific labor rate can be linked to a task.

The TAT terms contains the agreed TAT information for a specific item or a business partner.

An attribute of order headers and order lines that you can use to define tax exceptions for the transaction. LN retrieves the default tax classification from the invoice-from and invoice-to business partners.

For example, you can use the tax classification to indicate:

• That payments to an invoice-from business partner are subject to withholding tax and social contributions
• To group business partners who have the same tax aspects for your company, for example, subcontractors, or agents
• That the tax must be paid in a country other than the sales office or service office's home country

A code that indentifies the tax rate and which determines how LN calculates and registers tax amounts.

A code that identifies the tax rate and which determines how LN calculates and registers tax amounts.

The country in which the tax must be paid or reported. The tax country can be different from the country where the goods are issued or delivered.

The country in which you must pay/report the value-added tax (VAT). The tax country can be different from the country where services or goods are delivered.

Being exempt from tax. Transactions with specific business partners, involving specific goods, and/or with their origin or destination in certain countries or areas, can be exempt from tax. Sales invoices for transactions that are exempt from tax must have zero tax amounts.

Some enterprises are exempt from sales tax within the jurisdiction of certain tax authorities. Invoices for sales to a customer with a valid tax exemption must have zero tax amounts. If you are exempt from sales tax, your suppliers must not include the tax amount on their invoices.

A certificate issued by a tax authority to a specific business, exempting them from sales tax within the tax authority's jurisdiction. When you purchase goods or services, you must provide the certificate number to your supplier to authorize them not to collect the tax.

A number used to identify legal persons or businesses. The tax authorities assign the tax numbers to the registered businesses. Your business partners must provide you with their tax number. Business partners without a tax number are considered to be private persons.

A number used to identify legal persons or businesses. The tax authorities assign the tax numbers to the registered businesses. Your business partners must provide you with their tax number. Business partners without a tax number are considered to be private persons.

A third party application that facilitates the calculation of taxes.

The employee who is responsible for maintaining the technical item specifications and the requirements for the manufacturer of the item. This employee is also responsible for maintaining the information concerning hazardous material and the risk classification in Warehousing.

A user-friendly way to define a project.

A person or organization with an indirect or non-contractual interest in a project, for example, a government body or regulatory agency.

The date until which an item's supply plan and planned orders are frozen.

The time fence is expressed as a number of working days or working hours from the date you carry out the simulation.

As a rule, Enterprise Planning does not regenerate the supply plan or the planned orders within the time fence. However, you can overrule this behavior when you run a master-plan simulation or order simulation.

The time fence is meant to prevent:

• Disturbance of orders that have already started (at the shop-floor level).
• Generation of planned orders with start dates in the past (that is, orders that are late).

Usually, the lead time of an item's production process is a reasonable value for the time fence.

A reference date against which processes or statuses are evaluated.

Example

The assembly order time fence on an assembly line defines the end date of the period for which assembly orders must be created. If this time fence is 100 days, assembly orders must be created for product variants whose planned offline date is between now and 100 days. Similarly, a time fence can define when line station orders must be frozen, updated, and so on.

A type of budget that is phased and spread out over a period of time. In LN there are various ways to plan the activities and look at the earned value. The earned value concept determines how the budget amounts are released and how the planned value is calculated.

The unit that is used to specify the physical quantity time.

A number to identify a tool. The combination of a tool type, for example, hammer, and a tool serial number, for example, 1, is unique, and identifies a tool in LN.

A budget method that distributes the expected project amount across the project structure from top to bottom.

This budget method is used to time-phase the available budget amount across activities. Top-down budgeting supports different earned value methods.

A version is made to be able to track changes in the course of a project budget. More than one version can be defined for a top-down budget to support a long-term project. One version of the top-down budget will be actual. A version can be closed, which means that no changes can be made to the version data.

A group of resources with common skills that can be used for a particular labor cost object. If you cannot yet make detailed assignments for employees, you can use trade groups for scheduling.

A record generated to record an asset's event, its related books, and its distributions. You can store transactions for assets that are capitalized, adjusted, transferred, and disposed of.

The currency used in the transaction document.

The date on which the planned order was last changed.

The definition of the (logistic) origin of an integration transaction. The combination of a transaction origin (TROR) and the financial transaction (FITR) results in an integration document type.

A user-defined three-position code used to identify documents. The series linked to the transaction type give documents the sequence number.

A legal rule for the conversion Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) into euros. LN automatically applies triangulation when converting EMU currencies.

The exact text of this rule is: Monetary amounts to be converted from one national currency into another shall first be converted into a monetary amount expressed in the euro unit, which amount may be rounded to not less than three decimals and shall be converted into the other national currency unit. No alternative method of calculation may be used unless it produces the same results.

The project-budget part that is not yet distributed across the elements.

You can look at an undistributed budget on various levels:

• For activities: the undistributed budget equals the budget amount minus distributed budget
• For the version: the undistributed budget equals the contract amount minus profit fee minus management reserve minus distributed budget

The physical quantity in which an item or good is managed. For example, a quantity of wood can be expressed as a length by using the unit of one meter, or as a volume by using the unit of one cubic meter.

The unit cost of the term expressed in the home currency.

The unit of measure for the cost object. This unit can affect how budget line quantities are calculated.

An invoicing method based on the progress and element or activity sales rate per unit. Invoices are booked against the contract amount with installments.

A group of unit codes that can be linked to standard or customized items, or to item defaults. In a unit set, you can indicate the physical quantities that can be used for the item, in which modules, and for what purposes.

A filtering status that determines whether sales or cost line amounts are used in the calculation of the estimate totals, and whether the line is included in the scope of the estimate.

The cost variance at completion of the project. The variance is calculated using the formula:

Variance at Completion (VAC) = Budget At Completion (BAC) - Estimate At Completion (EAC)

The actual price of an item, which is used in all financial transactions that involve the item.

The transactions include:

• Standard cost of goods sold
• Inventory transfer
• Issue to work-in-process value

The actual cost is calculated by using one of the actual costing methods (LIFO, FIFO, MAUC and Lot costing), or by using a standard cost valuation method.

A place for storing goods. For each warehouse, you can enter address data and data relating to its type.

A type of activity. Usually used to break down the project scope into smaller pieces. You can define work for a work-break-down structure element. You can aggregate the costs from control accounts or work packages. You cannot book costs on this activity type.

A formal authorization procedure to begin work on a specific activity. The process helps ensure that the authorized work is done at the right time and in proper sequence.

Work authorization status can have these values:

• Free

  Work is not authorized for execution.

• Released

  Work is sanctioned for execution. This status is allowed only for activities under a leading plan and for elements which are part of the leading structure. The parent activity/element and the activity type cannot be changed.

• On Hold

  Work is under execution and needs to be suspended due to some constraints. The parent activity/element and the activity type cannot be changed.

• Finished

  Work is executed. The parent activity/element and the activity type cannot be changed.

• Closed

  Work is completed and all related financial transactions are closed. The parent activity/element and the activity type cannot be changed.

A specific production area consisting of one or more people and/or machines with identical capabilities, that can be considered as one unit for purposes of the capacity requirement planning and detailed scheduling.

The development stage of a business process.

The stage determines whether:

• You can modify the business process
• can use it

A type of activity. You can detail short-span jobs in work packages and use it for the execution of a project.