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The Project Costing module of FirstBIT FirstBit ERP enables the users to create projects, enter budget estimates, monitor the project progress, compare the budgets to actual revenues and costs, and view the project profits or losses.

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General options for all projects can be selected on the Administration > Settings > Project Costing form.Select the Enable Project Tasks option to be able to create project tasks and track task completing.

For more detailed planning, select the Enable Project Estimates by period option – then you can create project estimates by month and compare to actual data by month..

You can select the default method of project estimate calculation from the following options:

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• On Purchase: To calculate material costs when the items are received to warehouses according to Invoices Received and Employee Business Reports.
• On Usage: To calculate material costs only when the items are issued from warehouses according to Inventory Issues and Invoices.

Select the Enable Project Tasks option to be able to create project tasks and track tasks completing.

For more detailed planning, select the Enable Project Estimates by Period option – then you can create project estimates by month and compare to actual data by month.

The Show Project Information in Document Printable Templates and Show Project Task Information in Document Printable Templates options include projects and project tasks into document templates so that information on projects and tasks will be printed along with other information.

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For details on creating projects, see Projects.

Adding Project Tasks

If project tasks are enabled, you can add tasks to the project by using the Project Costing > Master Data > Project Tasks form. For a task, you need to specify the project, planned dates of start and finish, and the employees responsible for task execution. Also, you can indicate the order of task execution by specifying a predecessor for a task or you ca can group multiple tasks by specifying a parent task. For more details, refer to Project Tasks. 

You can view all the tasks of the project on the Project Tasks tab of the project master record.

Project statuses

For each project, on its path from the initial idea to planning and then execution, you can indicate a new stage by changing the appropriate status.

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First of all, you need to understand which of the two available methods of estimate calculation is good for the project. You can use the default method or change it for another by clicking the Settings button on the toolbar. The Document Settings dialog box appears, and you can select the method you need.

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The Document Settings dialog box

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You can enter cost estimates with different levels of details for different projects. You can use the following levels of details (analytics parameters):

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• Cost ElementsElement (Employee standing for the associated labor costs; Items, such as materials, stock items, or services, and Fixed Assets standing for related depreciation costs in case you need to use special equipment, devices, vehicles for the project)
• Project Task 
• Company
• Business Activity
• Department

You can provide the cost estimates for each applicable combination of these details. You can select these analytical parameters by clicking the Settings button.

Revenue analytics

For revenue estimates, you can use the following levels of details (analytics parameters): Departments, Business Activities, Income Items, Items.

• Item
• Project Task 
• Income Item
• Business Activity
• Department

You can provide a revenue estimate for each applicable combination of these details.

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Use this method if you need to set estimates for costs and revenues independently. Selection of the method brings the Revenues and Costs tabs which you can use to enter planned revenues and costs, respectively.

If the Estimates By Period option is selected for the project, you can specify how the costs and revenues are distributed within the defined project duration. For this, you can select the appropriate planning period: Week, Month, Quarter, Half Year, or Year. Then, you can split all the amounts evenly by period or only the selected amounts evenly by period. Also, you can distribute the costs and revenues manually so that the total amount is equal to the sum of period amounts.

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• The Revenues table is intended for the revenue objects and their estimates (or planned revenue amounts). First, to define the kind of revenue, you need to select analytical parameters. The estimates for each kind of revenue objects are calculated based on costs and markups.
• The Costs table lists the planned direct costs for each of the revenue objectskinds.

For each revenue object (defined by a specific set of analytical parameters), you can specify direct costs and provide the cost estimates. Then on the Overhead tab, you can list the estimates for various overheads and allocate them to proportionally to costs. Alternatively, later you can allocate overheads to costs but proportionally to the calculated revenue estimates.

To calculate the revenue estimates based on cost estimates, you use markups. You can enter markups in the following ways:

• As percentage applicable to the sum of all costs related to the specific revenue object. For this, you enter a markup in each row of the Revenues table. The revenue estimate will be calculated as the total of costs increased according to the specified markup.
• As percentages applicable to particular costs (with defined by the specified analytical parameters). For this, you enter a markup in each row of the Costs table. Then, the revenue estimate will be calculated as total of the sum of costs with each cost amount increased by according to its own markup percent.

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• percentage.

If the Estimates By Period option is selected for the project, you can specify how the costs and revenues are distributed within the defined project duration. For this, you can select the appropriate planning period: Week, Month, Quarter, Half Year, or Year. Then, you can split all the amounts costs, overheads, revenues evenly by period or only the selected amounts evenly by period. Also, you can distribute the costs nad . overheads, and revenues manually, so that the each total amount is equal to the sum of corresponding period's amounts.

Versions of the project budget

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Previous versions of estimates are not available for usereviewing if you click the Project Estimates Versions link right under the project title (the project's master record).

Project execution

Once a project is created and executed, any document related to the project can be linked to this project. For accurate tracking of actual costs, you need to correctly specify the analytical parameters.

Note. If you need to specify multiple projects in a document—link different items to different projects—you can move the Project field from the document heading (the Main tab) to the list of items or services (the Inventory and Services tabs) by using the Settings button on the form toolbar.

The actual direct costs are calculated based on the documents that were linked to the project and according to in accordance with the analytical parameters selected for tracking the project costs.

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Also, you can define the proportion in which each amount should be distributed between projects or import an Excel spreadsheet with all the allocation data. For details. refer to Project Cost Allocations.

As the project is being executed, you can monitor the project progress by using the Diagrams tab of the Project form. for details, refer to Adding a Project. The Diagrams tab.

Revenue Recognition

Analysis of project costs and revenues

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For more information, refer to Project Costing: reportsReports.