Question

Project Invoices


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Hi Everyone,

 

What is the effect of activating Projects and Tasks and entering invoices before adding the revenue/cost budgets?

 

Thanks!


20 replies

Userlevel 7
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If you are talking about the payable side as soon as you enter an AP Bills which is tied to the project will system will create the cost budget line automatically with zero budgeted cost.

if you are taking about the receivable side, how you are going to create Pro Forna invoice without Revenue Budget lines? You might know a hack that I don’t know :)

Userlevel 2
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We don’t make proforma invoice.. 

Userlevel 7
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If you don’t do Pro Forma, then you do not expect the system to tie your invoices back to the project's Revenue Budget so the question becomes irrelevant. If you want the tie, you need to go through Pro Forma. It is the whole purpose of Pro Forma existence in addition to progress billing and AIA reports.

Userlevel 2
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Hi @aaghaei , I don’t know but we can generate project related reports, budget and actual revenue/cost without proforma invoices.

Userlevel 7
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Are you saying without Pro Forma, when you open your project profile and review Revenue Budget lines are figures updated there properly?

And next time when you want to create a bill to your client system automatically brings in the previously invoiced amount for each revenue line?

Userlevel 2
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@aaghaei , First question, that’s correct. Second question, I’m not sure with this. Are you able to provide a screenshot for this?

Userlevel 7
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I don’t have construction edition handy to provide screenshots but the standard construction progress bills that system generate include Revenue Line, the Revised Budget, Completed to Date, Previously Completed and Current Period Amount per Revenue Budget Line in normal settings 

Userlevel 7
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But getting back to your original question, if you do not track billed to date figures and include in your bills, then you do not need to worry about setting up your revenue budget before starting the billing 

Userlevel 2
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Just like this?

 

Userlevel 7
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This is project balances tab of projects profile that  groups data by Account Group. What I’m talking about is the revenue tab and the actual invoice you send to your clients monthly/periodically.

I feel you need some training so please have your Acumatica Partner or independent consultant do a training/refresher for you.

Userlevel 2
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We just go on live in Acumatica 2 months ago, we are still figudring things out. Our consultant don’t provide enough details and charge us expensive billing. So we are trying to figure out things, do our own trainings and research.

Userlevel 1

In my previous role, we didn’t update the revenue budget in projects. I was able to generate the invoices and post to the project, report from the project just fine. We also did not use the pro-forma invoices.

 

Keep in mind, that we did not use any budget to actual reporting on the projects either. 

 

Not sure if this is helpful.

Userlevel 7
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Sorry to hear that about your consultant. It sometimes is the case. Have you read and watched the Acumatica Open University Construction/Project Accounting materials? They are great resources worthy of reading/watching 

Userlevel 7
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@elizabethmassie17 @josephineca 

No doubt that you can opt not to use some of the system functionality. But the question is why not utilize the full system power? It is like you by an offroad fully equipped car and just driving in the city. What is the point of buying it? What is the point of buying Construction Edition, paying a decent amount for it, and not using it and instead doing lots of manual work to keep track of your previous progress and draft your current progress? If you do not enter the budget, don't track your actuals vs budget, don’t use progress billing just right go ahead and cancel the construction edition subscription. The progress billing will help you to collaborate effectively and properly between the finance and PM team. It helps you to have a proper bill prepared and send to your clients without hassle according to your contract with the client.

Userlevel 1

Thanks for your feedback. This is a larger discussion of why it worked for us that we can have outside of a comment thread. We did optimize Acumatica for our business needs and were happy with how we used the product. 

Userlevel 7
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@elizabethmassie17 Sure, good luck

Userlevel 7
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@josephineca if you don't enter a revenue budget, you won’t be able to create a pro forma, however, as @elizabethmassie17 said, you can still create the invoice directly from the Receivables module.  the only thing you will need there is an active project ID as well as an active Revenue task.

if you try to do it directly from the project with no revenue budget, you will get this message:

however, if you do it from AR and we tag this project with the “revenue” task i created, we will see the actual income amount increase.  the system will also create a new line on the revenue budget for the amount that was invoiced and it will also show up on the balances tab: 

the same concept can be applied to the AP side of things, you’ll just want to make sure the task is a cost task (or Cost and Revenue). but the lines will be added to the project and you can make changes to the original budgeted amount at any time as long as the budgets are locked!

Hope this helps and if you have any more construction related questions, we are happy to help!

Userlevel 7
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@iqraharrison48 The next time you want to create an invoice, will the AR module show how much you have billed so far? the answer is No. Will AR show how much is left to be invoiced on a given revenue item? the answer is No. This is what I am pointing out otherwise you are right and as I mentioned right in my first comment system adds the actual transaction cost/revenue info to the project profile.

Of course, each company can decide what for or how to use the system. What I am outlining is the best practice for construction not a MUST.

Userlevel 7
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@aaghaei you are right, the AR side of things will not show what’s left to bill or what’s been billed out to date like the proforma would but those details wouldn’t be available anyways if the original budgeted amounts weren’t entered on the revenue/cost budgets.  the revenue and cost budgets aren’t required to be filled out either, that’s why there are options on how to handle different scenarios.  I have clients who don't feel the need to create budgets for the quick and dirty projects that will be done in a few days but will create them for the more complicated projects that require the detailed information.  that’s what I love about acumatica, there is a lot of flexibility on how to use it!

Userlevel 7
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I agree, my understanding from @josephineca inquiry was that the question is about real projects that require progressive invoicing over the life of the project. If they don’t need or care about tracking what is invoiced so far and what is left to be invoiced then AR will do just fine. 

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