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Integration of Field Service with Project Accounting - Construction


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Hi all,

I am trying to figure best way to handle the following.

Let’s assume that a new Project (related to construction edition with Progress Billing) is opened to manage the installation of HVAC and electrical installation. This project needs to monitor both costs related to equipment and labor. 

It would be ideal when new equipment is to be delivered and installed on site, a Service Order and related appointment is created to manage both the issue of the equipment from store to site and also to manage the time it takes to install the equipment and employees who are doing such service and capturing all related costs directly on the Project.

 

The question I am trying to resolve is how best to record the issue of equipment  and capture all costs on the Project as there seems to be 3 possible options

  1. Through a Sales Order linked to Project - Seems strange and not logic to use this especially since billing of both equipment and service will be done directly through the Progress Billing function of the Project Accounting module. What about labor cost using just a sales order?
  2. Through a Stock Issue linked to Project - Not my favorite option as you need to create 3 documents, Stock Issue, Manual creation of equipment, Service Order/ Appointment
  3. Directly through Service Order/ Appointment linked to Project - Cannot figure a clean way of doing this using a Service Order type which do not require running of Billing through Service Module and still create Equipment and capture the costs related to equipment and labor on the related Project

Any ideas or by any chance did someone implement such functionality?

Thanks

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Best answer by Anacarina Calvo 23 May 2022, 15:28

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Hi @apickard5 

Field Service has the option of billing through Projects. This will allow you to capture cost and labor and the system will create Stock Issues for the materials. 

Go to the Service Order Type screen, and on the Generated Billing Documents dropdown select Project Transactions. When using the Run Billing process the system will create a Project Transaction and an Issue. The only problem that you will face with this approach is that at the moment the system does not support the automatic creation of Equipment when billing to Projects so you will need to create the Equipment manually. 

Here is the idea to handle this integration 

 

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We have been using the Service Module for some time and are now setting up the Project Accounting. I’ve hit a snag however related to your suggestions above @Anacarina Calvo. The Service Order Type only allows one Project Account Group to be selected. Since the COA can only be attached to one Group do I now have to create all new Accounts to process Service Orders/Appointments through the project module? Is the expectation to not allow Auto Release and have to manually modify the created Project Transaction?

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 @amajors - the other issue I’ve run into is the ‘billing’ of the order creates a Project Transaction to your default Account group (with NO GL effect from what I can see) and then any IN Issue creates a GL entry and a NEW Project Transaction, thereby duplicating costs on the Project.
My current solution is to make a separate Reason code that posts to a cost account NOT in any Account Group - and merge it with Cost of Sales on the Income Statement. 

Don’t love this for reconciling Job Cost to GL but ???
 

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Hi @sroberts29 
Starting on Acumatica 2022R2 update 12 and 2023R1 update 2, If a project transaction is created as a billing document for service orders or appointments, the stock item lines from that project transaction have zero quantity and zero cost. This is to avoid duplicating costs. 

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@sroberts29  - you can create an allocation rule to reverse the stock item cost and qty values entered into the project via project transaction. This will solve your duplication issue. 

 

@Anacarina Calvo  - Glad to know this is resolved in the newer builds/version. 

So, I’m trying to record Material and Labor cost to the project directly from the appointment without creating a time card for the labor.  My project transaction is not creating a batch.  I created a reason code for the material to issue it to the project.  That creates a GL batch for it, but I can’t get a batch to create for the Labor unless I run it through and create a time card.  Then it generates the project transaction from the appointment with no gl batch,  AND the transactions from the reason code and time card. Can anyone help with that?  

Just to add - this is in 22R2 v13

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@ptingle10  - if I recall correctly, your test results align with my understanding of how the system operates. If you are using a non-stock (service) item on the appointment screen for labor hours, the system will not create a labor GL batch. The non-stock item cost goes to the Project module via a project transaction, but no GL batch is generated. This might not be an issue for some businesses, because they can still see labor COGS for the service on the project level. For the actual labor cost to show on the financial statements, it will come from the payroll journal entry anyway. 

If you must create a GL entry for the labor transaction, the following config might work:

  • Set your labor non-stock item to a unit cost of $0 
    • This will still post hours to the project using your current Run Billing function
    • Create an allocation rule to remove out these hours from the project 
    • The idea is to clear out any dollars or hours posted to the project from the Run Billing Process
  • Setup Time Activity tracking for your appointments
  • Release the Time Activity to the project module - this will generate a project transaction and a GL batch.
    • You can alternatively use a time activity to populate a timecard if that’s needed
    • Your project will get hours and cost through release of the Time Activity.

This maybe a bit tricky to configure but maybe solves your requirement.

 

 

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