1 Overview to Job Cost

This chapter contains these topics:

1.1 About Job Cost

The JD Edwards World Job Cost system, along with other JD Edwards World systems, can assist you in managing your projects and jobs and monitoring the costs and revenues associated with them. You can use the Job Cost system to:

  • Create and maintain cost code structures for all of your jobs

  • Establish budgets for your jobs

  • Set up time schedules for the tasks in your jobs

  • Track and manage the costs and revenues associated with your projects and jobs

  • Review and revise additional information associated with your projects and jobs

  • Generate a variety of reports showing the cost, revenues, and other details of your projects and jobs

  • Calculate job progress at any time during the job

  • Calculate estimated final values associated with your projects and jobs

  • Recognize and record profit or loss at any point in a job

  • Create draw reports on the costs that are eligible to be borrowed against under a loan agreement

The Job Cost system has the flexibility to manage the jobs associated with a wide variety of businesses, including:

  • Mining

  • Utilities

  • Engineering projects

  • Media production

  • General contracting

  • Manufacturing

  • Self-constructed assets

  • Property development and homebuilding

  • Heavy equipment and highway contracting

In addition, you can customize the Job Cost system to your specific business needs by:

  • Setting up unique cost code structures for different jobs

  • Customizing your system to display industry-specific terminology on forms and reports

  • Selecting among a variety of methods of computation when calculating projected final values

This section contains the following:

  • System Integration

  • System Features

  • Job Cost Menu Overview

1.2 System Integration

The Job Cost system is integrated with the following JD Edwards World systems to help you manage your jobs easily and efficiently.

System Description
Accounts Payable The Accounts Payable system updates the appropriate accounts payable (A/P) records when you enter progress payments, record vouchers, or make payments against a job.
Accounts Receivable The Accounts Receivable system updates the appropriate accounts receivable (A/R) records when you record contract billings against the work on your jobs.
Address Book The Job Cost system accesses the Address Book system for the addresses of suppliers, subcontractors, and business owners. You can use this information to print payments, reports, and so on.
Change Management The Change Management system integrates budget change orders in the Job Cost, Subcontract Management, and Contract Billing systems.
Contract Billing The Contract Billing system uses the account information in the Job Cost system to generate billings for contracted work.
Subcontract Management The Subcontract Management system updates committed units and amounts to accounts in the Job Cost system. You can manage contract budgets and cost projections through the Job Cost system.
Equipment/Plant Management The Equipment/Plant Management system allows you to charge equipment time and costs to specified accounts within a job.
FASTR The FASTR system allows you to design custom reports on account balance information in the Job Cost system.
Fixed Assets The Fixed Assets system records the development costs for self-constructed assets, such as buildings.
General Accounting The General Accounting system updates accounts in the Job Cost system to reflect updates to general accounting balances.
Inventory Management The Inventory Management system credits inventory accounts and debits cost accounts in the Job Cost system as inventory is issued.
Payroll The Payroll system manages the labor and equipment costs that relate to jobs.
Property Management The Job Cost system can track the development and finish work costs associated with the Property Management system.
Procurement The Purchase Order Management and Job Cost system share a common database. This enables you to view the purchase orders and committed amounts related to a job.
Service Billing The Service Billing system can manage billing for the costs associated with progress against a job.
Work Order You can limit line item commitments to a work order in the Work Order system. You charge costs from the line item against the work order in the Job Cost, Subcontract Management, and General Accounting systems.

1.3 System Features

The Job Cost system provides the following features to assist you in managing your projects and jobs and monitoring the costs and revenues associated with them:

  • Final projections

  • Profit recognition

  • Job status inquiry

  • Audit trail management

  • Job budget change management

  • Cost analysis

  • Loan draw tracking

  • Report generation

  • Job scheduling

1.3.1 Final Projections

You can use the Job Cost system to calculate projected final values for a job at any time during the job. Final projections are calculated based on the costs, revenues, and percentage of completion associated with a job at a specified time.

Final projections can include:

  • Projected final costs

  • Projected final revenues

  • Projected final profit

  • Projected over/under values

1.3.2 Profit Recognition

The Job Cost system can assist you in creating profit recognition journal entries for revenue and cost based on the percentage of completion of a job at any time during the progress of the job. These journal entries are used for cost accounting purposes. You can manually adjust the recognized revenue and cost for each job, depending on your accounting needs.

1.3.3 Job Status Inquiry

The Job Cost system provides online inquiry for viewing all of the information related to your projects or jobs. For example, you can view the following:

  • Actual amounts and quantities

  • Original and revised budget amounts and quantities

  • Total and open commitments, amounts, and quantities

  • Projected final amounts and quantities

  • Projected over or under amounts and quantities

  • Percentage of completion information for each account

1.3.4 Audit Trail Management

The Job Cost system can maintain a detailed audit trail of all transactions against a job. Audit trails can include details that relate to projected final values, budget changes, commitments, and so on.

1.3.5 Job Budget Change Management

You can use the Job Cost system to enter and lock original budget information for a job. After a budget is locked, you must enter a change order to revise it. You can use change orders to create audit trails of the changes to a job's budget. This allows you to compare original budget information with revised budget information at the completion of the job.

Budget changes can occur as a result of the following:

  • Committed cost control using subcontracts and purchase orders

  • Actual cost control using A/P vouchers, payroll equipment billings, and inventory issues

  • Final cost control using percentage of completion and projected final cost estimates

1.3.6 Cost Analysis

You can use the Job Cost system to analyze the unit costs that are associated with your jobs. For example, you can analyze:

  • Labor hourly rates

  • Cost per unit

  • Man-hours per unit

1.3.7 Loan Draw Tracking

You can track the costs associated with the accounts eligible for reimbursement based on the terms of a construction loan or line of credit. You can then generate a draw report of the eligible costs and submit it to your lending institution.

1.3.8 Report Generation

The Job Cost system provides you with a variety of reports that you can use to manage and review your job cost information. You can generate the following types of reports:

  • Management summary reports

  • Job and account setup reports

  • Financial detail reports

  • Custom FASTR reports

  • Supplemental data reports

1.3.9 Job Scheduling

The Job Cost system allows you to interface with a PC scheduling tool, Primavera Project Planner, to create schedules for your jobs.