Acumatica Project Accounting
Modern construction companies need modern technology to stay competitive – we’ve talked about this before on the blog. One of the most important aspects of the technology is the ability to effectively track ongoing projects (and integrate that seamlessly with the accounting, sales, front office, etc. but more on that in other blogs). Acumatica Construction Edition has the ability to be the “single source of truth” and the foundation of that for contractors and builders is the project tracking.
Acumatica Projects – Summary Tab
This is the next blog in our Intro to Acumatica Construction blog series. In this, we will take a quick look at the Summary Tab and all the different settings we have available to assign to our projects in the system. No more double-entry or Post-It notes or hopes/prayers that the correct information stays with the project.
Check out this video tour of the various functions in just the Summary Tab of Acumatica Projects module. Or click here to be taken to a full demo of Acumatica Construction Edition.
00:04
Next, we'll go ahead and go into our Favorites, where we'll start reviewing the various areas of Acumatica's Construction Projects. This is our project inquiry, which is going to give us a listing of all of the projects that we have within our system. We can filter this by which projects are active, which projects are assigned to us, potentially as a project manager.
00:26
Or we can filter by Customer ID.
00:30
I'm going to go ahead and drill into my hotel project example, and we'll start reviewing the various areas of Acumatica's Construction Projects.
00:40
The first thing you'll notice up here in the header is that we have a customer assigned to the project, and we can also select a project template.
00:49
The template allows us to drive default information for a lot of the things that you'll see here on the summary tab, as well as set tasks for a particular type of project.
01:00
You'll also see here on the right-hand side, we can get a very quick look at the actual income, actual expenses, our margin, and margin percent. You'll also notice here in my project I have a side panel which allows us to drill into some additional information about the project, such as the Requests for Information that are associated with that project.
01:21
This is just way a way to get a quick look at some additional details without having to open additional screens in our Summary tab. You'll see a lot of the general information about the project.
01:34
Within the project properties you can see where we can track our revenue, budget level, and cost budget level. The options here are to track by Task; Task and Cost Code; Task and Item; or a combination of all three.
01:50
For this particular project, you can see that we've set our revenue budget level to be “Task” and our cost budget level to be “Task and Cost Code.”
02:00
We then set a start date and end date. This will allow us to see whether the project is active and then we can set our project manager. You'll see here my project manager also acts as my time activity approver, so as our various employees who are posting time against the job, send those timesheets in. This will be the individual that will be required to approve them.
02:23
Another couple of things to note here in our just General Properties are the ability to say whether or not this project can qualify for change order workflow; whether we can add new items on the fly to the project; and whether or not the project is associated as a certified job and requires prevailing wage. That is, if we are using Acumatica's integrated payroll.
02:46
Next, we'll look at our billing and allocation settings. One of the main things that we like to point out here is our billing rules. We can set up a billing rule that applies to the project. This particular project is using a progress billing, but we can also support things such as Time and Materials, Fixed Price, Internal Projects where no billing is required, or even a progress billing.
03:08
We'll see in a moment where we can actually assign a specific billing rule to various tasks. So if we had a particular task on the project that was going to be a time and materials, then we could assign that at the task level. You'll also notice here I can check whether or not I want to create a pro forma invoice upon billing.
03:28
We're going to go ahead and leave that checked and we'll review that workflow in a little bit. Finally here on the Summary tab, you'll see our Retainage mode. We can set the retainage mode as well as the retainage percent. And then as we go through billing, we'll be able to see the contract total, the completed percent, and the total retained amount.
Acumatica Construction Project Details
As with most things I do in Acumatica, the video above starts in the Favorites section (that’s one way that Acumatica speeds up processes). In here, I’ve bookmarked the Project Inquiry, which is going to quickly give me a listing of all of the projects that I have within the system. I can filter this by which projects are active, which projects are assigned to me as a project manager or other role. The list can also sort by Customer ID.
This example uses our Beach Hotel project as an example. I'm going to go ahead and drill into the hotel project and we'll start reviewing the various areas of Acumatica's Construction Projects screen.
Construction Project Templates
The first thing you'll notice up here in the header is we have a customer assigned to the project and we can also select a project template. The template allows us to auto-populate default information for a lot of the things that you'll see here on the summary tab as well as set tasks for a particular type of project.
You'll also see here on the right-hand side we can get a very quick look at the actual income, actual expenses, our margin and margin percent. You'll also notice here in my project I have a side panel which allows us to drill into some additional information about the project, such as the requests for information that are associated with that project. This is just way a way to get a quick look at some additional detail without having to open additional screens.
Summary Tab
Down in our summary tab, you'll see a lot of the general information about the project. Within the project properties you can see where we can track our revenue, budget level and cost budget level. The options here are to track by task, task and cost code, task and item, or a combination of all three.
For this particular project, you can see that we've set our revenue budget level to be “Task” and our cost budget level to be “Task and Cost Code.”
Assigning a Project Manager/Approvals
We then set a start and end date. This will allow us to see whether the project is currently active, and then we can assign a project manager in the system. You'll see here my project manager also acts as my time activity approver. As our various employees (who are posting time against the job) send in their timesheets, this will be the individual that will be required to approve them.
Another couple of things to note here in our just general properties are the ability to say whether or not this project can qualify for change order workflow, whether we can add new items on the fly to the project and whether or not the project is associated as a certified job and requires prevailing wage (which is only if we are using Acumatica's integrated payroll.)
Billing and Allocation
Next, we'll look at our billing and allocation settings. Some of the main things that we like to point out here is our billing rules.
We can set up a billing rule that applies to the project. This particular sample project is using a progress billing, but we can also support things such as time and materials, fixed price, or even internal projects where no billing is required. Or, like we have in our example, a progress billing. You can even assign a specific billing rule to various tasks. So if we had a particular task on this project that was going to be a “time and materials,” then we could assign that at the task level. You can also decide whether you want a pro forma invoice upon billing (we review that workflow in an upcoming blog).
Retainage
Finally on the Summary tab, you'll see our retainage mode. We can set the retainage mode, as well as the retainage percent. And then as we go through billing, we'll be able to see the contract total, the completed percent, and the total retained amount.
Project Tracking in Acumatica Construction Series
In the next video/blog in the series, we'll review the Tasks tab in Acumatica Construction and all of our various settings and options for assigning and tracking tasks against a particular project.