PJC Options Screen

The Company Information tab displays the information you entered for the company in Common Services.

You can change the name of a contact person or position, fax number, and telephone number that you use for your Project and Job Costing system.

Use these fields to define five aging periods for classifying documents as current and overdue on reports.

Project and Job Costing uses item numbers on the invoices you generate for time and materials projects and for fixed price projects that use an item invoice type. The A/R item record supplies tax information for invoice details.

The Accounts Receivable item number you select on the Options screen appears as the default for the Category setup screen.

The program uses the unit of measure, together with the A/R Item Number, on invoices for time and materials projects and fixed price projects that use an item invoice type.

The unit of measure you select on the Options screen appears as the default for categories and resources you add to contract projects.

Use this field to select the accounting method you want to appear as the default when you are setting up new contracts or projects using the Contract Maintenance screen, the Project Maintenance screen for a selected project, and the Projects screen. The accounting method determines when to recognize revenues for projects. For more information, see About Accounting Methods

Project and Job Costing uses the contract style you specify here as the default style for new projects you assign to the contract.

The project determines the level at which Project and Job Costing tracks expenses for projects.

You can select one of the following styles as the default contract style for the Contract Maintenance screen.

• Basic. You use a basic style if you need to track project costs at the category level only. Project and Job Costing does not break down costs by resource on basic projects.
• Standard. You use a standard style for complex contracts with a number of projects extending over several periods. For standard projects, you attach individual resources, such as equipment and materials. You assign categories and estimates to the resources, and then track costs for each resource.

The labor type is the method for allocating your labor burden—the indirect costs of labor, such as workers' compensation premiums, benefits, and other employee expenses—to projects.

Use this field to specify a default labor type for your Project and Job Costing System. You can select None, Flat Rate Per Labor Hour/Unit, or Percentage of Labor Cost.

The labor type you specify on the Options screen appears as the default on the Categories setup screen when you select a labor cost type.

The overhead type refers to the method you use for allocating to projects manufacturing costs that are not direct materials or direct labor costs.

Select this option to force you to print listings of transactions before you can post them.

If you selected Flat Rate Per Labor Hour/Unit as the default overhead type, this field is named Labor Rate. Use this field to enter a dollar amount for the labor burden associated with each labor hour per unit produced.

If you selected Percentage Of Cost as the default overhead type, this field is named Overhead Percentage. Use this field to enter the percentage of your fixed costs that represents overhead.

The default entries for these fields are Contract, Project, and Category, and their plural forms, but you can change them to anything you like, provided you use no more than 30 characters.

Select this option to ensure that you recognize revenue only for costs that you have billed on a billing worksheet when you recognize revenue for projects that use the item invoice type.

If you use this option, when you recognize revenue for a time and materials project or for a fixed price project that uses the billings and costs accounting method and an item invoice type, the revenue recognition process includes only costs that have been marked as billed.

If you do not select the option, unless you generate revenue recognition worksheets and billing worksheets at the same time for these projects, it is possible to recognize costs that have not yet been billed.

If you selected Flat Rate Per Unit as the default overhead type, this field is named Overhead Rate. Use this field to enter a dollar amount for the factory overhead associated with each unit produced.

If you selected Percentage Of Cost as the default overhead type, this field is named Overhead Percentage. Use this field to enter the percentage of your fixed costs that represents overhead.

This option lets you specify when to clear the billings and work-in-progress accounts for projects that use a percentage complete accounting method.

You can choose either:

• Clear Billings And WIP During Revenue Recognition. If your contracts tend to be short term, you might want to use this option.
• Clear Billings And WIP During Project Close. This option affects:
  • Cost plus projects that use the category percentage complete, labor hours percentage complete, and total cost percentage complete accounting methods.
  • Fixed price projects that use the project percentage complete accounting method.

Select this option if you want to update Budget Maintenance whenever you process transactions.

Project and Job Costing can process transactions much faster if it does not have to update the budget data each time, so select the option only if you plan to use the Budget Maintenance feature.

Note: This option affects only budget sets in the Budget Maintenance screen. Project and Job Costing continues to update the estimates, actuals, committed, recognized, and stored amounts you see on the Contract Maintenance screen, regardless of your choice for this option.

Select this option if you want to pass the payroll expense and employee expense accounts from the PJC timecards to the payroll timecards when you run Update Payroll.

If you do not select this option, the timecards created in Canadian or US Payroll will use the accounts prescribed for the earning/deduction code in the payroll employee record.

You can change the accounts on individual timecards in Canadian or US Payroll, regardless of your selection for this option.

Contract structures are used for formatting your contract numbers.

Use this field to select a default contract structure to use with new contracts. You can select only contract structures that you have already set up using the Contract Structures screen.

The description for the contract structure you select appears in the adjacent display-only field.

Use this field to specify a length, using up to 16 characters, for the segment.

Note: A contract structure can use up to five segments with a maximum length (including separators) of 16 characters.

Enter a description of what the segment represents in the contract number.

For example, you might have a segment for the type of job (construction, renovation, decoration) or a division in your company.

A segment number appears automatically to identify the segment each time you move to a new line in the table.

You cannot change a segment number after you save the Options screen.

The program displays a list of separators you can use in contract structures.

For each separator that you want to use in contract structures, you select Yes in the Use column.

For each separator, indicate Yes if you want to be able to use the separator in contract structures.

Select Yes if you want to use a validation table for a segment, to ensure that you use only valid entries for that segment when you add a new contract number.

You use the Segment Codes screen to specify the valid segment codes that you can use with each segment.

Billing rates are required for time and materials projects and for fixed price projects that use the billings and costs or accrual-basis accounting methods.

This option lets you specify whether the default billing rate to use on timecards will come from the project or from the PJC Employee record.

You can select:

• PJC Employee Setup or Category as the default billing rate for basic projects.
• PJC Employee Setup or Resource Category as the default billing rate for standard projects.

Note: You can override this default billing rate in the Contract Maintenance screen by specifying a different source for a project category or a resource category (depending on the project style).

Use this field to specify the type of date to use as the default posting date on transaction entry screens.

You can select Document/Transaction Date or Session Date as the default posting date.

You can change the posting date for particular transactions when you enter or edit them.

If you consolidate G/L transactions, the posting date for consolidated entries is the last date of the fiscal period.

This field lets you specify the length of the transaction number.

The maximum length you can use for transaction numbers (including the prefix) is 22 characters, except for timecard numbers. The maximum length for timecard numbers is 6.

This field displays the posting sequence number that Project and Job Costing will assign the next time you post a batch for each type of transaction.

You cannot change the posting sequence number.

This field displays the document numbers that Project and Job Costing assigns to adjustments, charges, equipment usage, material returns, material usage, revised estimates, and timecard transactions when you save transactions. The numbers include a prefix followed by a sequence number.

Use this field to specify the prefixes and next numbers to use for transactions, or you can let Project and Job Costing use the default prefixes and numbers you see on the Transactions tab.

Each prefix you assign must be unique—it cannot be used for any other type of Project and Job Costing transaction.

You use the Unit Cost option to specify the source for the default unit cost that appears on timecards, as follows:

• If the employee record is set up only in Project and Job Costing, you can choose whether the default unit cost from the project or from the PJC Employee record is used on timecards. On a basic project, the default unit cost comes from the project category; on a standard project, the default unit cost comes from the resource category.

  Note: You can override this default unit cost in the Contract Maintenance screen by specifying a different source for a project category or a resource category (depending on the project style).

• If an employee is also set up in US or Canadian Payroll, however, the rate set for the earnings code on the Payroll employee record is used as the default unit cost for the employee's timecards in Project and Job Costing.

You cannot select a different default unit cost on the PJC Options screen.

You can change the unit cost for specific timecards during timecard entry, if necessary.

Use this field to specify the information you want to include as a comment with each invoice you send to Accounts Receivable.

Use this field to specify the description for each invoice you send to Accounts Receivable.

Use this field to specify how to create an invoice batch in Accounts Receivable when you post a billing worksheet in Project and Job Costing. You can:

• Add the transaction to an existing A/R invoice batch
• Automatically create a new A/R invoice batch
• Automatically create and post a new A/R invoice batch

Note: If you post billing worksheets to a fiscal period that is locked for Accounts Receivable, the transactions will be placed in an A/R error batch.