Setting up projects (jobs) for the business, not a customer

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mrsKLB
mrsKLB Member Posts: 15 ✭
edited January 2020 in Accounts Hosted
We develop software (digital, no stock inventory) that we sell through our own store and through sales agents, what would be the best practice for setting up the product / project to track expenses and sales.

Previously I used CLASSES as a way to track all the way through from start, to finish and to track across our distribution agent channels, would this still be the best way to track a product?

eg:  Product:  Widget
Expense:  Widget part 1, 2, & 3 (digital, no physical)
Income:  Store 1, Distributor commissions 1, 2, 3

Reckon Accounts Hosted / New user
(previously a very old Quickbooks)

Note:  Our distribution outlets are paid on sales commissions and are currently setup as 'customers', in multiple currencies (EUR, USD, AUD) - there is no stock inventory.

It feels odd to use "Customers" as a 'go to' for both a 'Product Project' AND 'Distributor'.

Cheers, in advance.

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  • gazza73
    gazza73 Accredited Partner Posts: 803 Accredited Partner Accredited Partner
    edited February 2017
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    mrsKLB

    I'm in that exact situation as a software development company.   I use 'customer' whether it be internal R&D or branch or division, and whether it be a commercial sale or the tracking of R&D overhead to expense an exercise for Management KPI reasons.  That 'customer' can be your own company.  The 'job' too can represent a project.   Costs can then be tagged to that customer:job.

    I've always been keen on customer.job rather than class.  I use class more as a category to group together those customer:job categories that are common.  In your case,  that might be the geographic area for instance.  You must remember though that classes are a one-shot.  (IE:  no sub-classes or sub-groupings.....)

    You can log time through timesheets to that customer:job too,  which I find very useful for situations where a project needs to be forward funded by partners or costed in terms of time, for research grants and that sort of thing.

    As an example,  we've just concluded a $100m plus project that needed to track costs for a project over 30 months, and dissect the exercise into all manner of 'item' cost items, and by P&L classifications to split out hardware, software, travel, accommodation, licenses, maintenance.... you name it, and tag it to different aspects of multiple contractual phases (jobs), and split over multiple geographical locations (classes).

    The beauty of Reckon Accounts is that such splits are extremely powerful, and so too, is the ability to setup lots of specialised memorised reports to prepare regular management reports.

    Hope that gives you some guidance to push forward!

    Cheers

    Gary Pope  (no relation - promise!)
    An Accredited Partner- Consultant  (VIC. Aust)
    http://www.alchester.com.au/reckon-accounts-clarified/
    "Working with Accountants/Bookkeepers PPs/APs, as an
          independent IT Professional     and retired FCPA Accountant"



  • accountsgrs
    accountsgrs Member Posts: 17 ✭
    edited January 2020
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    Hi Gary
    We are a service business that provides tenders to clients for maintenance work, and we need to be able to track all our payroll expenses by job number.  Currently the payroll screen has a field called Customer:Job and this is where I have been entering the job number (project number) for the hours done when processing the payroll.  However, when I run a report for everything to do with that customer:Job,  the payroll costs are not coming into it.  Can you please explain how to fix this?
    I can run a report of payroll costs separately by the Job No, but it is only picking up the net, not the super, not the payg and not the LSL.  Ideally we want to run a report by Customer:Job that we can then filter down to showing us just one job, and everything that has happened with it, the bills, the invoices, the payroll costs.  All on one report.
    Thank you
    Deb
  • John G
    John G Reckon Staff Posts: 1,570 Reckon Staff
    edited January 2020
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    Hello Deb,

    To have your pay items appear on a Customer:Job report you will need to use TimeSheets.  The payroll can be assigned to the Customer:Job and when imported into  your accounts will populate to both the Payroll Module and to an Invoice for the Customer:Job.  If the Customer is not invoiced the item will not appear on a Customer:Job report.  

    Entering a Customer:Job on the payrun is just a tag that flows to a limited number of reports.  On a Payroll Item Detail Report you can include a Name column which will then list the Customer:Job you entered on the payrun (Employee appears in the Source Name column). 

    regards,
    John
  • accountsgrs
    accountsgrs Member Posts: 17 ✭
    edited July 2017
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    That is good news, thank you John. Do you know if there is any way to deal with the following:

    Employee has hours in 2 different job numbers (customer:job), and we need to know how much LSL and Super is attributable to each of those job numbers.

    At present Reckon will only show the Long service leave and super portions for the whole of the pay run amount for that employee, and doesn't break it up between job numbers.  This means we have to run an excel sheet to calculate these for the job, which means a lot of double entering!!

    How are others coping with this?

    Cheers,

    Deb

  • John G
    John G Reckon Staff Posts: 1,570 Reckon Staff
    edited July 2017
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    Hello Deb,

    Only Ordinary Time Earnings items can be assigned to a Customer:Job and Class.  Even where the whole paycheque is assigned to a Class, only the Ordinary time Earnings will be assigned to the Class.  

    To get an allocation of other payroll items to Jobs and Classes you'll need to do what you are doing.


    regards,
    John
  • accountsgrs
    accountsgrs Member Posts: 17 ✭
    edited January 2020
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    Thanks John, it is good to know that for sure.  Next question I have, and I am really thankful for your help, is this:  Is there any way to stop the system from changing my hour entries? Eg. I enter 7.60 hours and it changes it to 7:36 hours.  This is frustrating when trying to read the reports afterwards!

    Hoping there is a preference for this somewhere....

    Thanks again

    Deb

  • John G
    John G Reckon Staff Posts: 1,570 Reckon Staff
    edited July 2017
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    Hi Deb,

    You can change the display from hours/minutes to decimals on Edit > Preferences > General > Company Preferences and in teh time Format section.

    Hope this does the trick.


    regards,
    John.
  • accountsgrs
    accountsgrs Member Posts: 17 ✭
    edited January 2020
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    Hello again John,

    Thanks for reminding me about the preferences with time.  D-uh!  I knew that one, and had quite forgotten it!  I am now hoping you can help me again with a concerning issue, and that is, how to know that the PAYG Withholding is telling the right story when we just punch in 1st June to 30th June and hope it is including all of the week-ended dates so that we are only getting the pays that occurred in June. Is there a way to print a report that actually shows the Week Ended Pay Dates, and their figures?

    Kind regards

    Deb 

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