Costing Help
The Costing application records, collates and analyses costs and revenues to specific jobs undertaken by your business. The application also provides the ability to capture cost and revenue budgets, and organise jobs using different phases and contracts. Various reports and views are available to monitor both costs and revenues.
The Costing application operates by recording, collating and analysing all cost data to specific jobs undertaken by a company.
Some of the features that Costing provides are:
A budgeting facility
The opportunity to group jobs under contract headings
The facility to enquire on the status of the job
Jobs can be broken down into phases
Cost types can be allocated budget values for revenue and expenses.
Costs and revenues can be posted directly in Costing and from transactions posted in other applications. To update Costing a job code and a cost code must be included on the transaction.
If you choose to use them, phases are identified by a phase reference which is associated with an existing job. When you create new a job record, you can specify a phase at the same time. To add additional phases to the same job, you create a record using the same job code, but with a difference phase reference.
You can rename 'job' and 'phase' to match the terminology you use in your business. The application will change occurrences of menu names, form and box names and report headings in Costing and elsewhere to reflect the new name you choose. On some forms, the application automatically converts the name to plural by adding an 's'; for example 'Task' becomes 'Tasks'. See the System Preferences Help topic for more information.
The Costing application is structured into the following sections:
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This section is used to maintain job records which you can optionally subdivide between phases and assign to contracts. Job reports accumulate the transaction details entered for all jobs and phases associated with the contract so you can have an overall picture of the main contract or project. |
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Views are provided to display enquiries on Costing transactions. The views available depend on those defined using the Views command on the Maintenance submenu. Two predefined views are provided, one for Jobs only, the other for Jobs and associated phases. You can create your own views using up to six levels of dimension. You can specify a date range for transactions to be selected that make up the view. If you want to specify further selection criteria, you can use the filters provided on the Criteria tab. This tab contains range boxes for each of the information types available. |
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This section is used to create an estimate for a job or phase. You can subsequently convert estimates into job and phase records using the Job Processing command. |
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This section is used to enter batches of timesheets or costs. To enter batches for costs, the Use General Batches option on the Set Options form must be ticked and to enter batches for timesheets, the Use Timesheet Batches option must be ticked. You can either post the batch when you enter it or put it 'on hold' and post it later. Batches that do not balance can be held on file and edited later so they balance before posting. |
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This section provides listings of records maintained in the Costing application. These include lists of records processed through the various forms and transactions generated as a result of cost, timesheet and revenue postings and other transaction processes carried out in other applications integrated with the Costing application. Reports can be used to view information on your computer screen as well as printing. Most reports provide a number of options to determine the criteria, sequence and range of records reported. |
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This section is where you choose the settings for the Costing application, tidy the files and remove completed jobs, transfer timesheets to Payroll, create cost codes for stock or products items, or update the cost per unit or overhead details for a range of cost code records. |
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This section is where you define your cost rates, cost codes, cost code frameworks , subcontractors, contracts, departments and views. |
The Costing application links to the Sales Ledger, SOP/Invoicing, Stock, Purchase Order Processing, Payroll, Bill of Materials, Purchase Ledger and Customer Relationship Management (Sales Pipeline Management, Service Management and Helpdesk Management). The applications only link to Costing if the respective option is ticked on the System - Maintenance - Company Profiles form.
When used in conjunction with the Sales Ledger, you can select a sales account record to identify the customer to whom the job relates. When you post invoices or credit notes in the sales ledger, you can analyse them to job numbers, phases and cost codes. Revenue records are written to file as unallocated revenue records immediately the document is accepted.
When used in conjunction with SOP/Invoicing, when entering sales orders, deliveries, invoices and credit notes, you can analyse each line to a job number, phase and cost code. Records in Costing are updated with unallocated revenue records when an invoice or credit note is posted to the sales ledger. The link also works from Costing to Invoicing or SOP; within Costing you can select cost items that are ready for invoicing and a document is generated for them in Invoicing or SOP. You can then progress that document within Invoicing or SOP. When the document is produced a revenue record is created in Costing and the cost records are automatically allocated against this revenue record. When a document is progressed to an invoice in Invoicing or SOP, the revenue record is updated to include the invoice number.
When used in conjunction with Stock Control, you can attach jobs, phases and cost codes to stock movements. The movement creates a cost type transaction in Costing, which in turn creates a document that can be processed in Invoicing or SOP. Documents created from these costs have no stock references on them as the stock is already issued.
When used in conjunction with Purchase Order Processing, invoices and credit notes can be analysed to jobs, phases and cost codes. A purchase order can create a commitment against a job.
When used in conjunction with Payroll, your employees' timesheet information for the current pay period can be transferred from Costing to Payroll.
When used in conjunction with Bill of Materials, Works Orders can be analysed to job numbers, phases, and cost codes. When you post a works order and specify a job code from Costing a commitment cost is posted against the job. When the works order is completed the commitment becomes an actual cost against the job in Costing.
When used in conjunction with the Purchase Ledger, you can attach jobs, phases and cost codes to invoice and credit note postings.