Project Management Module
By then nothing can be done about it. The hours are booked, the materials are consumed, the client has been invoiced whatever the contract allowed.
Why It Matters
A work breakdown structure splits the project into phases, then tasks, then cost elements: labour, materials, subcontract, expenses, plant. Each gets a budget. The temptation is to break it down finely, on the theory that more detail is more control. It is the opposite.
Everything else on this page rests on the timesheet. Hours booked against a project and a task, flagged billable or non-billable, approved by a manager before they are costed. The single largest accuracy gain comes from when the entry is made.
Work breakdown created, budgets set per task and cost element, contract value and billing model recorded against the project.
Timesheets approved weekly, materials issued, subcontractor invoices and expenses coded, all landing on the project code.
Actual and committed cost against budget, then a fresh estimate to complete, giving an estimate at completion that people act on.
Milestone certificates, approved time and expenses, or a retainer draw, with unbilled value reviewed before every invoice run.
Final costs accrued, WIP cleared, and an estimate against actual review that makes the next quotation a better one.
A project template with your standard phases, tasks and cost elements, so every new job starts from the same structure and reports compare properly.
Entry screens per role, billable flags, an approval route that fits your managers, and cost and billing rate cards per grade and per client.
Milestone schedules, time and materials rules, caps, retainer draws and cost plus fees, each wired through to the invoice and the receivable.
Percentage of completion set up with the accounts for accrued revenue, work in progress and deferred revenue, agreed with your accountant first.
A variation raised, priced, approved and then applied to budget and contract value, with pending scope visible while it waits.
Margin by project, by client and by project manager, plus a resource view that shows commitment and utilisation without flattering either.
The contracts you sign decide how the module is configured.
We will push back on a breakdown that nobody will maintain. A structure people code to honestly is worth more than one that looks thorough in a workshop.
Percentage of completion, accrued revenue and WIP accounts are settled with your accountant before configuration, not discovered at the first audit.
We set time capture up once so it costs the project and feeds payroll. Duplicate entry is how people stop entering time at all.
We build the monthly estimate to complete into the calendar and train managers on it, because the forecast is the only number they can still act on.
We configure this on ERPNext, Odoo and SAP.
A task tool tells you what is done. This tells you what it cost and what it earned. The module runs on the same ledger as the rest of the business, so a timesheet line becomes a cost posting, a milestone becomes an invoice and a receivable, and project margin is a number you can trace back to source documents rather than a spreadsheet somebody maintains. Plenty of firms keep both: the task board for day to day coordination, the ERP for the money. That is a sensible split and we will not argue you out of it.
People book hours against a project and a task, flagged billable or non-billable, and a manager approves the week before anything is costed. The approved line carries a cost rate to the project and a billing rate to the invoice. The same timesheet can feed attendance and overtime into payroll, so the hours are captured once and used twice. That is the configuration we recommend, because parallel time systems always diverge and the version people trust ends up being neither.
Fixed price with a milestone schedule, time and materials, capped time and materials, retainer, and cost plus a fee. Each behaves differently. Fixed price puts the estimating risk on you and the cash profile depends entirely on how the milestones are drafted. Time and materials moves the risk to the client but invites scope drift. A cap gives the client comfort and gives you the downside of both. Pick the model for how well the scope is understood, not because it is what you always quote.
The usual basis is percentage of completion measured by cost incurred against total expected cost. If you have spent 40 percent of the expected cost, you recognise 40 percent of the contract value. Where recognised revenue is ahead of what you have invoiced, the difference sits as accrued revenue or work in progress. Where invoicing is ahead, it sits as deferred revenue. Both post to the general ledger. This is also why a profitable project can still be a cash problem: the margin is real and the money has not arrived.
Yes, and that is the whole point of the module. Committed cost from purchase orders, actual cost from approved timesheets and supplier invoices, and billed and unbilled revenue all sit against the project code, so margin to date is available at any time. The forecast matters more than the actual though. Estimate to complete plus cost to date gives estimate at completion, and that is the only number that lets you intervene while intervening is still possible.
A variation is raised as a priced change order against the project, approved by the client, and only then does it adjust the budget, the schedule and the value to be billed. Until it is approved it shows as pending scope, so it is visible rather than quietly absorbed. Unbilled scope is the most common way a project margin disappears, and it rarely disappears in one big lump. It goes in small favours that nobody wrote down.
Related
The other services in this section, and related pages from TCB Infotech.
An honest position first: this module will not manage your projects for you. It makes them measurable.
