On 9/26/07, David Tangye <..hidden..> wrote:
Logically, it would have to work in a somewhat similar way as part assembly works now. The user would have to define how an assembly is composed and explicitly define how many of each part comprise the assembly, and what each is worth. Then the system would need to add up the sum of parts values, and ensure that the sum of parts equals the assembly total. I can think of two ways to do this
1. Assign any remainder to another 'part'. That part would probably be a default part.
2. As an alternative perhaps a set of parts could be nominated at breakdown time to have the remainder spread over them in some way, either equally or weighted by relative volume of part.
Agreed that this is the general outline. However, as prices fluctuate on purchase, this gets somewhat more difficult. Furthermore if an assembly component is also purchased separately, this could lead to interesting results (suppose we have enough data in the purchase history to conclude that component A goes up in price while component B drops. How much does this need to be automated?).
The other question is *how* the cost breakdown data should be entered. Should it be a percent? Should it be a value that we use to calculate a ratio? What works best? (I would side with the value because it allows one to use rational numbers which do not convert losslessly to decimal.)
Either way I can see a user recalculating this a few times, using a button in a similar way to how the Update button works for tax at present, so he could fine-tune a breakdown til it looks right, then save/post it.
Again, this brings us to the question of how frequently these may need to be adjusted, etc.
I think we should target a basic, non-automated version of this for 1.4 and continue to discuss requirements, etc. here.
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers