What's New in Project and Job Costing

Sage ERP Accpac Project and Job Costing 6.0

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What's New in Project and Job Costing

Project and Job Costing 5.5A introduced many exciting new features. In summary, this version let you:

  • Assign different customers to projects in a contract.

    A new option on the Contract Maintenance form lets you use assign customers other than the contract customer to individual projects in a contract.

    Allow Multiple Customers lets you assign customers other than the contract customer to individual projects. Project and Job Costing uses the contract customer as the default customer for new projects. However, you can change the customer for a project until you post an invoice for the project in Accounts Receivable.

    In multicurrency ledgers, project customers can use different source currencies than the contract customer. However, if you change the project customer after saving a project, the new customer must use the same currency as the original customer.

  • When using the New Contract Wizard to copy an existing contract, choose whether to copy project customers from the existing contract or to use the new contract customer as the default for all projects.

    The New Contract Wizard provides a new option, Default New Contract Customers To Projects, that lets you choose whether to copy customers from the existing contract projects to the new projects.

    To ensure that all the projects on the new contract use the new contract customer, select the Default New Contract Customers To Projects on the Copy From tab of the New Contract Wizard.

    In multicurrency ledgers, the new contract customer must use the same currency as the existing project customers; otherwise, the new contract will use the same project customers as the existing contract.

    If you do not select the option, the new contract customer number is used only for the contract, and the new projects use the same customer numbers as the existing contract or template.

  • Invoice different customers than the project customer.

    A new option on the Contract Maintenance form, Invoice To Multiple Customers, provides a default setting for new projects you add to a contract.

    A new option on the Project Maintenance form, Invoice To Multiple Customers, lets you post shipments in Order Entry and post invoices in Accounts Receivable for customers other than the project customer.

    In multicurrency ledgers, the invoiced customer must use the same currency as the project customer.

    Do not select the option if you want to permit billings only to project customers.

  • Take advantage of I/C unit of measure conversion factors when processing job-related material transactions in other Sage ERP Accpac programs.

    In version 5.5, when you post job-related material transactions in Sage Accpac applications, Project and Job Costing converts the quantity used in the transaction to the unit of measure used for the specified project resource category. (To make the conversion, the program uses the conversion factor specified for the unit of measure in the item record in Inventory Control.)

    Before you begin processing transactions using version 5.5, consider running the Convert To Stocking UOM macro. The Convert To Stocking UOM macro converts the I/C unit of measure for all items in contracts to the stocking unit of measure used for the item in Inventory Control.

    If you posted material transactions consistently in previous versions of Project and Job Costing and Purchase Orders using the stocking unit of measure, the macro will help you standardize the I/C unit of measure for project resource categories in Project and Job Costing, and will not distort quantities.

    If you have been posting material transactions in units other than the stocking unit of measure, or in a variety of units of measure, using the macro will not be as helpful.

    You can use the Transaction History form to verify the units of measure used in posted material transactions.

    Note: If you do not use fractional quantities in Inventory Control (or in Purchase Orders, if you have a standalone Purchase Orders system), you should convert all resource categories to the stocking unit of measure. Otherwise, if you post units of measure that are less than the I/C unit of measure used for a resource category, the quantities shown for the resource category in Contract Maintenance are rounded to a whole number and may be misleading. For example, if you post 5 “each” in Order Entry, but Project and Job Costing uses “dozen,” the quantity that appears for the resource category will be 0.

  • Specify a source for the default billing rate used for projects.

    The Project tab on the Project Maintenance form lets you specify a default billing rate for documents you process in Order Entry and for material usage and material returns transactions you process in Project and Job Costing.

    For projects that use a billing rate (such as time and materials projects), you use the new Default Billing Rate option to select one of the following sources:

    • Billing Rate. Select this option to use the billing rate specified for the project. (On a standard project, the billing rate is assigned to each material resource; on a basic project, the billing rate is assigned to the category.)

    • Use Customer Price List. Select this option to use the price list for the specified customer to determine the billing rate.

    • Use Specified Price List. Select this option to use a price list defined in Inventory Control. If you select this option, an additional new field appears that lets you enter the specific price list.

  • Set up billing rates in a variety of currencies, if you use multicurrency.

    If you use multicurrency, you can now set up billing rates in a variety of currencies in the Categories, Employees, Equipment, Miscellaneous Expenses, Overhead Expenses, Subcontractors, and Charges setup forms.

    Most setup forms now include a grid where you enter default billing rates for different currencies.

    The Subcontractors form provides a separate tab to specify billing rates for standard projects.

    For basic projects, you specify billing rates for categories, rather than resources, so the Categories form provides a tab that lets you enter default billing rates, as well as the default A/R item number, unit of measure, and unit cost, for basic projects.

  • Use billing rates from price lists when entering material usage and material return transactions.

    For projects that use a billing rate, Project and Job Costing lets you choose whether the default billing rate will come from the project, the customer's price list, or another price list that you specify.

    If a project uses a specified price list to determine the default billing rate, you select the price list when you enter material usage and material return transactions. The program displays the default price list specified for the project, but you can change the price list, or enter a different billing rate, for individual material transactions.

  • Use billing rates from price lists when setting up revenue estimates for material on standard projects.

    For projects that use a billing rate, you choose whether the default billing rate will come from the project, the customer's price list, or another price list that you specify.

    If a project uses a price list for the default billing rate, Project and Job Costing calculates estimated revenue using the price list and the quantity you enter when you add new categories (on a basic project) or resource categories (on a standard project). You can change the billing rate for individual categories and resource categories while the project has an Estimate status.

  • Use the I/C cost for an item when setting up cost estimates for material on standard projects.

    When entering a cost estimate for a material resource category, you can use the Finder to select the cost for the material item at a particular Inventory Control location, or you can enter a different cost.

    Project and Job costing applies the following rules when determining the item cost.

    • If the item uses the Moving Average, FIFO, or LIFO costing method, the moving average cost is used for the estimate.

    • If the item uses the Standard costing method, the estimate also uses the standard cost.

    • If the item uses the Most Recent or User-Defined costing method, the estimate uses the most recent cost of the item.

  • Choose whether to update the payroll expense and employee expense accounts used on PJC timecards when you update Canadian or US Payroll.

    The new Use Expense Accounts option lets you choose whether to use the payroll expense account and the employee expense account from PJC timecards when you update payroll.

    If you do not select this option, the timecards created in Canadian or US Payroll will use the accounts specified for the earning/deduction code in the payroll employee record.

    You can change the accounts on individual timecards in Canadian or US Payroll, regardless of your selection for this option.

  • Use Sage ERP Accpac Serialized Inventory and Lot Tracking to track material transactions.

    In version 5.5, Project and Job Costing is integrated with Sage ERP Accpac Serialized Inventory and Lot Tracking.

  • For projects that use item invoices (except those using the accrual-basis accounting method), choose to recognize only costs that you have billed on a billing worksheet, for which you have posted the invoices in Accounts Receivable.

    A new option on the PJC Options form ensures that when you recognize revenue for time and materials projects or for fixed price projects that use an item invoice type, Project and Job Costing recognizes only costs that are marked as billed.

    If you select the Only Recognize Costs When Billed For Item Invoice Type Projects option, when you recognize revenue for projects that use an item invoice type, revenue recognition includes only costs invoiced on a billing worksheet, with the invoice posted in Accounts Receivable.

    Note: This option does not affect projects that use the accrual-basis accounting method or projects that use a summary invoice type.

  • Process employee expenses using non-labor categories that are consistent with the expense code.

    In version 5.5, when you process an employee expense on a timecard, you can specify any category.

    In previous versions, you could specify only categories that used a labor cost type, even if the expense code was for hotel expenses or airfare. Now, you can classify employee expenses using categories that are consistent with the expense.

  • Specify a posting date for all transactions (including worksheets), and specify the type of date to use as the default posting date in transaction entry forms. (This change is consistent with improvements in other Sage ERP Accpac applications.)

    In addition to the transaction date, you can now specify the date that a transaction is posted to General Ledger accounts.

    A new option on the PJC Options form lets you choose whether to use Document/Transaction Date or Session Date as the default posting date for transactions.

    The posting date also determines the fiscal year and period to which the transaction is posted. You do not change the Year/Period field.

    However, you can change the posting date for particular transactions. When you enter or edit a transaction, you click the Zoom button beside the Year/Period field to open a separate Posting Date Override form where you change the change the posting date for a transaction.

    You can also change the posting date for entries on billing worksheets and revenue recognition worksheets in the same way.

  • Change the A/R account set used on invoices you generate for Accounts Receivable. Project and Job Costing uses the A/R account set specified for the contract project as the default.

  • Change the work in progress account in transactions for all projects that use an item invoice type.

  • Choose whether to update Budget Maintenance when you process transactions. (Processing is much faster if you do not update budgets!)

    The new Update Budgets option lets you choose whether to update Budget Maintenance whenever you process transactions.

    Project and Job Costing can process transactions much faster if it does not have to update budget data each time, so select this option only if you use the Budget Maintenance feature.

    If you turn the option on, later, Project and Job Costing maintains budgets only for new contracts.

    Note: This option affects only budget sets set up in the Budget Maintenance form. Project and Job Costing continues to update the estimates, actuals, committed, recognized, and stored amounts you see on the Contract Maintenance form, regardless of your choice for this option.

  • Drill down from an Accounts Receivable invoice to the billing worksheet in Project and Job Costing.

In addition, Project and Job Costing version 5.5 is fully integrated with Sage ERP Accpac Order Entry 5.5, and it now:

  • Lets you specify default selections for miscellaneous charges you process in Order Entry.

    A new option, O/E Miscellaneous Charges, lets you specify the following default selections for miscellaneous charges you process in Order Entry:

    • Default Cost From Misc. Charges. If you select this option, the extended cost and extended amount specified in the miscellaneous charge setup record in Order Entry are used as defaults.

    • Default Cost From Contract. If you select this option, the cost specified for the miscellaneous charge for the project category (on a basic project) or the resource category (on a standard project) is used as the default.

  • Accepts costs from job-related shipments and from invoices for certain projects that you post in Order Entry.

  • Accepts original estimates that you create when you post job-related quotes in Order Entry.

See also:

Changes Introduced in Project and Job Costing 5.4

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