Entering Opening Balances for Ongoing Contracts

To ease the transfer of ongoing contracts from another job-costing system to Sage ERP Accpac, the Opening Balances form lets you enter opening actuals balances, opening balances for stored material, and opening activity statistics for projects.

The Opening Balances form is available in the PJC Transactions folder.

Although general ledger entries are not created for posted opening balance documents, you can view Actuals opening balance transactions for a specified contract, project, category, or resource using the Transaction History form.

Once you enter general information for an opening balance document (“header” information), you can use the detail entry form to enter opening information for particular contracts, projects, and, as necessary, categories and resources.

Note:

• Contracts and projects must have Estimate or Approved status to accept opening Actuals balances.

• You can enter opening balances for stored materials for contracts and projects that have Estimate, Approved, or Open status.

Choosing the Opening Type

You enter opening actual balances, stored balances, and activity statistics separately. The Opening Type field lets you indicate which type of opening information you want to enter. You can select:

• Actuals — This type lets you enter opening Actuals balances. Posting the document creates opening balance transactions that you can view on the Transaction History form. It also updates Actuals on the Contract Maintenance form.

• Activity — This type lets you enter opening statistical information for specified contracts and projects. (No transactions are produced for opening statistics.)

• Stored — This type lets you enter opening balances for material placed in storage for a particular project. This information is used to track the allocation and use of material on projects, particularly for the AIA report required in US jurisdictions.

When you identify the opening type, contract, project, category, and resource (depending on the project type and accounting method), the program displays on the detail grid the rest of the fields you are required to fill in.

The fields that appear on the grid depend on:

• The opening type.

• The project type and accounting method for the specified project.

• The project style.

• The actuals type, if you selected Actuals as the opening type.

Entering Actuals

Whether you enter opening balances separately for revenue and costs parallels the way you enter estimates for the project, and depends on the project type, project style, and accounting method.

For projects for which you estimate revenue and costs at the same project level (project, category, or resource), you can use the same detail to enter revenue and cost balances. That is, you do not specify the actuals type for:

• Standard projects for which you estimate both revenue and costs at the resource level (that is, for all time and materials projects and for fixed price projects that use an item invoice type).

• Basic projects for which you estimate revenue and costs at the category level (that is, for all time and materials projects, for cost plus and fixed price projects that use the billings and costs or accrual basis accounting methods, and for cost plus projects that use the category percentage complete accounting method).

However, for all projects for which you estimate revenue and costs at different project levels, you must enter opening revenue and cost balances using separate details. You use the Actuals Type field to indicate whether you are entering revenue opening balances or cost opening balances.

Amounts Remaining to be Billed

For time and materials projects and fixed price projects that use the billings and costs or accrual-basis accounting methods, you need to separate the unbilled amount from the actual revenue to produce invoices for costs that you posted but did not bill in your old system.

You enter the unbilled amount in the Remaining To Be Billed field on the Opening Balances form.

The program invoices the unbilled amount the next time you post a billing worksheet that includes the project, and when you next run revenue recognition, it updates the recognized revenue for the project.

Note: You enter the amount in the customer’s currency.

Modifying Posted Opening Balances

If you specify a contract, project, category, and resource for which you have already posted opening balances, Project and Job Costing warns you, then displays the original estimates and current Actuals.

If you change the Actuals opening balances, when you post the revised opening balances transaction, Project and Job Costing overwrites the original posted balances. Transaction History will display the original actual opening balances transactions and their reversal, as well as the revised opening balances.

Click here for step-by-step instructions on entering opening Actuals balances.

Entering Activity Information

If you choose Activity as the opening type, you can enter opening activity statistics for a specified contract and project. No transactions are produced when you post activity opening balances. The program simply updates the activity tab for the project.

Click here for step-by-step instructions on entering opening activity statistics.

Entering Opening Balances for Stored Material

You choose Stored as the opening type to update opening balances for material in storage for projects.

The project style determines the level at which you enter balances for material in storage. For standard projects, you identify material resources that you have assigned to particular project categories. If you use Inventory Control or Purchase Orders (standalone), you can enter item numbers from those programs to identify particular material resources for basic projects.

If you select the option Use AIA Report, additional fields appear that let you enter information about total revenue and stored balances previously reported.

Click here for step-by-step instructions on entering opening balances for stored material.

Posting Opening Balance Documents

Although Project and Job Costing updates opening revenue and costs when you post Actuals opening balances, it does not generate transactions for General Ledger. However, you can view opening balance transactions produced for Project and Job Costing in Transaction History. (The default prefix for opening balance transaction numbers is “OB”.)

You can also view the Actuals posted to the contracts, projects, and categories in the Contract Maintenance form. After posting Actuals opening balances, you should compare the actual revenue for projects and categories with the revenue recognized for the projects and categories in your old system.

Posting opening activity statistics does not produce any transactions. Project and Job Costing simply updates the Activity tab for the specified projects.

When you post Stored opening balances, the program updates the quantity and extended cost of stored materials for the category or the resource category, depending on the project type. It also updates the Stored Material Audit report with the change to stored quantities and costs.

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