1. Sage Transaction Job Links

Jobs are linked to the following standard Sage transactions for the purpose of cost and revenue recording.

• Purchase Orders/Returns
• Sales Orders/Returns
• Stock Issues/Returns/Allocations
• Purchase Ledger Invoices/Credits
• Sales Ledger Invoices/Credits
• Nominal Journals
• Nominal Payments/Receipts
• Nominal Prepayments
• Nominal Accruals

Nominal transactions from any of these sources are linked to Projects via the id number of the Projects transaction being added to the narrative of the nominal posting. This is vital for the purposes of reconciling nominal postings back to Projects transactions.

Job Number and Job Header are viewable against the nominal transaction in the Nominal Ledger Transaction Enquiry screen for both Current Transactions and Historical Transactions.

1.1. Purchase Orders/Returns

When entering a Purchase Order (or Return) the user may select the appropriate Job and Job Header for each Standard Item or Free Text Line. Alternatively, you can select the Job and Job Header on the Order Details tab itself, and this will then act as a default for all lines on the purchase order (but could still be overridden with a different job or job header if required).

If the option to include completed jobs is enabled in Projects Settings, then above the presented list of jobs will be a check box to include the completed ones.

If job structures are enabled within the settings, and this transaction is being linked to a phase/stage/activity, then this information is viewable by clicking on the box between the job and job header fields which will cause a box to appear detailing these selections. If relevant to an activity, then you can just choose this and then the relevant Phase and Stage values will be selected automatically.

When selecting the job and job header, the nominal account will then default to the account specified for that cost header on that job, or the nominal account specified against the cost header if there hasn’t been one specified on the job.

Once a job has been selected, you can click the box    to the right of the job header to open up the Projects Enquiry window for that job. This box is not activated on lines linked to the N/A job.

The transaction date on the Projects transaction will be requested delivery date from the line, or from the purchase order header if not populated on the line. For this reason, you must enter a Requested Delivery Date on the order header, or you will receive a message advising you to enter one before being able to save the order.

Any landed costs recorded against the purchase order line are also included in the cost figure attributed to the job.

Transactions from foreign currency purchase orders are stored as the base currency along with the exchange rate of the transaction.  This allows you to switch the Job Enquiry view to show any currency stored in Sage.

It is also possible to select site addresses specified on a job as the delivery address on the purchase order as long as you have selected the job on the Order Details tab. On the Delivery & Invoicing tab of the order, if you click on the highlighted icon to the right of the Postal name field then the address entered on the Address tab of the job will pull through onto the order.

Job Costing Purchase Order/Return Status

As a default, the Job Costing system will automatically move purchase order items from ‘committed’ to ‘actual’ at the point of invoice.

However, the Update POP actuals on setting can be changed in the Settings (POP tab) to allow items to be moved to ‘actual’ at the time of goods received.

Matching Invoices to Purchase Orders

In order to correctly deal with supplier invoices arriving with unexpected additional costs (i.e. carriage), there are some restrictions to how purchase invoice information can be recorded against purchase orders with the job costing integration enabled across Sage 200.

There are three scenarios that will be considered here:

1. Invoice arrives and matches up to multiple lines on the purchase order
2. Invoice arrives and has extra charges, or is for a higher/lower value than the purchase order lines
3. Invoice arrives and purchase order is linked to the N/A job

1. Invoice Matching when values agree: when recording the supplier invoice against the order, you will find that the Goods Value and VAT Value fields cannot be edited (although the Discounted Unit Price can). Similarly, when you get to the second screen of the Record Invoice process, you will notice that the nominal information can only be edited on the Job Costing Analysis tab. At this point you are not able to change the Job Number or the Job Header as this would lead to issues with the purchasing commitment not matching correctly to the actual purchasing costs. You can edit the nominal code if at this point it becomes apparent that the PO has been coded incorrectly. But you can’t change the values in the Goods Value column, so will get nominal postings that match your PO lines in value.

Saving and posting the invoice will generate zero value purchase invoice transactions on the job that contain the invoice details. These are hidden by default, but can be viewed by unticking the Hide ‘Zero’ Transactions checkbox in the job costing enquiry screen.

2. Invoice Differs from Purchase Order Values: if the invoice value differs from the purchase order value, then in the first screen that appears you will not be able to edit the Goods Value or VAT Value fields. You can edit the Discounted Unit Price to reflect the difference between the invoice and purchase order price. You will receive a warning message advising of variance in price from the original order line if you adjust the Discounted Unit Price that gives you the option of clicking Yes or No to continue.

Then when you get through to the second screen, you can enter additional lines onto the Job Costing Analysis tab to match the total invoice value that you’ve entered in the Goods Value field. The example image below shows a common example where carriage has been added. These additional lines can also be entered as a negative value to handle situations where the invoice is less than the value on the purchase order. If you have entered a different invoice value to the line on the previous screen and not adjusted the discounted unit value to match them up again, then an additional line will be added automatically for the difference.

3. Purchase Order linked to N/A job: The fundamental difference with Purchase Order lines that are linked to the N/A job, is that when the invoice is being recorded, you can still edit the job information for that invoice. So it’s possible to select which job (or jobs) the invoice is relevant for, and to split the invoice value between job headers if applicable.

1.2. Sales Orders/Returns

Job Costing Sales Order/Return Status

As a default, the Job Costing system will automatically move sales order items from ‘committed’ to ‘actual’ when the item is confirmed as despatched.

However, settings can be changed in the Job Costing Settings screen (SOP tab) to allow items to be moved to ‘actual’ when a sales invoice is posted. Regardless of this setting, additional charges always get moved from ‘committed’ to ‘actual’ when the invoice is posted, as they are never despatched in Sage.

When processing Sales Orders for ‘stock’ items it is possible to automatically post a ‘cost of sale’ stock transaction to the Job Costing system.  To allow this the ‘Automatically write cost of sales to job’ setting should be selected in the Job Costing Settings screen.

Note that nominal postings will be split for each line when the SOP invoice is posted, so that it is possible to maintain a one to one link between each job costing transaction (the line on the sales order) and the nominal posting. This doesn’t happen if the job that the transactions are linked to is the N/A job, in which case the regular Sage nominal postings happen.

It’s possible to also link SOP Quotation lines to jobs, and this information is transferred onto the Sales Order when it’s generated from that Quotation. It’s also possible to store job information on SOP templates, and this is replicated onto any new orders created with those templates.

1.3. Stock Internal Issues/Returns/Allocations

1.4. Purchase/Sales Ledger Invoices/Credits

An extra tab (Job Costing Analysis) is added to the transaction entry screen which enables you to split the value of the invoice across multiple jobs within the same screen.

When selecting the job and job header, the nominal account will then default to the account specified for that cost header on that job, or the nominal account specified against the job header if there hasn’t been one specified on the job. The information displayed on the Nominal & VAT Analysis tab cannot be edited.

When viewing the transactions in either the Purchaser Ledger Supplier Transaction Enquiry screen, or the Sales Ledger Customer Transaction Enquiry screen, there is a Job Costing tab available next to the Analysis tab at the bottom that will display the job costing information recorded against that transaction. There is also a button below this that will open the Job Costing Enquiry screen for the relevant transaction.

Any detail from the purchase order line is included in the Nominal Narrative of the Expense Nominal Account posting.

Extra information can be stored against each line on the Purchase / Sales Ledger Invoice or Credit Note using the Spare Fields within Job Costing.  Turning this on in the Job Costing setting prompts with an extra screen upon save allowing you to record up to 5 Text Fields, 5 Number Fields and 5 Date Fields against each line in an editable grid.

Selecting the ‘Set Spare Fields’ allows you to enter the spare fields on an in a different format.

These spare fields recorded against Purchase Transactions can also be seen in the All Costs tab on the Job Costing Enquiry screen.

1.5. Nominal Journal Entry

A job number and job header (and Phase/Stage/Activity if enabled) can be added to each journal transaction line. These will post through to the job costing module as NL Jnl transactions.

When selecting the job and cost header on the journal lines, the nominal account will then default to the account specified for that cost header on that job if one has been specified.

If a reversing journal is selected, then the same job and job header selections will be applied to the reversing entry.

If the journal is held before posting, the job information remains with the held journal and will post to the job when the journal is released from hold.

1.6. Nominal Payments/Receipts

Nominal Taxable Receipt, Nominal Taxable Payment, Nominal Non-Taxable Receipt, Nominal Non-Taxable Payment

A job number and job header (and Phase/Stage/Activity if enabled) can be added to a nominal taxable receipt (shown), nominal taxable payment, nominal non-taxable receipt and nominal non-taxable payment.  This will post through to the job costing module as N.Receipt for the nominal receipts and N.Payment for the nominal payments.

1.7. Prepayments

A job number and job header (and Phase/Stage/Activity if enabled) can be added to a nominal prepayment.   This will post through to the job costing module as N.Payment.

1.8. Nominal Accruals

A job number and job header (and Phase/Stage/Activity if enabled) can be added to a nominal prepayment. This will post through to the job costing module as N.Receipt.

2. Purchase Order List (Job Costing)

Only available for Sage 200 2015 and later versions, these access the Job Costing List views in the Work area. Two lists are available –  A Basic list comprised of a few columns (for increased speed), and a more detailed Advanced list with some calculated columns.

The functionality here works in the same way as other list views in Sage200, so filters can be created and saved, columns can be added/removed, you can search for jobs in the list, you can use the action icons above the list to access specific job costing screens, send the list to an Excel spreadsheet etc. If you double click on a job number, then it will open the Job Enquiry screen.

For the Basic list, the columns appearing by default are: –

• Job Number
• Description
• Status
• Job created Date
• Start Date
• Planned Completion Date
• % Completed
• Actual Completed Date
• Manager
• Customer
• The seven analysis codes available on the Job

For the Advanced list, the columns appearing by default are: –

• Job Number
• Description
• Status
• Job created Date
• % Completed
• Manager
• Customer
• Budget Revenue
• Committed Revenue
• Actual Revenue
• Total Revenue
• Budget Cost
• Committed Cost
• Actual Cost
• Total Cost
• Budget Profit
• Actual Profit
• Revenue Variance (highlighted green or red for positive/negative)
• Cost Variance (highlighted green or red for positive/negative)
• Actual Completed
• Total Profitability %
• Revised Revenue – derived from Revenue to Complete
• Last Revised Revenue
• Revised Cost – derived from Cost to Compete
• Last Revised Cost
• The seven analysis codes available on the job

3. Maintenance Menu | New Job

This menu allows access to the various maintenance functions for the Job Costing module.

Select New Job from the menu to create a new job. This page is highly configurable. See Job Costing Settings for further details.

Alongside the Save, Delete, Cancel and Maintain Budget buttons is a Charge Out Rate button that is always selectable regardless of the tab that you are on. Specific charge out rates can be defined for this particular Job. These will override rates specified against each employee/resource. You can also select a default labour/resource charge-out rate.  These rates will only be used in this job if you check the box ‘Use Job Charge Rates’, otherwise the rates will be taken from the relevant employee records.

3.1. General Tab

The Job number field is only editable if you have not enabled ‘Automatically generate next job number’ in the Job Costing Settings.

The Status field defaults to ‘Live’.

The Chargeable Type field has options in the drop down to reflect what elements should be invoiced to the customer on this job. This will be utilised by the Generate Billing Transactions routine.

The Customer name field enables you to connect the job to a sales ledger account. This field can also accept free text, but by clicking the square button (containing the three dots) at the end of the customer name field you are then prompted to search for a customer account in the usual Sage way.

The Description field is a text field (max of 256 characters).

The Currency field allows you to select a currency that should be used to display the values in the Job Enquiry screen. If you wish to leave the enquiry screen working in your system base currency, then you can leave this field empty.

The Job Manager field allows you to select from defined employees that have the ‘Job Manager’ checkbox enabled on their employee record. See ‘Maintain Employees’ for further information.

The Job Created date field will default to the current date when creating a new job.

The next radio button gives you a choice between displaying the rest of the fields in the screenshot (Analysis view), and displaying additional fields from the sales ledger account (Customer view).

The button containing the three dots will take you to the Account Enquiry screen for that sales ledger account, while the Amend Customer A/C button takes you to the Amend Customer Details screen, if you have access to this in your role.

The three date fields (Start date/Planned completion date/Actual completion date) are for information and reporting purposes only. The Actual Completion date will be updated automatically when the job is marked as completed.

Percentage complete is a decimal field that is linked to the Job Status. Changing the Job Status to ‘Complete’ will automatically set this field to 100, and vice versa. If you need to re-open a completed job, then you could set this field to any value less than 100. Other values in this field are for information and reporting purposes only.

Markup percentage is a decimal field that is utilised by the Generate Billing Transactions routine.

PO Number is a regular text field for the customer order number.

The seven fields to the right are the Analysis fields. All of these can be renamed in the Analysis Codes screen within the Maintenance menu – Analysis 1 having already been renamed to ‘Job Type’ in the previous screenshot.

3.2. Notes Tab

This tab allows entry and amendment of multi-line text notes against the job. If there are any notes on this tab, then an asterisk will appear against the tab title.

3.3. Address Tab

This tab enables you to view the default Delivery/Site Address for the job.  It also allows you to maintain a list of Delivery Addresses that are available to the Job. With this information recorded, you can then select one of these addresses when creating purchase orders linked to jobs.

Clicking on the Maintain Job Addresses, prompts with a list of Addresses that have been added to the account.

Click on the Add button allows you to add an Address to the list.  If the job is linked to a customer account, then an icon to the right of the Location field allows you to search for delivery addresses linked to that account in Sales Order Processing.  You can also use this for a free text entry.

Below the address fields, you can record a site contact, their contact details, and a box for Site Notes exists.

A list of Address available on the Job is demonstrated below:

3.4. Memo Tab

This tab enables you to enter memos in a similar fashion to entering them in standard Sage. The Show Detail checkbox enables you to see the full memo text for a highlighted memo.

3.5. Phases/Stages Tab

This tab only appears if you have enabled job phases & stages within the Job Costing settings screen (within the Jobs tab). It enables you to define a structure for this job comprised of three levels – Phases, Stages and Activities. The expectation is that you will have an activity defined against each phase/stage combination, as activities are the level where various items are stored.

So, to clarify, if you are using Phases and/or Stages, you must enter at least one entry at all three levels – a Phase, a Stage and an Activity.

It is also possible via settings within Job Costing settings  to only enable activities, in which case you can add activities to the job without requiring phases or stages above them.  It is also possible to add Activities (only) to a Job with Phases, Stages and Activities enabled.

A job needs to be saved before you can enter stages/phases/activities against it.

Note that it’s not possible to copy a structure from another job directly into a new job, but you can use the Import Job Phase, Stage & Activities option in the Import menu to import them from a csv file. If you want to re-use a similar structure across jobs, then it would be worth using the templates functionality and creating the structures against your templates.

It’s possible to add free-text phases, stages and activities to each job, avoiding the need for these to be defined via the maintenance menu first.

In the structure, the different types of elements can be identified via the Text Highligh colour behind the line.

The Add/Edit buttons change depending upon the line you have highlighted. So if on the job at the top, then Add is Add Phase. If you are clicked onto a Phase already, then it will become Add Stage. Similarly, if you are clicked onto a Stage, then it will become Add Activity.

If you are clicked onto an activity line, then the Add button changes to Add Item. There are four item types that can be added to an activity: –

• Operation
• Planned Purchase (detailed in Planned Purchases section of this help and user guide)
• Plant Hire (detailed in Hired in Plant section of this help and user guide)
• Task

While clicked onto an activity line on this screen, additional buttons appear at the bottom for Maintain Planned Purchases and Process Planned Purchases, and are used for existing planned purchases records (use the Add Item button to create a new one). Planned Purchases can only be set against an activity, and are detailed in their own section in this help and user guide.

When adding phases, you can either select the phase from the drop down list or enter a free text description. The selection list for both the Phase field and the Status field is maintained via the Maintain Phases, Stages & Activities screen. If you change the Status to Completed, then the % Complete field will be automatically set to 100.

The options displayed in the Job Manager dropdown are restricted to employees who have the job manager checkbox ticked in the Maintain Employees screen.

The five analysis codes available here are free text fields, and it’s not possible to rename them in the same way that you can for the analysis codes on the job.

The status can be updated at any of these levels using the Change Status button. If you change the status of an item that has stages/activities within it, then you’ll be prompted as to whether you want to update the status on those to be the same.

When adding Stages, the screen displayed is the same as that for Phases, but without the Job Manager option as this only exists at the Phase level.

When adding activities, the fields are the same as for Phases/Stages (without the Job Manager field), apart from the Quote Price field which only exists at the Activity level. This field allows you to record a quoted cost price for the activity, which can then be picked up by a report.

Operations are items that can be added to activities, and allow you to record more specific information about that operation. The Operations will be given a unique ID number upon saving, that is reset for each different job. So the first operation on a job will always be OP00000001.

The fields in here enable you to record any 3^rd party reference number, the start date (and time), a description of the operation, a quantity completed (if applicable), percentage completed (if applicable) and who the operation is assigned to (a free text field).

On the Operation Time tab you can indicate which employee team will be handling this operation, which job header is applicable for the costs, a description, the number of hours, the unit cost value and the manning level. These last three items are multiplied together to arrive at the total cost of the operation, a field which is also displayed in the top half of this window. In a similar fashion, any unit selling price is also multiplied by the number of hours and the manning level to arrive at a total selling price for the operation. On a job, this is for information purposes only, while doing the same on an estimate would help generate your revenue budget.

On the Stock Items tab you can add multiple stock items onto this operation.

Against each stock item entry, you can select the relevant job header, choose the stock code (which will then pull through the description, unit value (the average cost price) and the unit selling price (from the standard price band). You then enter a quantity (which will generate the total cost and total selling price) and choose which warehouse you want to issue that stock from.

Once you have added stock to the operation, you can then allocate and issue the stock, which will then post the costs onto the job (as a committed cost during the allocation, and an actual cost during the issue). You can also do this in the Manage Operation Materials screen that can display all of the stock required across all operations on a job, and allow you to allocate and issue the stock to them en masse.

The final item that you can add are tasks. These can be assigned to users who are defined in our separate Task and Contacts module, which is also where you could define any custom attribute fields that would appear on the Attributes tab. Any tasks can be reviewed within the Manage Job Tasks screen in the Job Management menu.

Multiple memos can be recorded against each task. A task can be marked as completed (via the checkbox near the top of the window), and a follow up task can be generated via the Create Follow Up button.

3.6. Billing Profile Tab

This tab is relevant for customers using the Generate Billing Transactions option within the Transaction Entry Menu, generally when they have a fixed price agreement for that element of the job. It allows you to define fixed billing prices against a job, and then when you are generating the billing transactions, you will be prompted with the option of assigning those transactions against this billing profile. If you do so, the fixed cost price defined on the profile will override the individual transaction charges on the generated sales order, and the line description will be set to the billing profile description.

The expiry date of a billing profile will be highlighted in red if it is a date in the past.

A billing profile will have a status of ‘Open’ upon creation. Once a billing profile has been selected when generating billing transactions on the relevant job, then it’s status changes to Billed to prevent it being selected again.

3.7. Attachments Tab

This tab enables you to attach documents to a job, in a similar fashion to other attachment functionality in Sage. You can add a file – which places a copy of the file into a subfolder (JCATTACH) of the company attachment folder specified in the company settings in Sage 200 System Admin. Alternatively you can add a shortcut to a folder on the network, or else a link to a file on the network that won’t be copied into the attachment folder.

3.8. Job Headers Tab

With this tab, you can choose whether all job headers are applicable for this job (which they are by default). If you uncheck the box marked Mark all job headers available for this job, then you can then use the checkboxes in the Available column to make selected job headers selectable for transactions on this job, or not.

This tab also enables you to specify nominal code overrides, accrual and deferred overrides for each job header for this job. These nominal code selections will override any nominal codes specified in the Maintain Job Headers screen when transactions are entered against this job. You can also enter a markup% against each job header for this job, which will then be added to the charge out rate of that transaction if you are raising invoices via the Generate Billing Transactions option. This will also override the markup% specified against the job header in Maintain Job Headers when used on this job.

3.9. Configuration Tab

This tab allows you to define default cost centres and departments that will then be applied to the nominal coding of transactions that are linked to this job. You can use the check boxes to indicate which ones are applicable, so it’s possible to have a default department without a default cost centre for example.

3.10. RAMS Tab

This tab allows you to enter any relevant Risk Assessment and Method statements that pertain to this job. This information could then be picked up by any reports before giving that to the relevant employee working on the job.

The RAMS statements that can be added to this tab are maintained via the Risk Assessment And Method Statements screen within the Maintenance menu.

3.11. Custom Tabs

In this screenshot, the two tabs labelled as ‘Project Fields 1’ ,‘Project Fields 2’ and ‘Transport’ are examples of custom tabs that have been added using the Maintain Custom Tabs screen in the Maintenance meu folder within Job Costing. You can create multiple custom tabs in here, and then there are 140 fields available that can be customised to be included on these tabs, via the Define Custom Fields screen.

3.12. Construction Tab

This tab only appears when you have the Sicon Construction module installed and configured for your Sage role. Changing dates here in will update all of the existing retentions on the job. Please see the Construction documentation for further information.

3.13. Variations Tab

This tab only appears when you have the Sicon Construction module installed and configured for your Sage role. This tab enables you to enter variation details, with a date, customer PO number, additional expected cost price (if you wish to report this against your budgets updated against this variation), status and percentage completed.  Then when amending existing budgets against your job headers, you can select the relevant variation that the budget relates to. Note that variations only relate to updating budgets, transactions entered against a job are not linked to the variations themselves.

4. Maintenance Menu | Amend Job

The Amend Job screen is used to maintain details of each job already created within Job Costing.

The tabs and fields displayed in here are the same as those described in the New Job section, so please refer to the documentation for that section.

5. Maintenance Menu | Maintain Job Headers

Job Headers are used to analyse different types of transactions associated with jobs.

Every transaction posted to a job must have a related job header, although the N/A job header is available as a default. The code and description will be shown in drop-down lists whenever the user is required to select a job header.

It is not possible to delete job headers that are in use.

Code: The job header code as you want it to be displayed on reports and in the various screens throughout Sage where you select a job and job header. Once you have saved a job header code, it cannot be changed on a later edit.

Custom Type:  (optional) Can contain an alphanumeric code which can be used during reporting.

Report Order: The order may be used to specify the sequence of transactions on certain reports.  For example, transactions related to a job header configured with report order ‘1’ will appear above those with report order ‘2’ or ‘3’, etc.

Job header is inactive: If you have a job header that you do not want to use going forward, but can’t be deleted due to it being used previously, then you can mark it as inactive.

Description: Unlike the code, the job header description can be edited once saved.

Header Type: Select whether the job header is a cost or revenue. This has an effect on reports, and also which job headers are available for selection in certain screens.

Default percentage markup: Used to calculate charge-out prices and may be over-ridden on a job by job basis.

Job header type: You can specify which job item type is relevant for this job header. These are defined in the Maintain Job Header Types screen.

Default Rate: You can specify a default cost rate that will be used against this job header, these are setup within the Job Costing settings.

Default Nominal A/C: A specific default nominal can be defined for each Job Header, which will then be selected as the nominal code when entering a transaction with this job header. This default nominal a/c would be overridden by any nominal codes specified against job headers on that job.

Accrual Nominal A/C: A specific default nominal can be defined for each Job Header, which will then be used in the Accrual Journal for the Cost at Completion Period End Routine

Deferred Nominal A/C: A specific default nominal can be defined for each Job Header, which will then be used in the Deferral Journal for the Revenue at Completion Period End Routine

6. Maintenance Menu | Job Header Types

This screen allows you to maintain a list of job header types that are then available when maintaining job headers in the maintain job headers screen.

Each of these need to be matched up to a WAP Item Type of either ‘E’ for Expenses, ‘T’ for Time, ‘P’ for Purchase, ‘S’ for Sale or can be left blank. If you do not use WAP then you can leave that field blank for all of your job header types.

The Project Group dropdown lets you select from the following options:- Labour, Materials, Subcontract, Overheads/Other and Revenue. This is relevant for the Project Summary tab in Job Costing Enquiry, and controls in which column in that screen the transaction totals will appear

It is not possible to delete Job Header Types if they are in use.

7. Maintenance Menu | Maintain Employees

This screen allows you to enter and maintain employee records. You can enter various cost rates, and then book transactions against any of these to reflect their costs on the job. This is generally done via the Timesheet Entry screen, or timesheets can also be imported.

7.1. Details Tab

The maintain employees maintenance function is used to create a register of all Employees against which you wish to record labour costs.

Employee number: This is for reporting, and is not used by the Payroll Extract function. When importing employees, each record needs a unique number for this field, and is used for duplicate checking.

Payroll reference: This is where you should identify the employee’s Payroll reference number, and is used by the Payroll Extract function to identify the employee to Sage Payroll.

Team: Employees are linked to a team (as defined in Maintain Teams) which will link through to Service Manager to schedule service cases. Multiple employees can be added to a team. When you select the team, you are prompted to copy through any of the work pattern, default job header, and any cost/charge/pay rates from the team onto this employee record.

Team Leader:  Each team can have a single team leader. Employees enabled as Team Leaders are able to create transactions on timesheets submitted through the Sicon WAP module on behalf of the other employees in the same team.

Sage user: This field is only applicable when used in conjunction with the Sicon Service module, and allows you to associate an employee with a Sage login, which is relevant when assigning cases to Sage users. Please see the Service documentation for further information.

https://www.sicon.co.uk/user-guide/service/

Start Date: This field can be used to record the start date of the employee’s employment.

Leaver: If the employee no longer works for the company, then they can be marked as leavers instead of deleting them. This will exclude the employee from the selection list in other screens.

Charge Work Pattern: If the employee’s charge rate should be picked up from a charge rate work pattern, then it can be selected here. Charge work patterns are defined within the Maintain Work Patterns screen.

Job Manager: If ticked the employee will be available for selection a Job Manager when creating/amending a job.

Cost Work Pattern: If the employee’s cost rate should be picked up from a cost rate work pattern, then it can be selected here. Cost work patterns are defined within the Maintain Work Patterns screen.

Shop Floor User: Whether this employee is a user within the Sicon Shop Floor Data Capture application.

Subcontractor: This check box identifies the employee as a subcontractor, which is relevant if using the Self Bill Invoices screen. Once this is selected, you can then select the relevant purchase ledger account in the additional fields that appear.

Dormant: Tick this box if this sub contractor is no longer being used. (Only appears with Sub contractor ticked)

PIN: Used by the Shop Floor Data Capture application to allow access for this employee.

Contract Expiry: This date can be used for reporting and also used in conjunction with Sicon WAP Timesheet module to advise and/or prevent timesheets being submitted when the contract is due to or has expired. (Only appears with Subcontractor ticked)

Code/Short name/Postcode: Used to select which purchase ledger account is relevant for this sub contractor, and required for Self Billing. (Only appears with Subcontractor ticked)

Next self bill no:  Allows you to set the next reference number to be used for this sub-contractor when using the Self Bill Invoices screen. (Only appears with Subcontractor ticked)

Job Header: If required a default job header can be selected for the employees/resource costs. e.g. Labour, Subcontract (as set up in Maintain Job Headers)

7.2. Contact Details Tab

This tab can be used to store the contact information of the employees. If using the Sicon Service module, then the email address stored here will be used to notify employees of scheduled appointments etc.

7.3. Cost/Charge/Pay Rates/Self Billing Hourly Rates (Subcontractors only) tabs

Rates are set per Employee. Cost Rates are used to account for Labour costs on a Job while Charge Rates can be entered to be able to bill labour on a Service Manager Case. Pay Rates are for information purposes, and are not used when exporting information into Sage Payroll (although they can be imported from Sage Payroll, see the section regarding the Labour tab in Job Costing Settings).

The Rate Description can be changed from Rate 1, 2, 3 etc. to a free text label in accordance you’re your organisation’s requirements (within Job Costing Settings – Rate Descriptions).  You can define up to 100 different rate descriptions.

Against each cost rate, you can specify a default nominal account (including Cost Centre and Department) to act as an override. The Available on Timesheets tick box will control which cost rates can be selected on timesheet entries for that employee (either via the Timesheet Entry All Users screen, or the separate Sicon WAP application where that is being used). Cost and Charge Rates can be entered as either Hourly or Daily figures in the relevant columns.

If the employee is marked as a subcontractor, then the Pay Rates tab changes to the Self Billing Hourly Rates tab, where you can specify the rates to be applied to the Self Bill invoices for that employee. If you instead want to set a fixed monthly rate, then these are set on the Self Billing Rules tab.

For further information on generating invoices, please refer to Transaction Entry – Self Bill Invoices.

7.4. Other Tab

Five configurable fields may be displayed on the ‘Other’ tab and relabelled as required (Job Costing Settings – Definitions).

7.5. Qualifications Tab

Within this tab you can record qualification information against the employee, with an expiry date recordable against each qualification, which appears in green if this date has not yet been reached and red once it has expired.

The qualifications that can be recorded are defined within the Maintain Qualifications screen in the Maintenance menu.

7.6. Linked Plant Tab

This tab will list any internal plant records that have been linked to this employee. These are setup in the Maintain Plant screen within the Owned Plant folder in the Plant section of the menu.

7.7. Memo Tab

This tab stores memos entered against this employee. Memos entered are date and time stamped, and the user is also recorded. If there are memos recorded against the employee, then the number of them will appear within the tab heading (eg. Memo (1))

7.8. Attachments Tab

As elsewhere in Sage, you can add document attachments via this tab onto the job, either individually or an entire folder at a time. Alternatively, you can add a shortcut to an existing folder on your network.

7.9. History Tab

This tab will display an audit trail of changes made to this employee. These history records are also date and time stamped, and record the relevant user name.

7.10. Service Tab

If Sicon Service is installed, an additional tab will be available for each Employee. Please refer to the Service Help and User Guide for further information.

Diary Row Colour: Select individual colours per employee to display on the Service Scheduler/Diary

Warehouse: Link the employee with either a site based service warehouse or to individual warehouses which relate to their van/vehicle. Parts can then be transferred and allocated to engineers via their warehouse.

Billing Alias: If you do not want the employee’s name to appear on Sales Orders when billing cases, an alias can be recorded here which will then appear within the description on the sales order line.

Postcode Areas: To assist when scheduling employees to cases

7.11. Self Billing Rules Tab (Sub-Contractor Employees)

When an Employee is marked as a Subcontractor, the Pay Rates Tab becomes Self Billing Rates and an additional tab appears for Self Billing Rules.

Rates for hourly self billing can be set on the Self Billing Rates tab and fixed rates set on the Self Billing Rules tab.  To set a Fixed Monthly rate, tick the box on the left for the relevant rate name and then you can amend the Rate column to enter that rate.

For further information on generating invoices, please refer to Transaction Entry – Self Bill Invoices.

8. Maintenance Menu: Other Screens

This menu allows access to the various maintenance functions for the Job Costing module.

8.1. Maintain Budgets

The system allows maintenance of budgets by job, with budgets being split at a job header level.  Budgets can also be tracked at a Phases, Stages and Activities level, although you cannot set a budget at a level that has further levels defined within it. So, if you have a Phase with no Stages or Activities, then you can set budgets at that level. But if there were Stages and/or Activities within that Phase, then the budgets need setting at the lowest level possible. To clarify, if you already have a budget set for a particular job header at an activity level, you cannot then add another budget for the same job header at a higher level (but would be fine on other activities).

After choosing the relevant job from the list of Live jobs, you will be presented with the following screen.

Budgets for job headers should be added as required, and can be entered as a total or by period, if enabled in Job Costing Settings you can also record hours and an hourly rate as a budget.  If recording the Budget by Period, then the total budget will be stored against the Job Header and the Phase/Stage/Activity if enabled.  In the example below, a Budget against period 12 (2018) and period 1 (2019) will store as a total of both against the Job.  If using Budgeted Hours and Hours Rate against the Labour Job Header Type, when saving the Budget by Period the system will prompt to convert this into Hours based on the Rate.

Tabs for Costs and Revenue allow you to update those budgets on separate screens.

You will see the budgets displayed in an expanded view for the Phases/Stages/Activities that you have recorded budgets against (assuming you have these enabled in the Job Costing Settings). You can view them at purely a job header level by changing the radio button near the top of the window to the ‘By Job Header’ option – but you’ll only be able to view them in that screen, you’ll need to add and edit them in the ‘By Phases & Stages’ view.

The View Job Enquiry button may be clicked to display the job enquiry screen for the selected job.

When editing budgets that relate to job headers that have a job header type of labour, an Hours Rate field is available where you can enter a default hourly rate that can then be used to generate the either the Budget amount or Budget hours fields (depending upon which one you populate first). A prompt appears asking if you would like to update the relevant field as soon as you edit the other one.

If you have any planned purchases on this job, then their costs will appear within the Planned column against the job header selected when entering the planned purchases. These costs will then move to the committed and actual columns (as appropriate) as the purchase order is generated and processed.

8.2. Maintain Cost to Complete

This screen enables you to review and enter the expected remaining costs on a job, and then track them on a period/weekly basis. The setting as to which you are using is found on the Other tab of Job Costing settings. You can track back through previous periods to review when forecasted costs were amended to review the forecasts through the life of the job.

If you are using Phases/Stages/Activities within the relevant job, then the costs to complete are tracked against each activity. It is possible to record Costs To Complete at the top level of the job by not selecting any phases/stages/activities, but this will be a sepearate cost to complete option, so would not include anything recorded at a lower level.

If you do have multiple costs to complete screens populated on the same job (usually because you have multiple activities), then you can review the total forecasted situation via the Project Summary tab within the Job Enquiry screen.

Select the job number in the filter at the top of the window, and then select the Period that you wish to update. To the right of the date, the status of that period from Accounting Periods will be displayed (e.g. Open, Future etc.). The Job percentage complete is then displayed, this is maintained on the job itself.  On the Cost at Completion form you can also maintain a completion profile which you can record an expected percentage complete on a period basis.  This will update the Job percentage complete within the Cost at Completion form.

For each cost type job header, you will see the budget value (if one has been entered via Maintain Budgets) and the costs split into Actual costs, Committed costs and Total costs.

The Cost to Completion and Hours to Completion columns (if relevant) would then be updated by the relevant users (i.e. Job Managers) with the expected remaining costs for the job. These would then be added to the existing costs to update the Revised Forecast Cost to Complete for that Job Header. A variance is then displayed between this total and the current budget figure, showing in green for a positive variance, and red for a negative one. After amending the Cost at Completion, you must enter a reason for the change in the final column. This reason must be a minimum of 5 characters long, and can be free text although you can define the reasons in the drop down via the Reasons For Change screen.

You can use the Set to Budget button to set all of the Cost at Completion values to the value that would keep you at the budget level. The Set to Previous button would be used to copy the previous month’s cost to complete values across to the current month (i.e. if there had been no movement on this job). The View Transactions button will display all transactions on the job that fall into the currently selected period.

The Accrual column can be used to generate a Cost at Completion Accrual Journal in the Period End Routines.  The figure shown is calculated based on the Job percentage complete of the Revised Forecast Cost at Completion minus the Actual Costs (((Revised/100)*%Complete)-Actual).

Once the journal has been generated using this routine, the Job Header line will be marked as Accrued (Accrual Posted Column).

8.3. Maintain Revenue to Complete

This screen works in an identical fashion to the Maintain Cost to Complete, but provides you with a mechanism for tracking job revenue on a monthly basis. The job headers displayed on this screen would be ones that are of type ‘revenue’.

The Accrual for the Revenue at Completion can be generated using the Revenue at Completion Accrual in the Period End Routines.

8.4. Job Header Types / Job Item Types

This screen allows you to maintain a list of job header types that are then available when maintaining job headers in the maintain job headers screen.

Each of these need to be matched up to a WAP Item Type of either ‘E’ for Expenses, ‘T’ for Time, ‘P’ for Purchase, ‘S’ for Sale or can be left blank. If you do not use WAP then you can leave that field blank for all of your job item types.

The Project Group dropdown lets you select from the following options:- Labour, Materials, Subcontract, Overheads/Other and Revenue. This is relevant for the Project Summary tab in Job Costing Enquiry, and controls in which column in that screen the transaction totals will appear

It is not possible to delete Job Header Types if they are in use.

8.5. Job Phases, Stages & Activities

This screen is where you define the phases, stages and activities that are then available in the Phases/Stages tab of New Job and Amend Job, if you have enabled these levels in Projects Settings. This is not necessarily required, as free text descriptions can be added for these elements when amending a job.

It is also possible to maintain a list of statuses that can then be applied to the phases, stages and activities within the Amend Job screen. These statuses would then be visible (in brackets) when linking a transaction to the appropriate phase/stage/activity. Note that it’s not possible to remove the status of Completed, as this is a system specified status.

8.6. Maintain Custom Tabs

This is where you can create and amend custom tabs that you want to appear in the Create Job and Amend Job screens. Once defined, custom fields are allocated to the tabs via the Define Custom Fields screen.

8.7. Define Custom Fields

This screen is used to define which of the 140 custom fields are in use, and which of the custom tabs they appear on in the Create Job/Amend Job screens. The fields are split into separate field types:

Boolean: A tick box

DateTime: A date field

Numeric: A number field

String: A text field

Select the fields that you want to use from the Non Active Fields on the left hand side based on the type of field. You can then enter a Display Name, tick if it should be a mandatory field and select which tab it should appear on from those defined in Maintain Custom Tabs.  You can use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to change the order in which the fields are displayed.

The Field Length field can be changed to reflect the number of decimal places that you would like a numeric field to go to. Leaving this set to zero will result in only whole numbers being stored in these fields.

8.8. Maintain Qualifications

This screen allows you to define the list of qualifications, that are available for selection on the Qualifications tab of the Maintain Employee screen.

8.9. Maintain Teams

This screen enables you to maintain the teams, which are then selectable against each Employee record in the Maintain Employees screen.

You can specify a charge work pattern and a cost work pattern as well as a default job header. These are then used when you are creating new employee records; once you have selected the team on the new employee record, it will then prompt you if you want to populate the same fields on that employee with the values defined on the team. In a similar fashion, the fields on the other tabs also work like a template.

Note that changing any of these fields will not update existing employee records.

8.10. Maintain Work Patterns

This enables you to define work patterns, which allow you to specify either times or number of hours that an employee works before entries would be assigned to a different job costing rate.

Note that this functionality only work with either the Sicon Service Module or the Sicon Manufacturing Module. Labour entries entered either via the Timesheet Entry screen or the Miscellaneous and Labour screen will require you to select the relevant job costing rate, they do not currently adjust these entries to reflect the work patterns.

Work Patterns are defined as either being applicable for costs, or charge out rates, but not for both. So if you are planning on using work patterns, you will need a minimum of two – one cost work pattern and one charge work pattern.

You can define as many work patterns as required. You can’t delete work patterns that are currently in use against employees or teams.

Against each work pattern, you can select whether it is a Cost Rate type, or a Charge Rate type.

Entries in this screen are entered either via Hours, or Time. This can be chosen via the radio button to the right of the Rate Type drop down.

If using time, you can add as many Job Costing rate lines as needed, and then against each day of the week record the times that apply for that rate. E.g. If an employee worked from 4 pm to 7 pm on the pattern defined in the screenshot, he would count as 1 hour at Normal rate, and 2 hours at Overtime.

8.11. Maintain Timesheet Locations

This screen allows you to maintain Location names that are then used for the Sicon WAP Timesheets application, as valid locations that employees can use when recording their timesheets. Each location can have a friendly name recorded against it in addition to the Location Name, and this friendly name is what is then displayed for the end users, but the Location Name could be used for reporting if desired.

8.12. Maintain Timesheet Leaving Reasons

This screen allows you to maintain leaving reasons that are then used for the Sicon WAP Timesheets application, as valid reasons that users can select when clocking out of the system. As with the timesheet locations, it is possible to define a separate friendly name for a leaving reason, which is what will be displayed for the users.

8.13. Risk Assessments and Mission Statements

This screen is where you can enter your RAM Statements that can then be added to jobs via the RAMS tab in the Amend Job screen.

8.14. Reasons for Change

This screen is where you can maintain valid reasons for change, that will then be used on the Cost to Complete and Revenue to Complete screens.

8.15. Analysis Codes

This screen is where you can maintain the seven analysis codes that appear on the General tab of a job. For each analysis code that you wish to use (selectable via the tick box to the left of the code label), you can rename the label, select whether it is mandatory, and then choose the data type from the following options:-

• Text
• Date
• Drop-Down List (which is then maintainable via the square with the three dots within it)
• Numeric Value
• Tick Box

The analysis codes specified here are selectable as columns on the Job lists.

8.16. Maintain Supplier Catalogue

This screen is used for situations where you want to maintain a list of the items that you can buy from a supplier, but that aren’t setup as stock codes in your Sage 200 Stock Control module. You can define them via this screen, and then when creating a line on a purchase order, you can select an item from this catalogue. These lines will then be free text lines, so ordering the item does not mean that it is created as a stock code within your system.

You can use the search filters at the top of the window to search this catalogue for entries. Although the entries are not actual stock codes, you can still assign one to an existing Sage product group for the purposes of this catalogue, and then use that filter to help find them again. Alternatively, you can search this catalogue directly via the Catalogue Item Search field.

New entries into the catalogue can be input via the Add Item button, or can be imported via the Import button.

When manually entering a new catalogue entry, you can give it a code and a name, select from the existing Sage product groups and give it a defaut tax code. You can enter a buying price and buying unit description, and enter a Nominal code and choose the relevant supplier code. Finally, there is an item description field that is larger than the Name field.

Alternatively, you can import the catalogue entries:

This screen enables you to import the items for the catalogue from a csv file. As with other Sicon imports, you can use the Example Import File button to generate both an example Excel file, and a second file that explains the columns and confirms which ones are compulsory. If you use the example Excel file, you will need to save it as a csv file prior to import.

Prior to importing the file, you will need to click the Check File button to validate the import file, and then the Details section of the window will display the records in your file, and highlight any errors. Once a file has been successfully checked, then you will be able to use the Import button to perform the import.

8.17. Bank Holidays

This screen allows you to maintain the list of bank holidays. Currently, these do not update anything on timesheet entries, but will in a future version of the product when used in conjunction with work patterns.

You can enter multiple groups of bank holidays, such as entering them for different countries. If you click the Set UK defaults button, then it will automatically insert/reset all UK bank holidays for the next 10 years.

9. Transaction Entry Menu

The Job Journal screen allows corrections to be posted to a job by moving costs to a different job.

The Complete Jobs screen can be used to quickly complete several jobs.

The Rapid Stock Issue screen can be used to issue multiple stock items to a selected job.

The Self Bill Invoices screen can be used to generate purchase ledger transactions from subcontractor labour transactions.

The Generate Billing Transactions screen can be used to generate sales orders for invoicing the customer on the job for transactions in the system.

The Timesheet Entry screen can be used for recording timesheets into Job Costing.

The Post Timesheet Journals screen enables you to quickly post a nominal journal for the cost of the selected timesheet entries, if you need a corresponding posting in your Nominal ledger.

The Amend Timesheet Clock In Lines screen enables you to amend timesheet information that has been recorded in either the Sicon WAP Timesheets application or the Sicon Shop Floor Data Capture mobile app.

The Maintain Billed Transactions screen works in conjunction with the Generate Billing Transactions screen, and allows you to mark transactions as billed (without billing them), or unmark previously billed transactions if you would then want to bill them again.

9.1. Job Journal

The Job Journal screen opens the Sage Create Nominal Journal entry screen to allow you to correct transactions that have been coded to the wrong job or job header whilst also posting a nominal journal. Alternatively, you may just want to post a nominal journal that is reflected within Job Costing. As with regular nominal journals, it must balance before you are able to save and apply the journal. You can split a figure across multiple jobs and/or job headers as desired.

If you do not want to change any balances in your nominal ledger as a result of a correction to job costing transactions, then you could code all debits and credits to the same nominal account. If you do not want these transactions appearing in nominal accounts that you may be checking for other purposes, then it’s recommended that you create a specific nominal account purely for this purpose. Its balance will remain at zero.

If you are correcting existing transactions, then you may want to consider using the Transaction Editor within the Utilities menu.

9.2. Complete Jobs

This screen may be used to automatically set the ‘percentage complete’ on a job to 100%; effectively flagging it as ‘complete’.

To flag a job as complete check the tick-box and accept the change when the confirmation message is displayed. The screen will prompt you to enter an Actual Completion Date.

You can edit the % column to change this for the relevant jobs. Ticking a job on the left will set the % to 100, and reducing this value will remove the tick.

9.3. Rapid Stock Issue

This screen may be used to quickly issue stock (using ‘Internal Issue’ stock movements) to multiple jobs in a batch environment.

Simply add transactions to the list and then click the Post button to process the transactions. The internal area used for the stock issue is set on the Stock tab of Job Costing Settings.

Clicking on the Edit Line button, allows you to add more details to the Rapid Issue Line, such as changing the Internal area from the default set in Job Settings or adding an Employee link to the stock issue line.

9.4. Self Bill Invoices

This screen generates Purchase Ledger invoices for selected sub-contractor transactions. (For employee set up, see Maintain Employees – Self Billing). Once an employee has been marked as being a subcontractor (with the relevant supplier account selected against them), then their timesheet entries will become available here for self billing.

In the following examples the employee will be self billed on one invoice for the hours recorded as Hourly. If the employee had been set with any Self Billing Rules which applied to this job rate,  then these would be billed as a fixed monthly rate regardless of the entries. In this case, you could use the View Timesheet Lines button to see which timesheet entries are being billed as part of that entry. Note that it is possible to bill against the same fixed monthly rate multiple times, so care should be taken to ensure this happens once per month, otherwise you could end up with multiple monthly invoices on the account to pay for the same subcontractor.

The lines can be individually selected if appropriate, the invoice date can be changed if required and if Invoice Authorisation is enabled in the Purchase Ledger settings, there is the function to allow this to be disabled for that particular invoice.

The nominal code for the posted invoices will come from the job header, unless overridden by the combination of job header and job.

A document is generated off the back of this process and self-billing invoices can be stored within the Sicon DMS module if you are using that module.

9.5. Generate Billing Transactions

This screen is used when you wish to bill the customer for transactions that have happened on a job. There are filters at the top of the window that can be used to filter the transactions by job, customer, job header, transaction date range, employee (for labour transactions), transaction type (eg. LABOUR or STOCK) and lastly a check box to include transactions that have been set as Non Chargeable for the relevant job. When creating/amending the job, there is a field on the General tab called Chargeable Type where you can specify whether all transactions are chargeable or non-chargeable, or just labour or just materials are non-chargeable.

On the job you can also specify the Markup percentage to apply to all chargeable transactions, or if you click the Job Headers tab then you can specify different markup percentages for different job headers. If you would prefer to just have standard markup percentages on job headers that would be used (unless overridden by the job headers tab on the jobs) then you can set these up in the Maintain Job Headers screen.

You can then use this screen to select the transactions that you would like to bill.  A sales order will be generated for each customer selected (you will also be prompted to add the lines to an existing open sales order if one exists). Note that if you select the Group Transactions checkbox, then the transactions will be grouped together within the same sales order line.

Any transactions that are on a job that does not have a customer linked to it are highlighted in red.

If there are transactions appearing that need to be marked as non-chargeable, then you can do this via the Change Chargeable Type button.

After selecting the transactions that you wish to bill and selecting the Generate button, the Confirm Billing Order Lines window is displayed.  If you have an existing open Sales Order you are asked if you would like to add these transactions to it.  If choosing yes, you will need to select the Sales Order you would like to update, else you will move to the confirm Billing Order Lines screen.

In this window, you can choose whether you wish to the employee name to be included in the line description, and whether you want to convert the hours to days (using the Default Working Day Hours setting within the Job Costing settings Labour tab).

You can also edit the Promised Date, Quantity, Unit Value and Line Description fields if desired. When ready click the Confirm button, and then the sales order will be created, or updated if adding to an existing sales order.

Transactions that have been billed can be viewed using the View Linked Transactions screen.

9.6. Timesheet Entry

This screen allows you to quickly enter timesheet entries for your employees (as defined in Maintain Employees), or your internal plant records (as defined in Maintain Plant) that will then post as labour/plant transactions against the jobs. Timesheets are recorded one employee at a time and against a specified week, by selecting that employee in the drop down at the top, and the week in the field to the left of that. Entries in this screen are either by start and end time, or number of hours, as set on the Timesheet Entry Type setting, within the Job Costing Settings Labour tab. Note that entries in this screen do not generate any nominal postings, you would enter them in here and then use the Post Timesheet Journals screen to do that if desired.

You can either select the week by start date or week number.

You can choose the job, and then select the relevant job rate, and then enter a number of hours for the relevant days. You can enter as many lines as needed if the entries need to be split across multiple jobs/job headers. Once you click Save, the labour/plant transactions will be posted to the relevant jobs. The job header for these transactions will be the default job header specified on the employee, and the cost rates will also be read from the employee/plant, based on the rate selected on the timesheet line.

You can enter Notes against each timesheet entry. This note would then display in the Description column on the Labour/Plant tab in Job Enquiry against that transaction.

If you select a combination of week and employee/plant that have already been recorded, then you are able to edit these entries and the relevant job transactions will be updated. If you have entered timesheets for an employee who has subsequently had their cost or pay rates updated, you should set the existing timesheets for that employee to zero hours, this will then delete the current job transactions. You could then re-enter them, which would then use the new cost or pay rates.

If the timesheets have been recorded through the Sicon WAP application, then any amendments should be made there via the standard WAP routines, and then resubmitted.

9.7. Post Timesheet Journal

This enables you to quickly post a nominal journal for the cost of the selected timesheet entries, if you need a corresponding posting in your Nominal ledger. When you open this screen, it will display all labour entries that have not previously been posted.

It is possible to filter the labour entries by Job number, Job Header, Employee and a Date range for the transaction date.

The nominal codes displayed here are derived from the nominal code set against the job rate for the relevant employee. If this is not set, then it will look to the job and see if there is a nominal code specified against that job header. Lastly, it will look to the job header in the Maintain Job Headers screen and use the nominal account specified there. Cost Centre and Department overrides specified against the job (via the Configuration tab in Create Job/Amend Job) would also be relevant to this screen.

You can edit the posting date before hitting the post button using the field in the bottom right hand corner.

The other side of the nominal posting is the account specified in the Job Costing Settings (on the Labour tab) as the Default Labour WIP Nominal A/C.

9.8. Amend Timesheet Clock In Lines

With this screen you can amend employee clock in records (i.e. their arrival and departure times) that have been entered via either the Sicon WAP Timesheets application, or the Sicon Shop Floor Data Capture mobile app. Typically, you may want to do this is in situations where someone has forgotten to clock out before leaving for the day. It cannot be used to add clock in entries, just to amend existing ones.
You could use the fields displayed in the Filters section to filter the records that will be displayed when you click the Display button. Then you can either delete the clock in records via the Delete button at the bottom of the screen or click into the entry against the relevant day to edit it.

9.9. Maintained Billed Transactions

This screen is used in conjunction with the Generate Billing Transactions screen to either mark cost transactions as having been billed (when they haven’t), or to unmark previously billed cost transactions. This will then affect whether they appear in the Generate Billing Transactions screen as available for billing.

You can filter the results by Job, Job Header, Transaction Type and Transaction Date. A radio button lets you filter to only show billed or unbilled transactions. The buttons at the bottom let you quickly change the billed flag for all filtered transactions to either marked or unmarked.

Note that you can also do this via the Job Enquiry screen, as cost transactions have a checkbox on the relevant tabs of that screen which do the same as the Billed checkbox in this screen.

10. Enquiry Menu

The menu provides access to the Job Costing enquiry screens.

10.1. Job Costing Enquiry

The Job Enquiry screen is the most commonly used screen within Job Costing, and gives you an enquiry screen where you can view all of the transactions on the job displayed on various tabs.

The Summary tab of the enquiry screen displays all transactions for a selected job grouped together as Expenditure, Income, Stock and Labour transactions. The Job Total in the top right-hand corner is a calculation based on total income less total costs.

For multi-currency, you can change the Job Enquiry view to show values in different currency bases on period exchange rate values.  Switching between currency updates the summary, job values, all revenues, expenditure, stock and all costs tabs displaying the currency value and the exchange rate.

You are able to filter the transactions displayed for Phase, Stage and Activity (if enabled in the Job Costing Settings).

If you expand the Show Job Detail button, then extra boxes are displayed between the Job Number and the tabs beneath.

By clicking the Search Filters button on the right, you can also filter by Job Header and for a Date Range – either by dates or accounting period numbers. You can also filter by transaction type, or by specific Document Reference entries (i.e. Invoice numbers).

There are also filters available if you are using the Sicon Service module, which allow you to filter for transactions linked to cases or a specific case, or to show only non-case transactions.

The Hide ‘Zero’ Transactions checkbox can be used to hide transactions with zero as their value – this is primarily of use in filtering out the Purchase Ledger invoice transactions that are generated with a zero value when matching invoices to purchase order transactions.

Changing any of these filters will then refresh the Totals displayed beneath the transactions. You can then click on the Filters Applied link that appears next to the Search Filters button to clear the filter.

The Summary tab displays all transactions with extended detail of each of these transactions replicated onto the Expenditure, All Revenues, Stock and Labour tabs. There are options available by right clicking on a transaction that can give you a drill down into the relevant sales order, purchase order, sales ledger transaction enquiry or purchase ledger transaction enquiry, dependent on which type of transactions it is. These windows will also include a summary transaction (displayed in green) for each sub job (if enabled and applicable) that will contribute to the totals.

The Job Values tab displays totals of committed and actual transactions. If you are in a job that has Sub jobs, then totals from the Sub Jobs are also visible here.

The Expenditure tab expands upon the Expenditure window on the Summary tab to display additional columns. It includes a column for ‘Total Actual’ figure for each line. This will display the invoiced total (or the actual costs from the purchase order if the invoiced total is zero).  This tab also shows an Invoice Variance column to display differences in price between purchase order lines and the invoices matched to them. There is also a column on this tab showing the quantity issued against a stock purchase order line. The checkboxes to the left indicate whether the transaction has been billed via the Generate Billing Transaction routine, and can be checked or unchecked here in a similar way to the functionality within the Maintain Billed Transactions screen.

In addition to Purchase Orders/Invoices, this tab can also show Hired In Plant transactions, identifiable as being of type ‘HIP’.

The All Revenues tab expands upon the Income window on the Summary tab to display additional columns.  If viewing in non-home currency then you will be shown the exchange rate of the transaction in an extra column.

The Stock tab expands upon the Stock window on the Summary tab to display additional columns. If the setting is enabled to automatically write cost of sales to job (on the SOP tab within Job Costing Settings), then these transactions will appear on this tab, identifiable as being of type ‘C’. As with the Expenditure tab, transactions here can be marked as either billed or unbilled via the checkbox on the left-hand side, in a similar fashion to the function of the Maintain Billed Transactions screen.

The Labour tab expands upon the Labour window on the Summary tab to display additional columns.

The Plant tab displays any time booked against your own plant that relate to this job. Although costs on this tab do not show on the Summary tab, they are included in the Job Total in the top right-hand corner, and also appear on the Job Values tab. Note that the costs of any hired in plant appears on the Expenditure tab. As with the Expenditure tab, transactions here can be marked as either billed or unbilled via the checkbox on the left-hand side, in a similar fashion to the function of the Maintain Billed Transactions screen.

The SOP and POP tabs show any linked orders, and either confirm the despatch details against sales orders, or the invoices matched to purchase orders. These tabs will show which despatches/invoices match with which orders, and include which posting period and URN apply to these transactions (if applicable).

The All Cost tab groups all the cost type tabs into a single tab so you can analysis expenditure, labour, stock and plant in one screen.

The Hired In Plant tab shows any Plant Hire transactions (i.e. not Owned Plant) that have been recorded via the Manage Plant Hire screen, or added to any activities on the job.

The Planned Purchases tab shows any Planned Purchases that have been defined against any activities on the job, or entered via the Maintain Planned Purchases screen.

The Budgets tab will display details of any budgets entered against the job along with actual values for each budget entered. These are displayed in both figures and number of hours, and there are separate tabs for Costs, Revenue and Planned Purchases.  You can also view by Phases & Stages (if set in Job Costing Settings) or by Job Header.

The Customer Details tab provides a read only view of the linked Sales Ledger account, its Address and Phone numbers, and its account balance and credit limit. Note that this tab only appears if the job is linked to a sales ledger account.

The Job Header Types tab displays committed, actual and margin totals for each job header type as defined in the Job Header Types screen. Job Headers are assigned to these job header types in the Maintain Job Headers screen. Note that it’s possible to assign both cost and revenue job headers to the same job header type, which would give you a margin calculation on that job header type.  This tab only appears if turned on in Job Costing Settings

The Project Summary tab displays totals that are updated from posted transactions, and also user updates via the Cost to Complete and Revenue to Complete screens to give a representation of how the job is performing. The information displayed here can be changed by adjusting the period above the window to give a historical picture of how this job has progressed. Note that transactions that have a later date than the selected period will not be included in the totals displayed. Using a setting found in the Other tab of Job Costing Settings, you can instead display this information for a week rather than an accounting period.

You can configure the job header types in the Job Header Types screen to control which column those transaction totals contribute to in this tab. These are determined by the Project Group selected for that job header type in that screen.

Revenue

The Revised Forecast line displays the Revised Forecast Revenue total (from the Revenue at Completion screen) in the Total Revenue column. The Budget value line shows the total budget for Revenue Job Headers in the same Total Revenue column.

The Actuals line, the Commitments line and the Actual & Commitments line show the relevant figures in the same column.

This is the revenue picture of what was budgeted, what the forecasted revenue figure is, and what actually has been invoiced or what is added as a revenue commitment (i.e. an un-despatched sales order line or un-invoiced sales order line based on the Job Costing Settings for SOP).

Costs

The Costs are broken down into separate columns for the Labour, Material, Plant, Subcontract and Overheads/Other. These correspond to the available Project Group selection when using the Job Header types screen in the Maintenance menu.

The Revised Forecast line displays the Revised Forecast Cost (from the Cost at Completion screen) against each of the five Project Groups. The Budget value line shows the total budget figure for each Project Group in the same column.

The Actuals line, the Commitments line and the Actual & Commitments line show the relevant figures in the same columns.

This is the cost picture of what was budgeted, what the forecasted cost figure is, and what actually has been invoiced or what is added as a purchasing commitment (i.e. a non-received purchase order line or un-invoiced purchase order line based on the Job Costing Settings for POP).

Margins

Each row shows a Gross Margin figure, and calculates it as a percentage. The margin is calculated as Total Revenue – Total Costs, while the percentage is Gross Margin/Total Revenue.

The Actual Costs total at the bottom gives the total actual costs up to the selected period.

The Revised Gross Margin total is (Gross Margin/Total Revenue) *100 from the Revised Forecast line.

The Grossed-up costs total is Actual Costs* (1/1-(Revised Gross Margin/100)).

The Minimum next application value is Grossed up costs – Actual Revenue, and is provided as a guide of the minimum you should be applying to the customer to cover costs incurred on the job up to this period.

Buttons at the bottom of the screen give access to the Cost at Completion and Revenue at Completion screens, as well as to a screen to view the transactions for the selected period.

10.2. View Linked Transactions

This screen displays the transactions generated by Generate Billing Transactions. You can filter by the generated Sales Order Number or by Job Number.

10.3. View Timesheet Clock In Lines

This screen will display any timesheet lines that have been captured via the Sicon WAP Timesheets application. You can filter the lines displayed using the filters at the top of the window, and then clicking the Display button.

10.4. View Current Clock Ins

This screen allows you to view who is currently logged in within the Sicon WAP Time and Attendance application. You can filter the displayed information using the employee or location filters at the top, and then clicking Display.

11. Reports Menu

This menu provides access to Job Costing reports.

11.1. Lists

Job List

Job List by Customer

Employee List

Job Header List

Job Header List (Code Sequence)

Job Header Nominal Codes By Job

Job Specific Job Header Nominal Codes

11.2. Transactions

Labour Transactions

Labour Transactions Export

Labour Transactions by Employees

Labour Transactions Grouped by Employee

Labour Transactions By Job and Employee

Labour Transactions By Job and Job Header

Stock Transactions

Transactions List

Job Transactions by Supplier

11.3. WIP (Values to Date)

Work In Progress Detail

Work In Progress By Month

Work In Progress By Period

Work In Progress Detail By Job Header

Work In Progress Detail By Transaction Type

Work In Progress Detail With Nominals

Work In Progress Detail Export

Work In Progress Summary

Work In Progress Summary By Job Header

Work In Progress Summary By Job Header Type

Work In Progress Summary By Transaction Type

11.4. WIP (Values based on Purchase Invoices)

WIP Detail (Based on Purchase Invoices)

WIP Detail Export (Based on Purchase Invoices)

WIP Detail By Job Header (Based on Purchase Invoices)

WIP Detail By Job and Job Header (Based on Purchase Invoices)

WIP Summary By Job Header (Based on Purchase Invoices)

WIP Detail with Nominals (Based on Purchase Invoices)

WIP Summary By Job and Job Header (Based on Purchase Invoices)

WIP Summary By Transaction Type (Based on Purchase Invoices)

11.5. WIP (Retrospective)

WIP Detail

WIP Summary

WIP Detail By Job Header

WIP Summary By Job Header

WIP Summary By Job and Job Header

WIP Summary By Job Header Type

WIP Summary By Job And Transaction Type

WIP Summary By Transaction Type

11.6. All Jobs (including completed)

All Jobs Detail

All Jobs Detail By Job Header

All Jobs Detail By Job Header and Type

All Jobs Detail By Job Header and Type Export

All Jobs Summary

All Jobs Summary By Job Header

All Jobs Summary By Job Header and Type

All Jobs Summary By Job Header and Type (Actuals Only)

All Jobs Summary By Job Header Type

All Jobs Summary By Job Header Type (Custom)

All Jobs Summary By Job Header Type and Customer

All Jobs Summary By Item Type

All Jobs Summary By Transaction Type

All Jobs Detail (Based on Purchase Invoices)

All Jobs Detail By Job Header and Type (Based on Purchase Invoices)

All Jobs Detail By Job Header and Type Export (Based on Purchase Invoices)

11.7. Budgets

Budgets Summary By Customer

Budget Summary By Customer and Job

Actuals vs Budget Summary by Job Header

Profitability by Job vs Budget (Summary)

Job Profitability

Job Profitability By Job

Job Profitability By Customer

Budgets By Customer Job & Job Header

Budgets Hours By Job Header

Budgets By Phase Stage & Activity

Budgets by Job Header

11.8. Nominal Reconciliation

Job Transactions to Nominal Reconciliation

Nominal Transactions To Job Costing Reconciliation

Nominal Transactions To Job Costing Reconciliation Export

Nominal Ledger Transaction With Job Details

Nominal Ledger Transactions Listing With Job Numbers

Job Costing to Nominal Unmatched Transactions

Purchase Order and Invoice Reconciliation

Purchase Order and Invoice Reconciliation Export

Unmatched Purchase Transactions

Unmatched Sales Transactions

Unmatched Nominal To Job Transactions

Disputed Invoices and Credit Notes with Job Numbers

Disputed Invoices and Credit Notes (Export)

11.9. Miscellaneous

Purchase Order Invoices with Job Details

Purchase Orders and Returns with Job Details

Purchase Orders and Returns with Job Transactions

Purchase Invoices and Credit Notes with Job Details

Outstanding Purchase Orders By Job (Detail)

Outstanding Purchase Orders By Job (Summary)

Sales Ledger Aged Debtors (Detailed with Job Nos)

Sales Ledger Aged Debtors (Detailed with Job Details)

Sales Invoices and Credit Notes with Job Details

Sales Orders with Job Details

Cost to Complete by Job

Job Weekly POP GRN Values

Job Weekly POP GRN Values By Job Header

Job Weekly PO’s By Originator

Job Weekly PO’s By Originator (Summary)

11.10. Timesheets & Payroll

Timesheet Reconciliation

Timesheet Summary By Week And Pay Rate

Timesheet and Overtime

Timesheet Journals

Wages Summary

Wages Summary (E-mail)

Employee Labour Rates

Employee List

Self Billing Invoice

Self Billing Invoice (CIS)

Reprint Self Billing Invoices (CIS)

Self Billing Labour Transactions By Sub Contractor

12. Estimates

The Estimates functionality enables you to create an estimate for budgeting purposes, while keeping them separate from live jobs. Once an estimate is finished, and the work is going ahead, then the estimate can be converted into a live job.

Estimates can either be added via the Add Estimate menu option (or button on the Estimates List) or generated via the Copy Job Hierarchy to Estimate or Create Estimate From Template screens.

You can add quoted prices for each activity on your estimate, and then print a quotation which uses these values to send to your customer.

Adding operations to your activities will automatically create budget entries against the selected job headers for your estimate, and is what will feed into the Budget Revenue and Budget Costs figures for the estimate.

12.1. Estimates List

Only available for Sage 200 2015 and later versions, this displays the Estimate List view in the Work area.

The functionality here works in the same way as other list views in Sage200, so filters can be created and saved, columns can be added/removed, you can search for estimates in the list, you can use the action icons above the list to access specific estimates screens, send the list to an Excel spreadsheet etc. If you double click on a estimate number, then it will open the Amend Estimate screen.

The columns appearing by default are:

• Estimate Number
• Description
• Status
• Manager
• Customer
• Budget Revenue
• Budget Costs
• The seven analysis codes available on the Estimate

12.2. Add Estimate

The Create New Estimate screen replicates most of the functionality of the New Job screen, so please refer to that section of this help and user guide.

12.3. Amend Estimate

The Amend Estimate screen replicates most of the functionality of the Amend Job screen, so please refer to that section of this help and user guide.

A button that only exits on estimates, however, is the Create Revision button, which will create a new estimate as a copy of the current one, appending a revision number to the end of the Estimate number on the new estimate.

12.4. Estimate Enquiry

This screen replicates the Job Enquiry screen, but only has the following tabs:-

• Summary
• Job Values
• Expenditure
• Income
• Stock Issues/Receipts
• Labour/Resources
• Budgets

12.5. Convert Estimate to Job

When converting an estimate to a job, a check will be carried out which could result in this message being displayed:

This likely indicates that you either have start dates against any phases, stages or activities that are before today’s date, or have not been populated. Once you click OK, then the Convert Estimate To Job screen will be displayed.

Any problem dates that could have caused the previous message to have been displayed will be highlighted in red (values of 01/01/0001 indicate an empty date). You need to use the Amend Line button at the bottom to edit these dates before the job is created. You should populate the Planned Completion Date field before clicking the Confirm button to convert the estimate to a new job.

This will remove this estimate from the estimates list, and create a new job from it.

12.6. Copy Job Hierarchy to Estimate

This screen enables you to copy an existing job hierarchy (either fully or partly) from a job onto an estimate. You can either choose an existing estimate to be the recipient of the hierarchy, or create a new estimate from within this screen.

After selecting the estimate that you wish to copy the hierarchy into (or checking the Create New Estimate box), select the Job that you wish to copy from. You are then presented with the hierarchy from that job, and can deselect desired elements by removing the tick in the checkboxes to their left. If you deselect either a phase or a stage, then the elements within it will also be deselected.

Click the Copy button to transfer the hierarchy onto your estimate when you have finished amending the selections.

12.7. Create Estimate from Template

You can use this screen to generate a new estimate using an existing template.

After selecting the desired template, you can then remove ticks against the pictured elements if you do not wish to copy them. Click the Copy button to create the estimate, and the Amend Estimate window will appear for the new estimate.

12.8. Print Estimate

This menu option runs the Estimate report, which can be filtered for either estimate number or customer account number.

12.9. Estimate Details

This menu option runs the Estimate Detail report, which can be filtered for either estimate number or customer account number.

12.10. Print Quotation

This menu option runs the Estimate Quotation report, which can be filtered by estimate number.

13. Templates

Templates can be created and stored to enable jobs or estimates with common attributes to be created quickly, and avoiding having to re-enter a frequently used hierarchy structure.

13.1. Add Template

Creating a template provides you with many of the same options as when creating a job, so see the section on New Job for appropriate details. Each template needs its own template reference which can hold any text characters (these are not automatically generated).

The Planned completion date, Actual completion date and Percentage complete fields do not exist on a template as you would not expect values in these fields to be relevant to multiple jobs. For the same reason, there is no Attachments tab on a template.

Note that you cannot copy budgets from a template to an estimate, so the budget functionality within a template is only relevant for when you will be using the template to create a job.

13.2. Amend Template

This screen allows you to update existing templates, in an identical fashion to the Amend Jobs screen (with the same fields/tabs restrictions as mentioned above).

13.3. Create Job from Template

This screen enables you to generate a job by using a saved template. Select the template from the drop down, and then review the check boxes to confirm whether any should be deselected from this process. Once you click the Copy button to create the job and have been informed of the new job number (if using automatic job numbering), then the Amend Job screen will open to enable you to make any further changes if desired.

Estimates are created from templates using their own Create Estimate From Template screen.

14. Planned Purchases

With the Planned Purchases functionality, you can enter a list of the items (both stock items and free text) that you are expecting to purchase for a particular job, as well as who the supplier will be and what price you are expecting to pay. You can then generate the purchase orders for these items at a later date (if using automatic PO numbers in your POP Settings), and the planned purchases that you have entered for a job will contribute to the Planned column displayed alongside your budgets.

If using WAP, Planned Purchases can only be used if the Sicon Web API has also been configured.  See *WAP Requisitions HUG for further information*.

14.1. Maintain Planned Purchases

Planned purchases can either be entered via this screen, or by adding them to an activity in the Phases/Stages tab of the New Job/Amend Job screen.

The Planned Purchase Orders tab of this screen displays the following information:

Select the relevant Job via the drop down at the top of the screen. Any outstanding Planned Purchases for this job will then be displayed on this screen (Completed ones can also be displayed by checking the Show completed purchases box).

Planned Purchase entries have a status that is either Open, Complete (once a purchase order has been generated for the full quantity of that entry) or Part (where an order has been generated for less than the full quantity).

If you wish to view all Planned Purchases across all jobs, then click the Display All button rather than selecting a job.

Any entries showing the supplier column highlighted in red are drawing your attention to the fact that no supplier account has been selected for those entries.

You can use the Add button to create a new entry, or Edit or Remove existing ones. You will need to have selected the relevant job number in the Job field at the top of the window before you can add a new Planned Purchase entry. When removing entries, you cannot remove entries with a status of Complete.

The Budget View tab of this screen displays the following information:

Any entries that are displaying a red flag in a column are doing that to reflect that their Revised total differs from their budget total. This is typically because the purchase order has been amended after it was generated. The Variance column gives a total cost variance against that planned purchase.

To enter a new Planned Purchase entry, use the Stock Type radio button to choose whether you are recording an item with a stock code, or a free text item. If you select a Free Text item, then the Stock Item field, Warehouse field and the Amend Item Description checkbox are suppressed.

The fields on this screen are equivalent to the same fields on a Purchase Order. For a stock item planned purchase, the minimum you need to record is the stock code, warehouse and a quantity greater than zero. For free text item planned purchase, the minimum you need to record is a quantity greater than zero and an item description. So in both cases, it is possible to record a planned purchase without selecting who the supplier is going to be.

Once you have saved the planned purchase entry, the following prompt is displayed asking if you would like to add another item.

If you click Yes, then the Planned Purchase Entry screen remains on the screen for you to enter another item. If you click No, then you are returned to the Planned Purchases screen listing the current entries for the selected job.

If you edit an existing planned purchase entry, then the original quantity and original unit price are displayed to the right of these fields to keep an easily viewable record showing if they’ve been amended. The History tab of the Planned Purchase Entry screen displays a more comprehensive audit trail of what has happened with this planned purchase entry.

14.2. Create Purchase Orders

Using this screen, you can generate purchase orders with the information that has been recorded against your planned purchases. You can only use this functionality if you have enabled Automatically generated order numbers in the standard Sage POP Settings screen.

14.3. Import Planned Purchases

As an alternative to entering planned purchases via the Maintain Planned Purchases screen (or via adding a planned purchase to an activity using the New/Amend Job screen), you can also import them using this screen. Note that planned purchases created via this import must be linked to activities, so if there are no phases/stages/activities defined for the selected job then default ones will be created, or if ones are specified in the import file then they will be created instead.

The import file needs to be prepared in standard csv format. To assist with this, you can click on the Sample button to save an example import file into a desired folder. If you then amend this file, then it will be in the correct format. The Import Template button can also be used to open an Excel file that clarifies acceptable values for the columns in the import file, and whether they are optional or mandatory.

Once you have prepared your import file, use the Find button to browse to the folder containing your import file to select it. Once it is selected, you must click the Check button for the import file to be checked for errors. When the check is complete, any problematic rows will be highlighted in red, and a total count of any errors will be displayed at the bottom of the screen. If there are no errors, then the Import button will activate enabling you to click this to complete the import.

Files that have been successfully imported will have their file extension changed to .bak, to help ensure that an imported file is not accidentally re-imported.

15. Plant

The functionality in the screens in this menu folder allow you to manage both your own plant items (i.e. machinery, equipment and apparatus), and also hired in plant. The costs of these items can then be allocated to job transactions. Owned plant records can have timesheets recorded against them as if they were employees. Hired in Plant processing generates purchase orders covering the hire that can then be processed as normal purchase orders in standard Sage Purchase Order Processing.

15.1. All Plant Item List

This list view displays both owned and hired in plant entries.

For this list, the columns appearing by default are:

• Plant Item
• Plant Type
• Quantity
• Job Number (only appear against Owned Plant if they are linked to a job)
• Employee
• Expected Return Date

15.2. Owned Plant

Maintain Plant

This screen works in a similar way to the Maintain Employees screen, and enables you to record details of your own plant records.

The plant records can be linked to a job via the Linked Job field for reporting purposes, and can be linked to an employee via the Linked Employee field. A plant record that has been marked as Written Off cannot be selected for timesheet entries. The Expected Return date is for reporting purposes. Changes to these fields are audited on the History tab. The other tabs function as per the same tabs on an Employee record, enabling you to specify different cost and charge rates for the different Job rate descriptions (i.e. Normal, Overtime etc).

15.3. Hired In Plant and Tools

Plant Hire Orders List

This list view displays hired in plant orders.

For this list, the columns appearing by default are:

• Job Number
• Supplier
• Hire Reference
• Purchase Order
• Total Cost

Hired In Item List

This list view displays hired in plant items.

For this list, the columns appearing by default are:

• Job Number
• Job Header
• Supplier
• Purchase Order
• Hire Reference
• Description
• Quantity On Hire
• Unit Cost
• Duration (number)
• Duration (unit)
• Total Cost
• Start Date
• End Date
• Duration To Date
• Cost To Date
• Status
• Receipt Reference
• Receipt Date
• Off Hire Reference
• Off Hire Date
• Collection Reference
• Collection Date

Manage Plant Hire

This screen enables you to manage any external plant hire orders across all of your jobs. Plant Hire orders can either be entered in this screen, or added to activities in the New/Amend Job screen.

You can use the radio button at the top of this screen to change the view between Hire Orders (shown above), and Hire Lines details.

Any End Dates with a date prior to today will be highlighted in red. Any End Dates with a date within the next 7 days will be highlighted in orange.

You can filter the list of current plant hire orders by job number and/or supplier account. Additionally, on the Hire Lines view, you can also filter by a date range and the hire status:

All / All Open / OnHire / POPCreated / Received / OffHire / Collected / Deleted

You can also tick a box to only show overdue hire items (i.e. with an end date before today) on the Hire Lines view.

Buttons at the bottom of the screen allow you to add a new hire order, amend an existing one, or cancel an existing one (only on the Hire Orders view).

When adding or amending a hire order, the Plant Hire Order Form screen is displayed.

When adding a new hire order, select a job (and relevant activity if applicable), then select the supplier account. You can also choose from the list of defined employees in the Requested By field.

You can click on the Address tab to search from stored customer delivery addresses for the delivery address.

Click on the Add Hire button to add details of each line of the hire order.

Hire Order lines can either use a Service stock code, or be recorded as a free text entry.

If using a Service code, you can filter the codes displayed in this drop down by selecting the Product Group first. The Service codes used for this process would be setup in standard Sage Stock Control as normal Service codes. The full Item Description from the Service stock code is displayed in the box beneath the Service Item and Product Group fields, and can be edited here for this order if desired.

The Quantity field should be used to record how many plant items you are hiring, and this will then be combined with the Unit Value and Duration of the hire order line to arrive at the Total Hire Cost. The Duration is automatically calculated from the difference between the Start Date and the PO End Date, although you can manually amend the Duration (also with the option of changing it between Days and Weeks) and then the PO End Date will be updated. The Expected Return Date is initially set to match the PO End Date, but this can be altered independently, and does not impact the Duration of the hire order line. You can also check the box in this screen if you wish to exclude weekends from your hire cost, and can use the Maintain Suspension Dates button to record one or more Suspension Period date ranges that will not contribute to the hire cost.

The final fields to populate are the Job Header and Nominal account. If you have set a default job header for Plant Hire within Job Costing Settings, then this default will populate accordingly (also populating the nominal code if that has been set against the job header).

The Plant Hire Order line also has tabs for Memos, Attachments and History (where changes are recorded) that function in the same way as elsewhere in this module.

Once a hire order line has been saved, it can then be amended via choosing the Edit Hire button on the Plant Hire Order screen.

The ongoing processing of the plant hire order line is done via the buttons in the bottom section of the Hire Order Line screen (under the References header).

The buttons on the left of this section are activated at the appropriate stage of the order. So initially, you can only generate the purchase order for the hire order line by clicking the Generate PO button.

This will then display a confirmation message confirming the generated purchase order number which is then inserted into the Purchase Order field to the right of the Generate PO button, and can then be viewed using the View Purchase Order button. It will also change the status of the hire order line to ‘POPCreated’.

The generated purchase order will have two lines on it, either a service item or free text line (depending upon the selection when entering the hire order line, and a second free text line with a description of ‘Plant Hire’ and zero value. This line exists to keep the purchase order open, as this is needed for plant hire order processing, as if you were to fully invoice the lines on the purchase order before the hire order is completed, then this would cause problems.

If you are generating a PO for a second or subsequent line on the plant hire order, then it will be added to the existing purchase order.

Any updates to the quantity, unit value or duration will be reflected on the purchase order, as this will get updated as these changes occur.

The next step in processing the hire order is to click the Confirm Receipt button on the line, this will prompt you for a Receipt Number, a Receipt Date and an optional Fleet No (if you wish to record the serial number or similar for the hired plant). This will then record this information against the hire order line, and change the status of the hire order line to ‘Received’. The Confirm Receipt button will then appear as Amend Receipt for this line, to enable you to revise this information if incorrect.

The next step is to use the Off Hire button to reflect that the hire has come to an end. Clicking this button will prompt you for an Off Hire Reference and an Off Hire Date. The date entered as the Off Hire Date will also update the PO End Date field with the same date, and the status of the hire order line will now be changed to ‘OffHire’. You will be presented with a prompt asking if you would like to send an email out for this off hire. The sending of this email would require that you have setup your SMTP email settings on the Other tab within Job Costing Settings. If you choose to send the email, then the following email window will be displayed:

The email address for the supplier has been taken as the email address on the default contact on the supplier account record. You can add extra recipients manually as desired, and then edit any other text that you wish to. When you click the Send button, this email will be sent out directly, so it doesn’t appear in any Outlook folders, and no record is kept against the hire order.

The final step in processing the hire order item is to confirm that is has been collected by the supplier using the Confirm Collection button. Clicking this button will display a screen requesting you to enter a Collection Reference and a Collection Date. The collection date entered does not change the PO End Date, so does not impact on the length and costs of the hire. The status of the hire order line is now set to ‘Collected’, and the Confirm Collection button now appears as Amend Collection if you need to revise the Collection Reference or Collection Date.

This is the final step in processing the hire order item. Invoice matching against the purchase order would be done as normal in Purchase Order Processing.

15.4. Import Hire In Plant

The import plant option, allows you to import your plant from a .csv file.  This works the same as the other imports available within Job Costing

15.5. Multi Job

Hiring plant to be used for multiple jobs is done via Hired in Plant and Tools > Manage Plant Hire.

Click Add Multiple Job Hire, this will automatically post to the N/A Job, select supplier code and click the Add Hire button.

In this example we have added a Free Text Item for a Digger at a cost of £100 per day. The Start Date is 28/02/2020, end date 06/03/2020 which gives us a duration of 8 days.

8 days at £100 per day calculates to a Total Hire Cost of £800.

Amend the Job Header if required and Generate PO.

On generation of the PO you will be prompted to create a fleet record number for the item – this is required to allow you to utilise the digger over multiple jobs. If this is left blank, the fleet number will be auto generated using the PO number and the Plant Hire Line item number at the point of confirming.

Enter the Fleet No and click Confirm.

OK the confirmation that the plant has been added to your purchase order.

The History for this item will be updated each time something changes for it, click Save to continue.

On the Hire Detail tab there is now an extra button to View Plant Item, click this to display the plant record that has been generated. The Cost Rates tab will show the Hourly and Daily Rates that have been calculated using the unit value x number of days (the Hourly rate will use the Default Working Day Hours as configured on the Labour Tab in the Job Costing Settings).

Confirm Receipt of the equipment.

The Fleet Plant can be added to the Timesheet to record the number of hours and jobs that the equipment has been used on.

If you have several pieces of equipment that need to be utilised across multiple jobs, you can use the Import Plant Timesheets to update this.

From the Owned Plant menu, click on Import Plant Timesheets. There are 2 options, create an Example Import File or Export Previous Weeks.

When you select Previous Week you will get a screen to select the required week, the default is for the current and previous weeks to be displayed.

Click Confirm to generate the XLXS file.

Enter the Job Number, (Phase, Stage, Activity if using), Rate Number then the number of hours per day.

The Plant Item, Plant Type and Week Start Date are all prepopulated when the file is generated, also the Off Hire Plant Order, Plant Hire Collected and Spare Text 1 details. The Plant can be flagged as Off Hired and / or Collected in this spreadsheet.

Save as a CSV file.

Find the file, Check and it there are no errors the Import button will be active – if you have any errors these will be highlighted in Red and will need to be rectified before you can import.

The Costs will appear against the job on the Plant Tab:

On the Plant record – History Tab, you will see which Job(s) the equipment has been used on – number of hours, date etc.

16. Job Management

The first four screens in this section use the same diary style screen to display their output. At the top of these screens are the following icons:

The green arrows are used to step the dates forward or backward by the time selected as the displayed range. To the right of these are a go to today button, and then zoom in and zoom out buttons (which affect the rows displayed for time intervals when viewing single days or working weeks). The print button generates a printout of the current view.

Four views can be selected using the next icons, either Day View, Work Week View, Week View and Month View. Week and Month views do not display the time against the rows. The options to the right of these are Timeline View, which plots appointments in relation to time, and Gannt view, which is an alternative view with more days on it.

For the day and work week views, you can change the time scale between 60, 30, 15, 10, 6 and 5 minutes using the icon to the left of the wording of Time Scale Captions.

Auto Refresh can be enabled in these screens, and you can set the refresh interval in seconds.

A common feature about these screens is that when you are moving between dates in the main diary window, vertical bars displayed on the left and right of the displayed days will highlight in bold if either Previous or Next entries have been detected in the current view. This helps you to find the entries by scrolling to the left or right as appropriate.

16.1. All Jobs Schedule

This diary screen shows items that have been added to activities – Operations, Planned Purchases, Plant Hire Orders and Tasks. Different colours are used for the different item types – green for Operations, blue for Planned Purchases (light blue for order date, dark blue for due date), red for plant hire orders and orange for tasks.

On the left of the window is a Job Hierarchy window, which displays all jobs in your system. You can expand these job numbers if you want to filter the screen to only show items related to particular activities. You can also click the Include Estimates checkbox if you wish to also display estimates in this schedule screen.

You can drag and drop the items in this screen to change the dates on them. As a Planned Purchase appears as two items, moving one of them will automatically move the other one into the expected position (i.e. taking the lead time into account to reflect the time between them).

16.2. Employee Schedule

This diary screen displays appointments for employees that can be created on this screen. These appointments are only managed via this screen, and will show as committed labour costs on the job, moving to actual once they are flagged as having been completed. You can filter by employee via the box displayed on the left beneath the calendar, and can double click on the appropriate day to create the appointment.

These appointments will then appear on this diary screen:

Appointments that have been flagged as completed (via a checkbox when editing the appointment) will display a tick against them.

16.3. Team Schedule

This screen displays a diary view that will display operations that have been scheduled to teams.

Using the team filter box on the left hand side, you can select which teams you would like to display. Operations can be dragged and dropped on the diary to change their dates, or double clicked on if you would like to edit them.

16.4. Team Operation Schedule

This screen is a diary screen where you can filter by each operation on the selected team.

When you first open the screen, a drop down below the calendar display in the top left-hand corner enables you to select which team you want to review the operations for. Once you have done this, then all current operations will be displayed enabling you to filter the main diary window. Operations can be dragged and dropped on the diary to change their dates, or double clicked on if you would like to edit them.

16.5. Manage Job Tasks

This screen will display all tasks that have been created against your jobs. You can filter them by job number, the employee that they are assigned to, and the due date of the task. Tasks that are overdue will be highlighted in red, and tasks that are flagged as completed will not appear in this list.

You can amend the task either by highlighting it and clicking the Open Task button at the bottom, or just double clicking on it.

16.6. Manage Operation Materials

When creating an operation, you can also record that it will require stock items (see entering Operations in section of this guide). With this screen, you can display all operations for a job, and then allocate and issue the stock to these operations.

You select the job number at the top of the screen, and when prompted for the phase/stage/activity you can leave it empty if you want to see all operations on the job.

You can these use the buttons at the bottom of the screen to amend the stock on the operation lines, allocate it or issue it.

16.7. Manage Planned Purchases

Via this screen, you can review your planned purchases across all of your jobs. You can filter the list by job number, Due date and supplier account. If any of the order or due dates for these planned purchases are in the past, then this will be highlighted in red.

You can edit your planned purchases either by double clicking on them, or using the Open Planned Purchases button at the bottom of this window. If you want to add new planned purchases, or generate the purchase orders for them, then these are done via the Maintain Planned Purchases screen and the Create Purchase Orders screen within the Planned Purchases menu folder.

17. Period End Routines

17.1. On Cost Apportionment

This screen enables you to take an additional cost relevant to existing labour transactions in job costing, and then apportion that cost between the relevant jobs based on transactions with a selected job header in the date range entered. The outcome of this will be extra labour cost transactions on those jobs, posted with the current date. A common example would be as a method of adding the costs of NI contributions on salaries to the jobs where labour transactions have been recorded.

A message box is displayed when opening this screen to confirm that this feature only updates job costing and does not create any postings in Sage 200 outside of job costing.

Enter the date range containing the transactions that need to be included in the apportionment calculation. Then select the job header that will be used for the new job costing transactions that will be created. Enter a description of what this additional cost is – this description will then be written into the new job costing transactions that this screen will generate. Enter the total cost that you wish to apportion between the relevant jobs and then click the Apportion button. This will then display the relevant jobs containing labour transactions in the selected date range, and show the total cost in that date range and how it is then splitting the new cost value between them. So the On Cost Value will be equal to the new cost value you entered at the top of this screen apportioned between the jobs in a ratio equivalent to the ratio of the total cost values for those jobs.

Once you click the Post button at the bottom of the screen, then new cost transactions with the current date will be created in the jobs with the On Cost value, using the job header and descriptions entered.

17.2. Salary Apportionment

This function allows you to record a fixed salary for an employee, and then have this salary cost divided to update the hourly cost of his labour transactions in that relevant period. For this employee, you would likely use a specific pay rate, against which you could record their weekly/monthly salary total. Then you would use this screen to divide that amount by the number of hours that have been recorded against the selected timesheet rate, to use this calculated total as the hourly cost rates on these labour transactions.

So in the example above, this employee has a pay rate of £2000 set against the rate description of Monthly Salary. Then when I open this screen and populate it as above, it reads that he has logged 70 hours in the selected date range against the rate description of Normal. £2000/70 = 28.57143, so if we click the Update button, then all of those labour transactions will be updated with this figure as their hourly cost. The check box regarding hiding employees can be used to filter out employees who have not been setup with a non-zero value against the pay rate of Monthly Salary.

In the case of an employee being marked as a subcontractor, the fixed monthly cost to be divided is maintained on the Self Billing Rules tab against the employee.

17.3. Payroll Extract

This allows you to extract timesheets data that can then be imported into Sage Payroll. Some configuration is required to match the Job Costing employees with the records in Sage Payroll, but you do not need to configure the ODBC connection unless you wish to update information in Job Costing from Sage Payroll. Once the configuration is done, this menu option is then what you use on a weekly/monthly basis to send the timesheet information to Sage Payroll.

The steps to go through in order to configure this are:

• In Job Costing Settings within the Rate Descriptions tab, configure the Job Costing pay rates against the applicable Sage Payroll Pay element descriptions. You will need to enter the Sage 50 Pay Element Descriptions, and then the Payroll Rate No’s. If the Sage Payroll ODBC connection has been configured correctly (optional), you can use the Get rate numbers from payroll button to pull through the pay element numbers that match the pay element descriptions entered.
• Configure the employees in Maintain Employees, entering their payroll and employee reference numbers. You can update the employee cost/pay rates using the button on the Labour tab in Job Costing settings once the employees have the correct payroll numbers, if the Sage Payroll ODBC connection has been configured – but this is not required.
• Enter/import timesheets into job costing.
• Extract them into a csv file using this menu option.
• Import them into Sage Payroll. This is done within Payroll via File/Data Import/Import Sage Payroll Data/Employee Payments (Hours and Rates).

When using this menu option, a window will appear asking you to specify a Labour start date and a Labour end date to restrict which information you are extracting. You can use the Browse button to find a folder to save the csv file to, which you’ll need to make a note of so that you can find it again when importing into Sage Payroll.

17.4. Job Reconciliation

Job Costing maintains a link between Job transactions and nominal postings, for those clients who wish to be able to reconcile their job reports and their nominal transactions. This link is maintained via the id number of the Job transaction being stored within the narrative entry against a posted nominal transaction. This means that all nominal transactions posted through Sage 200 should have a matching job transaction – even if it’s posted to the N/A job.

This screen allows you to find Job Transactions or Nominal Transactions where this link does not exist.  Any transactions entered that are linked to items with nominal postings will not be displayed here, as they are already considered reconciled. So the only transactions that you would expect to see here from job costing are ones entered in job costing, such as miscellaneous transactions, or labour entries. If you have entries in the Nominal transaction window, then that suggests you are creating nominal postings in some way that is bypassing Job Costing, such as using the standard Sage nominal transaction import (which should not be used, you should be using the equivalent import within the Job Costing Imports menu). Alternatively, you may have a user entering nominal transactions who does not have Job Costing scripts enabled for their role.

You can use the filters at the top of the screen to filter by date range, source module, URN, Nominal Account Number, Nominal Cost Centre, Nominal Department, Job Number, Job Header and Value.

When you have identified the transactions to reconcile, tick them on both sides and click the Match button to reconcile them – creating the link between the two transactions. If you wish to remove transaction from this screen without reconciling them then the Reconcile Job Transaction and Reconcile Nominal Transaction buttons are designed for that purpose.

17.5. Cost at Completion Accrual

Having recorded the estimated cost at completion using the Maintain Cost at Completion option of Job Costing, you can use this feature to generate an Accrual Journal for the cost at completion.

The journal is generated based on the period the Cost at Completions were populated.  When opening the Cost at Completion Journal it will automatically show the period based on todays date, you can use the date picker to choose the period you require the journal to be ran for.  The Accrual date will be the last date of the period you are accruing for.

The Accrual nominals codes can be based on either a system default set in Job Costing Settings or based on the Job Headers.  The nominals set on the Job Header can either be set within Amend Job, which will allow you to set a nominal code per job or within Maintain Job Headers, which allows you to control the accrual nominal globally per Job Header.

Click on the Post Journal button generates a reversing Journal based on the figured shown in the Cost At Completion Accrual screen, it will also mark the accrued lines within the Cost At Completion screen as ‘Accrual Posted’.

17.6. Revenue at Completion Accrual

The Revenue at Completion Accrual works in an identical fashion to the Cost at Completion Accrual but provides you with a mechanism for deferring job revenue on a monthly basis.

18. Imports

There are numerous imports for Job Costing, all working from csv files. The functionality of the screens is very similar, so as an example here is an image from the Job Headers Import screen.

You first browse to your import file via the Find button. If you click the Example Import Template button, then two excel files will open (if you have Excel installed on the computer where you are carrying out the import). The first of these is an import file in the correct format, which can then be saved as a csv file in Excel once you have populated it. The second file that opens is a file with explanations of the columns in the file format.

The first row of the file will be included in the import, so if this does contain the column headings (as it would if generated via the Example Import Template button),  then you’ll want to ensure that you are ignoring the first row via that checkbox above the main section of the window.

The Check File button will validate the import file and display the lines read from the file in the main window. Lines with any errors are highlighted in red, with the error being highlighted in the first column of the main window. You can use the checkbox at the bottom of the window to only display rows with errors.

Once successfully validated without errors then click the Import button to perform the import.

Note that imports cannot be reversed, so you may want to consider taking a backup before doing any imports.

18.1. Import Jobs

This function is used to import jobs.

18.2. Import Job Headers

This function is used to import the job headers.

18.3. Import Employees

This function is used to import employee records.

18.4. Import Transactions

This function is used to import transactions into Job Costing that will not update any other modules in Sage 200. This could be used for importing opening balances into jobs, where you wouldn’t want anything to update existing Sales, Purchase, Nominal and Stock postings.

18.5. Import Timesheets

This function is used to import Timesheet (labour) transactions.

During the process, the program will attempt to link import file hourly labour rates to employee rates held within the Job Costing module.  This link is used to determine the rate ‘description’ associated with each transaction (e.g. Normal, Overtime, etc.).

This routine can be used to import labour transactions without needing to link them to an employee, such as a situation where numerous labour transactions for different employees are being consolidated together, or the relevant employee is not setup in the system. This can be done by specifying the employee as ‘MISC’ in the import file.

18.6. Import Budgets

This function is used to import budgets.

If the description against a budget is empty, then it will use the job header description.

You can import budgets at an activity level per job header.

18.7. Import Job Phase, Stage & Activities

This function is used to import these elements of a job structure onto existing jobs.

18.8. Import Operations

This function is used to import Operations against existing activities.

18.9. Import Nominal Transaction (with Jobs)

This function is used to import nominal journals that are linked to jobs. This feature works in a similar fashion to the standard journal import (found in Nominal Ledger/Utilities/Import/Import Ledger File/Nominal transactions), but with the added enhancement of linking the transactions into Job Costing. For the purposes of keeping your job costing and nominal ledger reconciled, you must use this import routine rather than the standard Sage one.

18.10. Import Default Nominals

This function is used to set default nominal accounts against job headers on your jobs.

18.11. Import Purchase Transactions (with Jobs)

This function is used to import Purchase Ledger transactions, in a similar fashion to the standard Import Transactions feature (found in Purchase Ledger/Utilities/Import), but with the added enhancement of linking the transactions into Job Costing. For the purposes of keeping your job costing and nominal ledger reconciled, you must use this import routine rather than the standard Sage one.

18.12. Import Sales Transactions (with Jobs)

This function is used to import Sales Ledger transactions, in a similar fashion to the standard Import Transactions feature (found in Sales Ledger/Utilities/Import), but with the added enhancement of linking the transactions into Job Costing. For the purposes of keeping your job costing and nominal ledger reconciled, you must use this import routine rather than the standard Sage one.

18.13. Import Stock Item Settings

This function is used to import the relevant job headers against stock codes. This will then be used when that stock code is used in Job Costing transactions. It can also manually be entered on an individual stock code in Amend Stock Item Details within the Job Costing tab.

19. Utilities Menu | Projects Settings

This menu provides access to various Projects utilities and configuration screens.

Projects Settings

This screen is used to maintain all Projects module configuration settings.

The Update Transactions button is visible at the bottom of the screen on all of these tabs, and is intended for systems where transactions exist before Projects Integration has been enabled.

When you click this button, you are prompted with the following options that can be selected:

Clicking the Run button will carry out the update for each selected transaction type. These processes could take some time, and are not reversible, so you may want to perform a backup first. You may also want to run these options with your Sage users out of the system.

Set all unassigned open purchase order lines to a default job: This option will update all open purchase order lines (that aren’t currently linked to a job) to link them to the default job and job header specified in the Defaults tab.

Set all unassigned open sales order lines to a default job: This option will update all open sales order lines (that aren’t currently linked to a job) to link them to the default job and job header specified in the Defaults tab.

Create default budgets: This will create a budget of zero, against all jobs and job headers that don’t already have a budget.

Reconcile past POP Invoices: If you wish to see separate transactions in the Enquiry screen for POP Invoices, then this option will create these transactions for all purchase order lines in your system.

Reconcile past SOP Invoices: If you wish to see separate transactions in the Enquiry screen for SOP Invoices, then this option will create these transactions for all sales order lines in your system.

Create Goods received/Despatched for POP & SOP transactions: If you wish to see separate transactions in the Enquiry screen for POP Receipts and SOP Despatches, then this option will create these transactions for all sales and purchase order lines in your system.

Migrate labour transactions to timesheets: If you are upgrading from a prior version of Job Costing before Timesheet entry was added.  This routine will convert the previously entered Labour Transactions into Timesheets.

19.1. Jobs Tab

Automatically generate next job number: when ticked job numbers will be automatically generated as sequential numbers when a new job is created. If not ticked, then users will be prompted for a manual job number when creating jobs.

Job number format:  format auto-generated job numbers as required e.g. J0000001, J0000002, etc.

Next Job Number: When using automatic job number generation, this is the next job number that will be used and can be amended here.

Turn on Job Costing integration: tick to enable Job Costing integration with Sage modules. If this is enabled for the first time in a Sage company, you will be prompted to run a routine to update existing purchase order transactions with the default job and job header specified on the Defaults tab.

Enable job phases & Stages: If enabled, then you can add these items via the Phases/Stages tab on the job.

Enable job Activities: You can enable this without also having job Phases and Stages enabled.

Job Maintenance default view: setting dictates the default view shown when the New/Amend job screen is first displayed. Defaulted to ‘Analysis’ but can be changed to ‘Customer’.

Job Selection Default Sort (column no): used to set a default sort column for the job selection drop-down list i.e. 1, 2, 3, etc. If left blank the list will be displayed in job number sequence.

Allow addition of jobs during job selection: if enabled, users will be able to create new jobs at the point of selecting existing Jobs within the Sage modules.

When selecting job always show list: setting to yes will force the system to display the job selection ‘drop-down’ list when a full job number is entered.

Resetting billed flags (When reopening Jobs): If you are using the generate billing transactions functionality, and then re-open a job, you have the option of resetting the billed flag against the transactions on that job that were entered after previously completing the job. The options selectable here are: – Never Reset, Always Reset and Notify Reset (meaning a message will be displayed confirming that All Transactions Billed after previously completing the job will now be reset to not billed).

Display option of showing completed jobs: if enabled, a tick box option will allow option to show completed jobs when users are selecting jobs for their transactions.

When using completed jobs: This setting gives a drop down containing three options to control what can happen with completed jobs. The choices are: – Allow posting and give option to open job, Allow posting and keep job completed or Do not allow posting.

Suppress completed job message: This checkbox is linked to the previous setting, and only becomes enabled if that is set to ‘Allow posting and keep job completed’. It can be used to prevent the message being displayed when posting transactions to completed jobs.

Check committed transactions before completing job: With this option enabled, you will not be able to close a job with committed revenue/costs outstanding against it.

19.2. Defaults Tab

Default Jobs and Job Headers can be set for the following transaction types if required. If no defaults are set, then the users will need to manually select a job and job header for each of these transactions.

PL/SL/Cash book/Nominal/Stock/COS/SOP/POP/Variances/Plant Hire.

19.3. POP Tab

These settings relate to the Job Costing functionality integration with Sage Purchase Order Processing.

Update POP actuals on: select either at Goods Received or Invoice to determine when values move from committed to actuals.

Use document date for POP transactions:  when ticked will cause all purchase order transactions to be recorded in the job costing module by purchase order document date (rather than by requested date). This will also remove the validation put in place to ensure that a requested date is entered.

Suppress warning if no job at POP goods received: when ticked, will suppress the message ‘Warning: One or more purchase order/return lines are not linked to a job’ which is displayed when confirming receipt for an order which was created without the job costing module installed.

Don’t allow goods received with zero cost:  when ticked, the system will not allow purchase order goods to be received at zero cost. The error message ‘This line has no cost value and therefore cannot be received. Please amend the order and enter a cost value for this line’ will be displayed.

Automatically issue after purchase goods received: when ticked, POP receipts will automatically be issued to the related job using a stock ‘internal issue’ transaction. POP items/lines associated with the default POP job will not be automatically issued. You cannot automatically issue if the PO is linked to the N/A job.

Default internal area for issues: select an internal area for automatic issues, done by the previous setting.

Automatically issue at purchase order/return cost:  when ticked, stock received against the Job will get instantly issued at PO cost price, rather than stock costing method.

Update POP Lines with Invoice price: When ticked, if a price is entered in the Record Purchase Invoice screen that differs from the purchase order line price, then the purchase order line price will be updated to match the price entered for the invoice. Note that if you are using Sicon WAP and its invoice variance checking, then it is not recommended to enable this setting.

Allow POP invoice with no GRN: when ticked, you can allow POP invoice matching without a receipt having been recorded. So you can stop this from happening by leaving this box unticked.

Set variance job analysis as: When a variance transaction is created because your POP invoice differs from the order, then you can choose from the following options as to which job and job header to code the variance to: – Line Above (i.e. match the POP line), Variance Default or POP Default.

Only allow one job per order: With this enabled, all lines on the purchase order will be linked to the job specified on the header of the purchase order.

19.4. SOP Tab

These settings relate to the Job Costing functionality integration with Sage Sales Order Processing.

Update SOP actuals on: select either at Despatch or Invoice as to when the system will move SOP transactions from committed to actual.

Automatically write cost of sales to job: when ticked will cause the system to automatically generate ‘cost of sale’ transactions for all stock items associated with the job via sales orders. These costs of sales transactions will be displayed in the ‘stock’ section of the Job Costing Enquiry screen (and reports). If unticked, COS transactions will not be included. Note: Job costing SOP cost of sales postings are created based on the SOP setting ‘Update stock quantities’ (see standard Sage SOP setting ‘Update stock quantities when: Order dispatch is confirmed or Invoice Posted’).

Automatically create job for sales orders: When ticked, a prompt will be displayed when saving a sales order asking if you want to create a job to link the sales order to.

Show quotes on job: if enabled, SOP Quotes will show in Revenue on Job Enquiry.

Only allow one job per order: With this enabled, all lines on the sales order will be linked to the job specified on the header of the sales order.

19.5. Stock Tab

These settings relate to the Job Costing functionality integration with Sage Stock Control.

Automatically write stock job number to:  Select either ‘Reference’ or ‘Second Reference’ and all stock internal issues will automatically write the selected job number to the selected field.

Default internal area on rapid issue screen: select a default Internal Area for the Job Costing Rapid Stock Issue screen.

19.6. Labour Tab

Labour costings can either be recorded using Timesheet Entry or via the Miscellaneous and Labour function.

Misc & Labour:

Show labour tab when miscellaneous/labour screen is opened: when ticked the Labour tab will be displayed by default when the Miscellaneous and Labour screen is selected from the menu.

Show and allow override of cost rate value on labour entry: when ticked, will allow the Cost Rate value to be amended when entering a labour transaction via the Miscellaneous and Labour screen. A Cost Rate entry field will appear alongside the ‘rate’ drop-down selection box.

Hide charge-out rate value on labour entry: when ticked no charge-out rate value will be displayed when entering labour transactions.

Default Working Days Hours: Allows you to specify a default number of working hours per day (used when billing labour transactions in days)

Work Day Start Time: Enter a default start time, that is then used on Operations when applying work patterns to their start and end times.

Show job analysis codes 1 and 2 on miscellaneous/labour entry: when ticked no charge-out rate value will be displayed when entering labour transactions.

Always show previous transactions for Job on Miscellaneous/Labour screen: when ticked, the ‘Include all previous entries for the selected job’ tick-box on the Miscellaneous and Labour screen will be checked by default to display all previously entered miscellaneous or labour transactions against the Job.

Description is mandatory when entering labour: when ticked, the labour description field must be populated when entering labour transactions via the Miscellaneous and Labour screen.

Apply mark-up percentage to calculate charge out rate: when ticked the system will use Job Header mark-up percentages instead of employee/resource charge-out rates when calculating charge-out values for labour or resource transactions.

Rapid Timesheets:

Obtain job header from cost rate: When ticked the Job Header on a timesheet entry will default automatically when a cost rate is selected. The default Job Header can be set on the Rate Descriptions Tab within Job Costing Settings

Rapid timesheet entry start day: select required timesheet entry start day e.g. Monday

Default Labour WIP nominal A/C: select the default nominal for Labour WIP nominal postings (used in the Post Timesheets Journal screen).

Sage 50 payroll ODBC connection Password: The ODBC connection to Sage Payroll is only needed if you wish to extract the Payroll Rate numbers from Sage Payroll (see the Rate Descriptions tab), or if you want to update the employees in Job Costing with their Pay rates from Sage Payroll. It is NOT needed if you only want to export timesheet entries from Job Costing for importing into Sage Payroll.

ODBC Data Source: It’s possible to configure multiple ODBC connections to Payroll if you need to connect different Sage 200 databases to different Sage Payroll companies. This field allows you to specify which Data Source you are using from within this Sage 200 company. As mentioned above, the ODBC connection to Sage Payroll is only needed if you wish to extract the Payroll Rate numbers from Payroll (see the Rate Descriptions tab), or if you want to update the employees in Job Costing with their Pay rates from Sage Payroll. It is NOT needed if you only want to export timesheet entries from Job Costing for importing into Sage Payroll.

Update Employee Pay Rates/Elements: When you click this button, assuming you have configured the ODBC connection to Sage Payroll, then pay rates from Sage Payroll will copy over into pay rates tab of each employee (see Maintain Employees). Note that this could be a lengthy process if you have a lot of employees

19.7. Hired in Plant Tab

Exclude weekends as default: check this box if you don’t expect to pay hire charges over weekends on your plant hire orders.

Show end date on purchase order line: this check box, if selected add the PO End Date to the Plant Hire Purchase Order line description.

Exclude weekends as default: check this box if you don’t expect to pay hire charges over weekends on your plant hire orders.

19.8. Budgets Tab

Automatically generate budget records: Budgets are set against the Job Headers. If this is ticked, then transactions entered in Job Costing will automatically create a budget entry against each header if one does not exist already.

Enable hours columns on budgets & cost to complete: can be de-selected if you don’t use budgets at an hour level, or want to have this level available in the Cost to Complete screen.

19.9. Estimating Tab

Automatically generate next Estimate number: when ticked job numbers will be automatically generated as sequential numbers when a new job is created. If not ticked, then users will be prompted for a manual job number when creating jobs.

Estimate number format: format auto-generated job numbers as required e.g. EST0000001, EST0000002, etc.

Next Estimate Number: When using automatic job number generation, this is the next job number that will be used and can be amended here.

Default Revenue job header (For Budgets): Which job header the quoted price on the estimate should use when creating the revenue budget.

19.10. Enquiry Tab

Exclude purchase stock item transactions: when ticked will exclude all purchase order ‘stock item’ lines from the Job Costing Enquiry screen. This setting has been included as some installations may prefer to manually receive purchased stock items (via stock movements). In this case the related purchase order transaction must be excluded from the enquiry to avoid the value being included twice.

Quantity number format: setting used to change the number of decimal places displayed for all Quantity fields on the Job Costing Enquiry screen.

Value number format: setting used to change the number of decimal places displayed for all Value fields on the Job Costing Enquiry screen.

Enable hide cost option on stock lists: Enabling this setting will give an additional right click option in the enquiry screen when in the stock box on the Summary tab, or the list displayed beneath the Stock Issues/Receipts tab. This option will display stock costs as zero for any transactions that you right click on and choose the ‘hide cost’ option. To display the cost again, right click on the transaction and choose ‘show cost’. Note that this doesn’t have any effect on figures displayed on reports, it’s only relevant to the enquiry screen.

Display Despatch/Received and invoices for SOP & POP: With this setting enabled, then for each sales or purchase order line, you will have separate transactions created to reflect when the line has been despatched/received and then invoiced. If you create a sales order line in January, and then receive it in February, you would have a new SOP Despatch transaction created with the despatch date, and the original Sales Order transaction would be reduced by the values moving onto the SOP Despatch transaction. When the line is invoiced, then a new SOP Invoice transaction would be created with the invoice date, and the SOP Despatch transaction values would be reduced by the values moving onto the SOP Invoice transaction. This works the same for POP transactions, and gives you full details with separate transactions with the correct dates for each transaction. Without it, you only have a single SOP or POP transaction for the line, dated according to the Promised/Requested Delivery Date, with the value showing as either committed or actual. Note that enabling this setting will likely give you a lot of transactions if you have either lots of orders, or large orders.

Include construction transactions in enquiry: This setting is only applicable if you are also using the Sicon Construction module. It will add applications, retentions, construction orders and subcontract purchase orders to the Enquiry screen.

Show Job Header Type Tab: With this setting enabled, you can see the Job Header Type tab in the Enquiry screen, which breaks down committed and actual costs, and committed and actual revenue by job header type.

Show Planned Purchases Tab: You can deselect this box if the Planned Purchases tab is not relevant for your usage of the Enquiry screen.

Show Hired In Plant Tab: You can deselect this box if the Hired In Plant tab is not relevant for your usage of the Enquiry screen.

Labour display mode: This option allows you to set the display for Labour Transactions within the Job Enquiry screens.  This can either be set as the Employee Name or Employee number.

19.11. Rate Descriptions Tab

The Rate Descriptions entered here will apply to Cost, Charge and Pay Rates.

The Rate Type is a drop-down field where you can select either Hours, Salary, Allowance or Holiday. Currently, this is only important if you are using timesheets in WAP, although rates identified as salary will be excluded on the Payroll Extract routine.

If extracting labour data from Job Costing to import into Sage Payroll, the Sage 50 Pay Element Descriptions should be entered against each rate. You also need to add the payroll rate numbers into that column. If you have configured the ODBC connection, then you can click the Get rate numbers from payroll button, which will then attempt to match the text entered against the Sage 50 Pay Element Description and return the Payroll Rate number.

The Default Job Header for each Rate will only be available if the ‘Obtain job header from job rate’ is ticked on the Job Costing Settings Labour tab. When hours are linked to that particular rate, the default Job Header will be linked to that labour entry.

19.12. Definitions Tab

On this tab you can specify overrides for the items in the above screenshot, if you would like them to be displayed with a different label. Here is where you can rename the five analysis codes that are stored against the employees.

19.13. Accrued and Deferred Nominals (Other Tab)

Cost At Completion Mode: You can choose whether you wish to work either in weeks or in accounting periods in the Cost At Completion screen and Project Summary tab in the Job Costing enquiry screen.

Turn on paging for job lookup: If you enable this option then when in a screen where you can select a job number, page up and down buttons are added to the list of job numbers.

Don’t allow users to change default nominal on invoice: With this checked, users can’t change the nominal codes that are populated against supplier invoices.

Default internal area for Operations: When allocating and issuing stock to operations, this is the Stock Control internal area that will be used.

Default Accrual Nominal A/C: The default Nominal Account used by the Cost and Revenue at Completion Accrual Journals.

Default Deferred Accrual Nominal A/C: The default Nominal Account used by the Cost and Revenue at Completion Accrual Journals

Enter spare text fields on Invoice/Credit transactions: Selection this option, will prompt the spare text fields on Invoice/Credit entry.

SMTP Settings: These settings are used for the email server settings, so that when using the Hired In Plant orders, you can send the email for when the Off Hire notification needs to be sent. You can test these settings by entering an email address in the Test Email To field and click the Go button, and this will then send a test message to that email address.

20. Utilities Menu | Enable Module

This screen is used to enter module enable string to allow use of the system for Job Costing, and any other Sicon modules that you have installed. These are not Sage company specific, so you only need to enter these into one of your Sage companies if you have multiple ones.

When a new module enable string is provided enter (paste) into the Job Costing Enable String field, then click Apply to apply the string.

21. Utilities Menu | Auto Reconcile Previous Transactions

This is a feature that attempts to automatically link job costing transactions with their corresponding nominal ledger transactions. When this is run, and you have answered yes to the prompt enquiring if you would like to automatically reconcile all job costing transactions, it will display a screen showing you which transactions it has managed to link. The outcome for linked nominal transactions, is that the id number of the job costing transaction is added to the end of the narrative field. It is important that this is not edited later and someone removes this id number, as this is used to connect the two.

Note: this screen has now been superseded by the Job Reconciliation screen, and the Reconciliation screen remains in the product for existing customers of Job Costing who would like to use this screen to automatically reconcile previously entered transactions. For sites new to Job Costing, there should be no reason to use this screen as the Job Reconciliation screen should be used instead.

See the Job Reconciliation screen earlier in this guide for further information.

22. Utilities Menu | Transaction Editor

This screen allows you to search for posted Job Costing transactions that you wish to make a correction to either the Job number or Job Header. You can filter the displayed transactions by job number, job header, transaction type and transaction date. Once you have found the right transaction, click the Edit button and you then open a window where you can edit the job or job header.

23. Utilities Menu | Miscellaneous and Labour

It is possible to enter miscellaneous job costing transactions when job ‘opening balances’ or ‘adjustment’ (correction) transactions are required.

The user may select if the miscellaneous transaction relates to purchase, sales or stock using the drop-down selection.  This selection will indicate which list the transaction will appear in on the Job Costing Enquiry screen.

Labour Transactions may be entered by job and employee with cost and charge-out rates automatically calculated from employee, job header and job settings. Alternatively, transactions can be entered for Plant Resources, as defined in the Maintain Plant screen.

Following entry of each transaction the Save button should be used to apply it to the job.

The Reset button may be used to reset ‘total hours’ and ‘total cost’ values when entering labour transactions for multiple employees at one time.  Following entry of each employee’s timesheets, the totals may be checked and then cleared using this button to allow totals for a second employee to be accumulated.

The Include all previous entries for the selected job check-box may be checked to display previously entered miscellaneous or labour transactions which may then be edited if required.

24. Utilities Menu | Rebalance Job Total

This utility is required if upgrading from a prior version of the Job Costing module, and should be ran after upgrade, if using the Advanced Job Costing List view, or the CVR module that is available in the Construction Module.

You can run this routine for all Jobs or a Single Job, and will take all the Job transactions and store the Job Totals within a separate Table within the Sage database.  The Utility can take a few minutes to run depending on the number of Jobs that are currently within the system.

25. Migration Tools | Migrating from Project Accounting

This is a feature used when migrating project accounting data into job costing. Currently it will re-link existing purchase order and sales order lines that are linked to projects. So you would need to import all of the job details and other transactions using the import routines documented previously.

Once the jobs exist in Job Costing, this routine will then scan through all purchase/sales order lines linked to projects, and re-link them to the same job. If the job doesn’t exist, then it will create it, but only with the bare minimum of information. Once the purchase/sales order line has been re-linked, it will delete the original project accounting transaction. This is required if you want to be able to disable Project Accounting once it has been migrated, as you would be unable to do this if there were still purchase/sales order lines linked to projects.

To run this routine, click the Start button. A progress bar is displayed while it is processing, and a message is displayed when it is complete.

26. Release Notes

The release notes page shows which release of the system includes new features or issues resolved.

At the release of Sicon v21 we announced that going forward, we will only be supporting Sage 200c and as such we are able to drop the year from our version numbers. We moved from 201.201.0.0 to 210.0.0.

New features detailed in the Release Notes relating to Pre-Release versions will not be detailed in the current Help and User Guide until the end of development phase.

27. New Features & Important Information

27.1. Sicon v21.1

27.2. Sicon v21

27.3. Sicon v20.1

27.4. Sicon v20

27.5. Sicon v19.2

27.6. Sicon v19.1

27.7. Sicon v19

27.8. Sicon v18