Set up the project accounts

Project Accounts tells the system which accounts in your chart to use when it posts project documents on its own: contract revenue and retention when a client is billed, advances, material and labour charged to projects, subcontractor certificates, and cash custody. Set them once, for the company, and override them for a branch that keeps its own accounts.

Charging everyday documents to a project does not need these settings: those documents post to the accounts you choose on them. The settings are used by the project billing and costing documents that build on projects.

Before you start

• Create the accounts in your chart first. Each must be a posting account (level 5) of a branch. See Posting rules.

• You need permission to change the project settings.

Steps

1. Open Projects › Project Accounts.

2. In Apply to, keep All branches (company default) to set the accounts every branch uses.

3. Under each group, choose an account for each purpose:

   • Billing the client: contract revenue, retention held by the client, advances received, withholding tax deducted by the client, the contract asset and liability, and the provision and expense for expected contract losses.

   • Project costs: material, labour and equipment charged to projects, the accounts that absorb labour and equipment, and goods received not yet invoiced.

   • Subcontractors: subcontract cost, retention held from subcontractors, advances paid to them, and withholding tax deducted from them.

   • Cash and guarantees: employee cash custody and bank guarantee margins.

4. Select Save.

Labour costing and guarantees

The Labour costing and guarantees card on the same screen holds two company-wide choices, saved with its own Save:

• Labour cost rate: Standard rate or Actual payroll cost, used to price approved hours. See charge labour and equipment to projects.

• Post bank guarantee cash margins: when on, a guarantee's cash margin is posted on issue and back on release. See post the cash margin of bank guarantees.

Override a branch

1. In Apply to, choose the branch.

2. Choose an account only for the purposes where the branch differs. Leave the others empty: they use the company default.

3. Select Save.

Common questions

An account is not offered. Only posting accounts (level 5) that belong to a branch can be chosen. Group accounts cannot be posted to.

Do I have to fill in every purpose now? No. A purpose is needed only when the document that posts to it is used. When it is missing, that document is refused with a message naming the purpose, and nothing is posted.

What happens to old postings if I change an account? Nothing. The change applies to documents posted from now on.