Summary:
Through the new Expense Transfer Reconciliation form, AeLive has the ability to reconcile outstanding expenses left from discrepancies in head counts during the process of transferring animals from one group to another.
Once all expenses, feed deliveries, ending feed inventory and/or feed returns are entered into the system and all transfer-outs are finalized, select the Reconcile button for the selected flock and perform the steps shown in this document.
At the end of the group the starting number of head minus mortalities and transfer outs may not equal zero. Because of this, remaining dollars that belong to those birds (that really do not exist because of count discrepancies) remain in the flock. Once a flock is finalized by selecting the Finalize button on the transfer out form the remaining dollars will be allocated among the transfers based on the percentage of the dollars originally transferred. The reconcile form shows where those dollars went. When you click on the reconcile form this will retrigger the expense transfer process to ensure that all costs have been distributed. More information on the business rules of the expense transfer process can be found here.
This article describes how to use this form with the example of a pullet flock transferring into two different commercial egg laying houses.
Step 1: Finalize Transfers
After entering all transfer outs from a pullet flock to a layer flock, select the “Finalize” button on the bottom left of the form. The finalize button will move the flock from active status to settlement status. When the flock is in a status of “Settlement,” users are allowed to enter any additional expenses, feed deliveries, ending feed inventory and/or feed returns against that flock.
The Finalize button creates a clear stop date for feed consumption, allowing for accurate feed consumption calculations for transfer-outs in AeLive. Clicking this button tells AeLive that the animals are done moving and it is time to reconcile the numbers. AeLive will reconcile against all transfers marked to “Transfer Expenses”, as displayed below.
Step 2: How to Reconcile Leftover Amounts
In the example above, the “On-Hand” count indicates that there are 310 birds remaining at the end of the flock. This is a discrepancy with the bird count at some point (bad mortality record, incorrect starting count, etc.). At this point, the best number is the count of birds transferred.
The 310 birds may or may not have existed, however at the end of the flock what really matters is that all of the dollars get transferred. All of the birds are gone but because of a small discrepancy in count something needs to be done with the dollars that belong to those 310 birds.
The finalize transfer out button will change the in house flock amount to zero and costs will be allocated to the other existing transfers. The reconcile form will show you exactly how much each placement received. If there are remaining costs on the reconcile form, that means the flock has not yet been finalized. If there are any differences this usually means that all of the expenses did not transfer and you may want to check your transfer outs.
Select the flock and click the Reconcile form button:
The following form displays:
The Reconciliation form has two sections, a top half and a bottom half:
- The top half, “Transfers Out (with Expense Transfer Configurations)” displays the transfers currently entered for the flock, the amount of birds transferred, the cost transferred and the cost per head. It will also show you the remaining costs left before flock finalization if a flock has not been finalized yet.
- The bottom half, is the Transfer results. This shows each expense and how much of those expenses each placement received and the date the flock received each expense. This also includes consumption costs.
It always figures out what to transfer by taking the remaining amount * the percent transferred.
Before a flock is finalized, we create a record representing all birds that haven’t transferred, we sort the transfers by date and put the remaining at the end. We loop through all transfers including the remaining birds, giving each a chunk that should add up to 100% the cost of the expense.
When the flock is finalized we stop making the remaining record. We use the same calculation to keep dividing up the expense. All transfers that are not behind the accounting close date get a cut of the expense based off of their percent transferred, while remaining get none.
Rules to Remember
Some procedures to highlight that should occur when dealing with multiple transferred and feed consumed are the following:
- There must be an ending feed inventory or a feed return at the end of the flock.
- Multiple transfers will receive the same amount of feed consumed unless an ending feed inventory is entered on each day that a transfer exists.
- The feed consumed will not calculate correctly for the existing portion of the flock unless an actual starting amount of feed for the remaining birds is present.