Fabrication
Accounting software for fabrication units
Steel trader bills, part payments from factories, gas refills, crane hire and depreciation on the plasma cutter, all posted by the documents into one ledger.
In short
SimpleERP is accounting software for fabrication units. Steel bills, lot invoices, stage payments, gas and crane hire expenses and machine depreciation post their own journals, so dues show on any day and each job, set up as a product, shows its margin.
Illustration of a journal entry where debits and credits differ by 10, refused, and a posting into a locked month, refused with the lock date.
An accounting day at Don Valley Fabrications
Fabrication money is lumpy. Don Valley Fabrications pays the steel stockholder within 15 days of each truck of UB beams and steel plate, but a shed for a factory on a Rotherham industrial estate is paid in three parts: one when the columns are up, one when the roof is on and the last after erection, sometimes months later.
In between come oxygen and LPG refills, welding rod, crane hire for the erection days and the power bill for three welding sets and the plasma cutter. The partner asks one question at every month end: after all that, which jobs made money.
SimpleERP answers it from documents the shop already makes. Steel bills post inventory and tax you can reclaim, work orders post the steel and overhead into each job's cost, lot invoices post the sale and the cost of goods sold, and every receipt clears the invoice it pays.
Which accounts tell a fabricator the truth?
Six accounts carry most of the story in a structural shop. The database refuses any entry that does not balance, so they always add up.
- No closing-stock journal: the yard's value comes from the stock ledger
- Overhead absorbed from labour and gas per batch on completed work orders
| Account | Fed by | What it answers |
|---|---|---|
| Inventory: steel and consumables | Steel trader bills; work orders; invoices | What the yard holds at average cost |
| Cost of goods sold | Every lot invoice for finished work | Margin against the steel actually used |
| Overhead absorbed | Labour, gas and power on completed work orders | How much shop cost went into each job |
| Accounts receivable | Lot invoices and stage payments from factories | Which customer is late, and by how many days |
| Accounts payable | Steel trader, gas supplier and crane hire bills | What falls due this fortnight |
| Plant and machinery | Plasma cutter, press brake, welding sets | Book value after monthly depreciation |
How do stage payments from a factory show up?
Bill each stage as an invoice against the sales order, and allocate each receipt to the invoice it pays. A factory that pays $45,000 against a $57,000 stage invoice leaves $12,000 open, and the ageing report puts it in the right bucket until the rest arrives.
- Part payments allocated invoice by invoice
- Statement with a running balance for the factory's accounts department
- Overdue buckets per customer on the ageing report
Illustration of receivables ageing: 2,441 to collect across 5 buckets, with customer totals.
Which job made money last month?
The Rotherham shed was invoiced at $201,000 over three lots. The work orders that built it consumed steel and overhead worth $157,000, which the invoices carried as cost of goods sold, so the job left $44,000 of gross margin before erection costs. Because each job is set up as its own product, the sales-by-product report shows that line for every job.
- Sales by product, with margin, for any dates
- P&L by month to compare a heavy erection month with a shop-only month
What does the month-end close look like?
The accountant works down the same list each month, and nothing on it means re-entering a bill.
- Bank reconciliation against the statement, ticking cleared payments to the steel stockholder
- Tax you can reclaim on steel bills checked against the purchase register before the GSTR-2B match
- Depreciation run for the plasma cutter, press brake and welding sets
- Lock date on the last day, so a late bill goes into the open month
One system
Where the entries come from
Bills, invoices, receipts, work orders, payroll, expenses and depreciation each post their own journal; manual journals are kept for what no document covers.
Engineering and fabrication
Quotations to invoices, BOMs and work orders per job, and steel stock in kg and metres.
See howInvoicing & tax
Tax invoices with VAT, GST or sales tax on every line, numbered by fiscal year and posted in one step.
See howInventory for fabricators
Beams, channels, plate and pipe in kg or running metres, consumables in their own store, offcuts in a scrap bay, all at average cost.
See howPayroll for engineering workshops
Welders, fitters and site teams paid from attendance, with site allowance, agreed overtime and advances on the payslip.
See howProduction for fabricators
Shop drawings as BOMs with offcut allowance, work orders that draw steel from the yard, and the actual cost of every fabricated frame.
See howAccounting
A double-entry ledger with journals, bank registers, statements and a lock date.
See how
Honest limits
What SimpleERP does not do yet
- No bank feeds: bank entries are recorded and reconciled by hand
- No multi-currency; every document is in your base currency
- Tax returns are not filed and e-invoices are not issued from inside the product
- There is no separate project or job ledger; set each job up as its own product to read its margin on the sales-by-product report
Getting started
Start with accounting
Sign up with your email
Name, email and a password. No card for the seven-day trial.
Tell us about the business
Pick your country and, if you are registered, type your tax number. Accounts, tax rates, units, roles and numbering are seeded for that country.
Enter opening balances
Post the trial balance from your last closed month, with what each factory owes you and what you owe the steel stockholder.
Run the trial balance
Every posted document is already in the ledger; the trial balance and P&L are ready on any date.
FAQ
Questions, answered
Can my accountant see the books without coming to Sheffield?
Yes. Invite the accountant by email with the Accountant role. They see journals, bank registers, statements, the tax summary and the lock date, and can export any report to CSV from their own office, so the quarterly visit becomes a phone call.
How do I record oxygen and LPG refills?
Put them on the gas supplier's bill as non-stock lines that post to an expense account, or enter a cash refill as an expense with the receipt photo from a phone. On a supplier bill the tax you can reclaim is recorded from the bill as it posts.
Can I see tax paid on steel against tax collected?
Yes. The tax summary shows the tax on your invoices against the tax on steel stockholder and other bills for the period, and the sales and purchase registers list every document behind those figures for your filer.
Do the machines depreciate in the books?
Yes. Record the plasma cutter, press brake and welding sets as fixed assets under plant and machinery, and the monthly depreciation run posts the expense to the ledger. Book value is always cost less accumulated depreciation.
Related
Keep reading
Engineering and fabrication
Quotations to invoices, BOMs and work orders per job, and steel stock in kg and metres.
Read moreInvoicing & tax
Tax invoices with VAT, GST or sales tax on every line, numbered by fiscal year and posted in one step.
Read morePayroll for engineering workshops
Welders, fitters and site teams paid from attendance, with site allowance, agreed overtime and advances on the payslip.
Read more
See how accounting works in SimpleERP for engineering and fabrication
Seven days free. No card. Your first invoice in minutes.