Discover the Progress Billing Template for Life Sciences that Simplifies Your Workflows

Progress billing template for Life Sciences

okay excellent good morning and once again and welcome to all of you for taking the time to join our monthly webinar where today we're looking at the projects module uh in particular we're going to be looking at the progress billing and weekly timesheets so we the presentation will take approximately 40 or so minutes or less depending on how uh we go and uh how many questions uh will be posed feel free to you to make use of the chat option to post your questions comments and we will take time to to review them at the end of the session and also again let's remember the house rules that uh when we cook when we when we connect to the meeting or for some reason if you found you find yourself unmuted just keep your um your line muted and then um we have fewer interruptions okay so without much uh without saying much let's go and have a look at this project's projects uh mojo and what we have to show you uh today okay so this is our agenda we're gonna do an introduction and then we'll look at what's new in projects and then we'll dive deep into project progress billing and weekly timesheet and then at the end we'll have a demo where we will demonstrate some of the functionalities that are available so what's new in progress billing as you know the projects module has been around for for a while and it is basically replacing the uh the pjc as we know it and this is an in-house module that means it's part of the core x3 modules it's not an isv product so it's one of the modules that we actually developing and we're quite excited with the new features that keep that have been added onto the product so the features that i'm showing you today were actually uh released with vengeance off page 25 or as we've now put it uh version 12 release 1 of 2021 that's where the features are the progress building that we're going to be talking about so you need to be on vergent cough uh of 2021 release one for you to enjoy some of these features so again some of these features they are still evolving so new functionality is going to be added on with the new releases uh they are already talking of real history where some new functionality on the project's modules are going to be added and some of the new functionalities will include the ability to also handle timesheets uh timesheets on uh on on resources that are not actually at work currently we are only managing timesheets for people who are working on a project so let's look at what's new so we now have the ability to to build a project ing to its progress i think uh on the previous versions that we were able to do uh invoices based on uh a milestone so now we're actually able to build a project as it progresses and this ability to build can be done using either a percentage uh the project manager or it can be the project manager can actually estimate to say okay this is where we are uh based on uh the progress of the project and have the ability to build at that point in time and also you can also uh build based on the quantity trade uh on the project as well so we now have quite a number of um avenues to actually build a project and also the project billing can also track or can be invoked on budgets projects task level uh to determine the amount to build customers so as we go into the demo i will be showing you some of the uh various ways of actually invoking the project the progress billing so we do have quite a number of avenues now available for billing to happen to a customer and then some of the new features that we have we have got an additional parameter which is um that s-t-i-l-i-n-i-t parameter which basically uh the pro progress status percentage so we have quite a number of exciting things that are happening in this module and i will be sharing some of them with you and then let's look at the time sheet the time sheet something that also is coming up with the weekly timesheet where we are able to view an employee stamp sheet on a weekly basis and based on hours the number of hours and then on the timesheet uh you can also plan uh the work ahead in terms of the tasks that have to be done that are in align uh alignment with the with the project and also you can track the employee's time and also be able to manage and to approve whatever would they have been captured by uh by by the user so there is an approval workflow that is uh that can be invoked as soon as an employee is updated and saved their timesheet it can actually be automated to go to a project manager or to the manager to review the time that has been booked by the by the employee on the project with a view of either approving it or disapproving or rejecting it and then at the end of it all that uh that time she uh can actually be generated uh and uh in automatic journal created and posted to the gl so those are quite um interesting things that we will cover uh in today's presentation so the time sheet is also something that is very very interesting indeed and like i mentioned we will also be in the future releases be able to track the time that is outside the project for example if a resource that is working on the project is on leave we should be able to account for that uh on the time sheet as well but currently that is not yet supported but uh let's um watch this space as they say on release 3 that is coming in the latter part of the year we may actually have that capability okay so without wasting much time um there's a lot to uh to show you so we'll jump in and start working on the on the demo so let's just um just bear with me i'll just end this slide presentation and then get on to the demo okay right every everything standard right so for today's um demo i'm not going to take much of your time to walk you through what is um projects and all the various fields that are available i'm just going to be focusing on project uh on project uh progress billing and timesheet so i'm not gonna go and go and explain some of the various fields that are available i'm just going to focus on the new features that are available uh to us so without much or without talking too much let's just go and create a simple project okay and then we're going to create this project in site 08012 and then we're going to give it a description and then let's just call it okay progress billing demo and then we'll just create it right whilst i'm on this screen i just want to highlight uh some of the new fields or that they've been added to project management so as you can see uh this red icon here this was introduced with um release 4 of 2020 where we are able to actually do uh billing but now the this facility has actually been expanded expanded with uh with 2021 uh release one and we will be using a lot of it so you will see in a moment uh when we actually start doing the uh the linking of the project to the sales order okay so let's uh jump in and um see what we can what what we have to offer so we have created our project and i think at this stage the best thing for me to do will be to activate my project and launch it so i just want to back uh backdated a bit to say start at the beginning of april and then launch my project so that i'll be able to generate uh and associate my project in sales orders and also to generate some invoices so i need to make sure that my project is actually launched okay so that is done we've launched our the status is now launched and then we go into cost structure with cost structure you can see there is our project with cost structure now we are able to associate budgets um with the budgets with with this project so we depending on how many tasks or how many um steps are in your project you can actually create a budget based on uh on those tasks so i'm going to create this project is just going to be a simple project we're just going to be doing some fabric fabrication so it's going to have um two stages that we are going to to add but uh to add so we're going to be welding and then there is going to be uh painting as well so those are the two simple um projects or tasks that we're going to to generate or stages in our project that we're going to create so let's quickly guarantee it and then so the first stage will be welding okay and once you create it you can go and link it to uh add some budget lines to that project so let's do let's do that on that let's put a cost type so we're just going to be tracking labor so for our for for our project we're just going to put um the track the time for the engineer who's going to be uh doing the uh the welding and so forth so we're just going to to put the time uh uh that we are going to manage the time for uh the engineer who is going to be doing the uh the the the welding okay and then we're going to track it uh in in hours and then our quantity okay how much time is he going to spend on this total the total quantity for this project so let's just put 50 for now okay and then we save so as you can see we have created the first line and then the results basically is um is our engineer and then that's our budget code and at the moment the status is uh open so we can go in and add another cost structure as well we said we're going to add two so the second one that we're going to add is uh painting sorry if you can mute your line uh your end please so the next second stage will be painting and again we go and add the budget line and then we're going to use the same resource for the purpose of this presentation we can actually use different resources but i'm just going to keep it nice and simple and say we're going to use the same resource and then the time that uh we're going to that that is going to be in hours that is going to take this engineer to to work on this project is going to be 40 hours and then that is the unit price of the engineer based on our settings uh that's where it is coming from okay so we have created construct a cost structure with two steps one for welding and one for painting and at the moment we have our project and we've got our budgets defined and we also have the budget amounts and as you can see under the estimate estimated progress there is nothing the project has not started and every everything is zero and then there are budgeted amount we can see the how is it coming from it's based on the unit price of the resource and multiplied by the time that um that we have allocated there and then the new fields that are available as you can see is the progress peeling uh the progress peeling and this is something that is now new that we were talking about that we want to show you okay and then we can also scroll around just to show you the scheduled invoices the person who's responsible and so forth some of these fields those fields will start will be populated as we progress with this so at this point in time we can go and add um some tasks okay you can go into task task planning at the moment as you can see there is no activity that has been planned so we need to add some activities to to this to this project so let's get let's do that okay so let's uh we are tracking labor so that's basically what we are tracking again so we are tracking labor for welding and then let's look at the start date when is it actually going to start the welding and then let's say it's going to start from the first and then when does it end okay we can also put an end date okay let's just keep it open i ended and say uh let's give it a month to say that's when the whole process is going to uh the welding stage is going to take okay and then we can add some resources down here to say this is what is going to happen so just okay so we're going to add the welding operator that's the resource and then it's going to start today and then it's going to end the okay and then from we can just change the duration and say okay the duration in this case instead of taking all that it's just going to take in hours 20 hours okay and then we save that still on welding we can also add an additional resource or so you are not limited to any one activity but for this presentation we are going to add just one activity for welding but obviously in um in real life situations there could be under one task there could be a number of activities that us that you put in there but because of uh time constraints we're not going to to look at all the all the activities that so we're just going to keep it nice and simple and do one one time one activity under welding okay and then we can go on and create another activity as well remember our project has got two and then this time around it's about painting again we can put our start time we can say painting will start on today's date and then it will end on that date okay and then obviously we need to associate the the task with the budget code that we created so we go and select our budget code for for painting and i'll i'll i'll just go back and associate the budget also with the welding and then we come down to to the resource again remember we are tracking labor so again let's pick up the paint operator okay and then that's the end and then duration let's say it's just gonna take uh 10 hours okay right let's just go back to our welding task and then associate it with the budget that we created earlier on okay so otherwise uh you'll not be able to track the budget okay so we now have our tasks planned the two tasks are basically welding uh and painting and we have defined we've defined um the duration that the those two tasks are going to take and basically we are tracking labor okay so we are tracking labor and that's basically what we have done so now we can go and change again the status as you can see at this at the moment the main project is launched but these tasks have not yet been launched so we need to just go in there and change the status okay and then launch it launch it and then let's just change the dates as well let's just launch it there right so welding is launched we can go to the next task and then change the status since it's starting today we will launch it again as so as you can see we now have our projects created and it has been launched we have created our budgets for the two um two tasks uh that we are going to perform which are basically welding and painting and we have set everything up and we are ready for for the project to actually go into into billing so once we create this we are now able to to show some of the features um that that that that we can actually uh perform with project billing so again just to touch on some of the fields that are available we've got the due dates i didn't put due dates there you can actually add due dates the duration as you can see the estimated time at the moment is still sitting at at zero and then there are no invoices that have been done there are no scheduled invoices and then the budget obviously it's showing that we we've linked it uh with a bro with a budget okay so let's go back and then just recap what we have we have done under the cost structure there's uh our cost structure with our about two budgets that we have defined for the two stages of the project which is the two stages that are welding and painting and we have created our budget based on the time for each work center and then estimated uh progress and so forth so that's basically our project set so now we can look at the moment at the financial status of the project you can see that if we scroll down at the moment um we haven't uh we don't have a financial status because um we're just starting our project but as as as we progress in the project you will see some of these fields we start getting values on the various fields available okay let's go back to the main page again i want to reiterate the new functionality that is coming where we have got the ability to link a project to a sales order and we tunnel using this uh progress building the new button or icon that is now available so we want to see or track the progress billing if we can just look eternal here okay so some of these fields have been available uh the new fields that are available is the progress status this is something that has come now with the new release uh page 25 or 2020 release one the pro progress status where we are able to see and track the status of the project as you can see there is um at the moment there is nothing that we can track on the project there are no scheduled invoices no direct invoices no invoices no open orders but as we progress we'll see all these fields in a moment uh been populated okay let's just go back and now talk about um the pro the progress building okay so now that we have created um our pro our project and the different uh structures and the different tasks that are going to be performed in the project now let's go into the um progress billing so we have an option or an operator or a user has got an option uh to say which tasks or which stages are we going to to include on progress billing so you can actually include both both tasks or you can choose one so for our demo we're just going to start with the welding so we tick we take this field to show that this uh task is going to be subjected to progress billing and then we save okay so we've instructed the system that welding is going to be tracked through progress billing and if we go back again to our progress billing window you we will be able to see now that because we reflect it that it is part of uh progress billing we should actually if we search uh we should be able to see sale okay so because we haven't created the sales order that's why we don't have any values because here we are we actually by uh i'm looking at tracking uh this billing plan by sales order so we don't have a sales order at the moment so that's why this field is blank so we are now going to go and create a sales order and associate it with uh with this with this project okay so we just back out of the screen and then i'll just copy my project so just quickly jump into orders create a new order so this basically is standard so i'll just highlight a few things put our customer and remember we are tracking labor so we are just tracking service we are not touching on goods so it's just uh labor okay so the key thing is when we we we use a non-deliverable service we knew we we use a non-deliverable that a product that is marked that is one of the key requirements it has to be a non-deliverable service so i'm going to use save014 which is a non-deliverable service and then i can change my description and then at this point i'll say we're gonna do 80 that's the unit that we we're going to to take and then the grosser my gross price i'll just say the total project because i didn't make a note there i'll just put because the unit price 2 000 okay it's no cost just fix my tax and then the invoicing term this is a field that is available um in x3 but basically we're just saying the period in which we are going to invoice so since this is a project and we're saying this is going to be invoiced um in stages and then we want the whole project to be invoiced 800 percent so i'll just select 100 this is it features that are already available uh in x3 the inverse temps and then i'll just paste my project there but the key thing is we want to invoice the project that is linked to a budget okay that is linked to a budget so as you can see uh we have our project today which is welding and our budget that's where our budget is okay so there is our project so we we're going to select the one the line that is flagged is yes for project billing and then we link it there and then we create our sales order okay now that we've got ourselves older if we check on the lines let's just collapse this guy and then if we look at a scheduled invoice you can see that there's our project it's going to be 100 and then as we evolve and do some transactions and so forth you can actually manipulate the times the dates also to suit up your your your project okay so that's basically our scheduled invoice if we go back come out of this screen and then go back to projects and then let's have a look at the pro the billing the billing process okay now we can see that now that we have got an invoice uh it's a sales order created all these fields are populated and then the status as well you can see that it is estimated to be it's 100 completion that's where it is estimated and then this is the estimated amount the build amount build and then pending the status is pending and then the nothing has actually been built so we need to actually go and check how this is done so in order to do this we need to look at the various methods of actually invoking the progress uh the progress billing so how to calculate the progress billing it can be done manually it can be done manually or it can be automated when it is automated that means somebody can actually come and run this usually the project manager or whatever is managing the the project so in our instance we have um we want to do the manual process of updating uh the progress of the project so let's start and say the proj progress is actually 20 so this will be something that is done by the project manager based on their observation and agreement of everyone in the project to say it's going to be we have covered 20 and that is what is going to be um to be in uh to to to be built and like i said you can also do this manually or you can also generate uh this and automate it so we also as you can see the estimation method at the moment it's manual and you can automate this using the financial status for example so there are various ways that you can actually automate so if i say refresh just this and then it's calculated and as you can see there's no percentage that is done because we don't have any financial status but if i come down to the financial status in the refresh the financial status tab then we should actually be okay now that we've pulled all our values based on the budgets that we have set and the quantity and all these have been financial status we can also automate this now and say um let's refresh okay so that's the progress that is there or we can go back to our manual process okay so let's put our manual process and then save save this so we can actually do enter the progress manually or we can automate uh the progress or you can also add the billing based on the task completion so is where we are tracking the tasks so ex for example we can also look at how far we've gone with this project and then the same fields that we had there you can also come on to this line and then mark it is part of progress billing under the tasks and have the same process of calculating um the the progress either you can enter it manually or it can actually be automated and calculated based on uh the progress that has been done pay uh pay that task so we have two stages the way we can calculate it either it's um uh it's at the cost structure or at the at the task planning level so those are two areas where we can actually do the uh progress building okay and again like i said we can be automated you can have it calculated or it can be entered manually so now let's go back and look at our progress billing how it is actually looking so we have got our progress that has been done we've done 20 percent and then if we can just refresh as you can see our estimation of 20 is come through and then for us to be able to invoice this we need to validate we need to validate this field to validate and make sure that it is validated so let's just validate this field okay and save so once we have validated if we go back to the sales order we are now able to actually invoice our order so that's the source order that we created earlier on and then we can actually invoice it and post okay so that's our in our order and then invoice and then if we go back to our project [Music] sir samuel can you meet your line please thank you we go back to our project and then go into progress billing we can now check on progress billing and we will we are able to see that 20 percent has been built we can also associate um billing with a milestone as well and be able to link the milestone as it is completed if the milestone is completed you can also select the master and the description of the milestone so this is something that has always been there on project uh management but you can now associate it with uh progress billing okay so that's basically if we refresh and then change our status include our status to invoiced and then we should be able to see the invoiced transaction as well so as you can see that line has been invoiced and it's 20 percent and it's no longer pending you can see that the status has changed to to invoiced so that's basically how we progress our project as we as we roll into different stages so just to recap project billing it you can actually build a project based on a task or based on the cost structure and in terms of the percentage of the billing you can actually be built based on the quantities or on a percentage and that can be automated or you can also do it manually by entering a percentage of completion and the key thing is the you need to flag the line or the task that the cost structure to say this is going to be tracked using uh progress billing and then you'll be able to come and see the status and track the status of the pro uh of the project and then once you validate the the status then you are able to come and add so you can actually generate another line for example to schedule another task on this invoice and be able to generate the period and um and the percentage as well as you can see it is pending so we can actually change this and go and change and add these invoices as you as you is as we progress as you can see if we look at the bottom here you can see the invoices the invoice that we have generated and the amount and the status is it has been posted so in a nutshell i know i've just overrun the time uh there is a lot to show on pro uh project billing and uh progress billing but we have actually shown you that you can create your project and you are able to to build based on the progress by entering the field the percentage manually or it can be calculated using the financial status and that whole process can be automated and also you can create a batch process that will be able to run um every morning or depending on the frequency that you create that will be refreshing and updating the financial statuses so that there is not um too many too many manual intervention um involved okay so having talked about project billing let me just go on to the time sheet let's look at our project so let's look at the one that we are working on which is basically welding and then let's assign a resource a resource basically someone who's going to be in charge so i'm just going to pick laurent as as the assigned resource to the task that is the guy the actual person remember we had put a title to say a welder but now we need to put a resource who's that welder the resource is laurent okay so let's save that that's our resource so now if we come out and go to to the weekly timesheet let's just come out of this and then go to weekly timesheet like i said earlier on let's just put our resource which is laurent okay where are you okay the project basically tracks the timesheet is a weekly basis based on a week and it is today is our starting time starting date and then end date of the week and then it's tracked in hours and as you can see these are the tasks that um this resource is working on which is basically welding so in this case um okay just let's concentrate on the second line i can just narrow it down to the project that we have done the first one was basically the project that we is working on is uh the one that is ending with 69 on the temp that's the one so on monday all right okay let's just refresh this so as a result you'll be able to enter the time manually what how many hours did he dedicate to the project on monday or tuesday okay let's just put this okay maybe let's just update the project okay let's check out that so for monday you wait five hours for welding and then this is the operator actually capturing the time on tuesday he wait eight hours and then that's the operator entering um the time that he has worked on the project and then he has got an option to validate or to enter the the detail of the time uh of what exactly he was doing so as you can see in the detail tab you can actually go in and enter the description and add comments and so forth so you can actually add break down that exactly what he was doing um for those four hours that he has entered on the timesheet okay we're not just gonna go in there so let's just keep it nice and simple so he has entered this time the five hours that is done and after entering he has got an option to validate which is basically so that it can go to the manager and then the color changes obviously as soon as the transaction is validated and then just makes this so this row is performed by the uh the the operator themselves and then with with the help or assistance of a workflow the transaction actually can be posted and appear on the managers desk and be able to actually manage this and approve or disapprove so i'll quickly just go in there as the manager and then go into time approval and i'll just enter my company and then sage so as i can see the two what laurent has done the project that he's working on so i've got an option to say okay i want to review this to change the status of this line and then i can either accept it by validating ctrl or reject so i want to reject this one i'm not happy with this and then make a save but i'm happy with the second the second um i'm i'm happy with the second line so i will put okay so let me just back out go back okay let's just go if we go back into projects you will see that if we look at the timesheet for laurent let's narrow it down to our project you can see that the first one is now red that we have rejected this one i haven't made a decision yet it's still green and once i approve it then it will change the color so sorry i have to i had to rush the timesheet but basically that is what is available on the timesheet we have the ability on the timesheet to create to capture the timesheet manually and use the workflows the standard workflow processes to get them to be approved or rejected and the timesheet is managed on a weekly basis and the user can actually enter um more details about what they were actually working on and like i said earlier on when we started on the timesheet the next functionality that we're going to see is the ability to be able to track the time when someone is not actually working on the project currently the hours that have been put here that's the time that you actually worked on the project so uh ladies and gentlemen sorry for just overrunning the time but that's basically what we wanted to share with you on progress billing and timesheet management uh we can open this to if there are any questions any questions wow so okay there is one question coming through okay one question is are you not able to generate the sales orders directly from the pdf for the progress billing no you have to do it in sales orders you have to do it in sales orders okay the other question is can can the inverse not be generated from the pjm module um you the invoice has to be generated from from the sales module okay so those are the two questions that i had so far but feel free to to make use of okay yes sam quiet great i think it's a great um improvement to the timesheet and the project management um what i want to ask is is it possible to tie a milestone completion percentage such that when i mark a time a milestone as completed i can say when this milestone is complete that is 20 of the projects uh yes mission rate yes you can do that you want to try the milestone and the uh the progress billing to say the milestone should trigger the the the billing i hear you correctly you you want the milestone yes yes however i'm trying to put some weight to every milestone to say that for instance milestone a carries 20 of the project completion rate so as soon as i put 20 percent as soon as i mark that a milestone has complete then the system puts my progress billing at 20 instead of manually putting it there i think at the moment uh i haven't tried that but i know that you can link a milestone to the progress billing but i'm not i'm not hundred percent sure that you are able to put the weight of the milestone to go and update the percentage of the progress that has been made um it's something that i i have to research maybe i will come back to you and forgive you or maybe post uh that one but i don't think currently you are able to link associate the milestone uh with with the progress uh with the percentage of progress made and be able to calculate the billing but not putting the weight of the at a portion weights and then updating those weights on the on the progress billing okay thank you okay there's another question uh where does the value of the build project line go to how do i reconcile uh with the sales invoice value on the line okay where does the value of the build project like go to uh what what do you mean by where does it go to sorry sorry andrew yes so remember you did your project billing at twenty percent yes because say say hundred and hundred grand right and then you created a sales order which you also didn't invoice yes so my understanding is the sales invoice could be having a different value from from from the from the deal that you made from the project is that so or they should be the same values it can be the same value but remember this is progressive uh billing that you are doing so at the end uh when the that's why we selected the invoicing term is 100 so at the end the percentages that we are putting should add up to 100 percent and it should actually tie up with what is on the project that has been budgeted okay yeah okay maybe i'm not answering your question i see there's a hand um raised there rhian yeah andrew so if i understand you correctly does that mean that you can't use the sales document creation function that's already in pjm you can't use that for the progress billing function is is that my understanding of that correct yes is is that something that will be changed or improved um to follow that logical flow from pjm or or is there no sort of plan to change that i think it is something that is um changing um this is something that is changing that you can actually use for progress billing i'm sure with the new releases that ability will be available so for for now it is not supported but i think with the new release dca that are coming up i know there are some major functionality being added on release three so that could be possible okay thank you thanks okay sorry i think we we have um overrun your time uh thank you once again for attending the webinar i just want to ask uh my ask is basically uh to complete the survey uh that is i'm going to post today and the chat and then also for those who want to have a recording we will post a recording on the on our youtube channel the x3 i'll share the link later on once the recording has been published so once again i want to thank you for attending and then the takeaway is the progress billing can be done in different stages based on the task and also we do have the time sheet that can is monitored on a weekly basis and it is entered and you are able to send it to the manager for approval once again thank you for taking this time and stay safe and hopefully we'll meet again in the future sessions thank you [Music] okay