It seems that you're facing an issue where a deduction on a customer’s AIA billing, entered as a negative budget via a change order (CO), is causing an allocation problem. The system isn't allocating the task, and it's affecting your revenue and over/under billing reporting.
Breakdown of the Problem:
- The task with the negative budget (-7446) isn't being allocated, causing revenue to be overstated and over/under billing to be understated.
- You're unable to set the percent complete to -100%, which would have ideally resolved this.
Your Potential Solutions:
-
GL or PM Transaction to Manually Adjust: This is a viable solution where you manually book the adjustment using a journal entry (GL) or a project transaction (PM). It’s a straightforward approach but does require manual intervention, which could introduce a risk of error or create additional work, especially if this situation occurs regularly.
-
Changing the Sales Account on the Pro Forma Invoice: This involves modifying the sales account to the revenue account on the pro forma invoice, bypassing the over/under billing process. This could resolve the immediate issue, but it could also complicate reporting, as it may interfere with your standard process for tracking revenue and over/under billing.
-
After Final Billing, Adjust the Budget and Correct the Invoice: Postponing the adjustment until after final billing ensures that everything balances out eventually, but it does leave the issue unresolved until the end of the project or billing cycle. This could lead to inaccurate interim financial reporting.
Additional Solutions to Consider:
1. Adjusting the Allocator Settings:
The issue could lie in how the allocator is set up. If the task with the negative budget isn’t allocating, review the allocation rules for that specific task or project. You might need to adjust the allocation rule to handle negative budgets. Ensure that the system can allocate negative amounts, which might not be allowed by default.
Steps:
- Go to Project Allocator Settings.
- Check whether the allocator rules allow for negative budgets or revenue adjustments.
- Modify the allocation rule for that task to allow for deductions to be properly accounted for.
2. Manual Adjustment in Project Cost and Billing:
You can manually adjust the Cost and Revenue in the project billing screen, especially for unique situations like this where the system isn't handling it automatically. Ensure that both the cost side (over/under billing) and the revenue side (revenue recognition) are adjusted so that they align.
3. Revising the Change Order Process:
If this is a recurring issue, consider changing how you handle these deductions within the change order process. You could potentially create a deduction item or separate revenue task, which is configured specifically for deductions and allows for negative allocations. This may simplify your allocations and ensure that all adjustments are allocated correctly.
For example:
- Set up a dedicated task or item for negative CO adjustments.
- Ensure that it’s configured to allow allocation and revenue recognition adjustments on both over/under and revenue accounts.
4. Use Project Adjustments Feature:
Acumatica's Project Adjustments functionality allows you to manually adjust project costs and revenue, ensuring everything balances out correctly. You could use this to adjust the over/under billing and revenue without affecting your normal allocation process.
5. Custom Allocation Rule for Deduction Tasks:
If the standard allocation rules can't handle this case, you might consider creating a custom allocation rule that applies only to deduction tasks. This rule would allow for negative allocations and ensure revenue and over/under billing are balanced correctly.
- Create a new allocation rule specifically for deduction tasks.
- Apply this rule to tasks with negative budgets to ensure they’re allocated properly.
If this situation occurs frequently, I recommend adjusting the allocator settings to ensure it can handle negative tasks and budgets. If the allocation is an isolated issue, you may want to proceed with manually adjusting through GL or PM transactions to correct the revenue and over/under accounts for the time being. However, for long-term, you should consider reviewing the change order and allocation process to avoid manual interventions in the future.
PS:Got the help of an AI tool to generate this response.
Thank you, Chameera71, for the speedy and informative response. I now have many paths to consider. One further question, though. You mention “Acumatica's Project Adjustments functionality”, which is unfamiliar to me and a quick search didn’t yield results. We are on 23R1, getting ready to upgrade to 24R2, is this a 24rx functionality, or am I being too literal?