Advanced Project Profitability

The Advanced Project Profitability feature gives you access to create customized, enhanced project profitability reports based on items and accounts. Advanced Project Profitability also enables you to define both the account and item mapping for your reports. You can create custom mappings to determine where both committed and actual costs and revenue appear in your custom reports. The Project Management feature is required to enable Advanced Project Profitability. To enable Advanced Project Profitability, go to Setup > Company > Enable Features. Under Projects, check the Advanced Project Profitability box. Click Save.

Note:

When you enable the Advanced Project profitability feature, the default configuration for the project profitability report is copied as the standard configuration. This configuration can be edited or copied at any time by creating a new configuration.

Creating Custom Project Profitability Reports

Advanced Project Profitability uses filters to map accounts and items to specific columns and rows within a custom project profitability report. The feature comes with a standard configuration of account and item mappings. You can edit and customize the standard configuration and create custom profitability reports to fit your business needs. You can create multiple configurations. All of your project profitability reports are located at Reports > Projects > Project Profitability Reports.

The standard account types that define report columns include Actual Cost, Actual Revenue, Committed Cost, Committed Revenue, Cost, Revenue, and Unbilled Receivable.

The standard item types that define report rows include Asset, Expense, Other, and Service.

Project Profitability Rules

When setting up Advanced Project Profitability, you can create custom configurations for your custom profitability reports.

Custom configurations are based on rules you create to filter items and accounts into the selected rows and columns of your reports.

When you define rules for your rows and columns, NetSuite applies different logic to these rules based on whether they are including or excluding information. Rules that include information use OR logic, while rules that exclude information use AND logic.

You can define multiple rules and they are applied in order. Sorting on reports is dependent on rule configuration. On the P&L subtab the categories in rows and columns are sorted as defined in the configuration.

For example, you create a rule to include a few specific items, expenses, and a specific item type on your custom project profitability report. You also create a rule to exclude a few specific item types. To be included in your custom project profitability report, a transaction has to satisfy at least one of the include rules and also all of the exclude rules.

To create a new project profitability configuration:

1. Go to Setup > Accounting > Project Profitability.

2. Click New.

3. On the Enter Basic Information page, enter a name and an optional description for your configuration.

4. Click Next.

5. On the Define Rows page, the standard configuration automatically populates the row fields. You can enter new rows and delete or edit the standard configuration to define which items to include in the rows of your report. In the Name field, enter a name for your item group.

6. Click the Edit icon next to the Name field to open the Row popup window.

7. In the Type field, select an item filter and, if applicable, define the filter in the popup window.

   • Items – include or exclude specific items from your report. In the Condition field, select is to include the selected items or is not to exclude the selected items. In the Items field, select the items for this row.

   • Item Types – include all items of a specific type (e.g. non-inventory items). In the Item Types field, select the item types you want included in this row.

   • Individual Expense Categories – include all expenses of a specific category. In the Individual Expense Categories field, select the expense categories you want to include in this row.

   • All Expense Categories – includes all project expense categories.

   • Uncategorized Expenses – include any expenses that do not have items or expense categories.

   Click Set to return to Step 2. Click Add to save your defined row.

   Note:

   Each row can have only one defined type. You may add multiple row definitions to each configuration.

8. Repeat the previous step to add rows to your profitability report. When you are finished, click Next.

9. On the Define Columns page, the standard configuration automatically populates the column fields. You can enter new columns and delete or edit the standard configuration to define which accounts to include in the columns of your report. In the Name field, enter a name for your account group.

10. Click the Edit icon next to the Name field to open the Column popup window.

11. In the Transaction Subfilter field, select what kind of transactions to include with this filter—Actual + Committed, Actual, or Committed.

    Actual transactions are completed transactions and have GL impact. Committed transactions are planned transactions and do not yet have GL impact.

12. In the Type field, select an account filter and, if applicable, define the filter in the popup window.

    • Account – include or exclude specific accounts from your report. In the Condition field, select is to include the selected accounts or is not to exclude the selected accounts. In the Accounts field, select the accounts for this column.

    • Account Types – include all accounts of a specific type (e.g. expense). In the Account Types field, select the account types you want included in this column.

    • Time Entry – include all project time entries.

    Click Set to return to Step 3. Click Add to save your defined column.

    Note:

    Each defined column can have multiple account categories. You may add multiple column definitions to each configuration.

13. Repeat the previous step to add columns to your profitability report. When you are finished, click Next.

14. On the Define Profitability Calculation page, you select which columns are used to calculate your profitability margin. Select the custom columns to use for your costs and revenue. The information in these columns is used to calculate your profitability for each project.

15. Click Next.

16. On the Reports page, a list of custom reports to be added is populated. In the Summary field, you can update the default names of your custom summary project profitability reports. In the Detail field, you can update the default names of your custom detail project profitability reports.

17. In the Action field, you can choose Create or Do Not Create for each custom report.

18. You can click Finish if you want to stop your configuration without any additional settings or localizations. Click Next to set additional settings or add localizations.

19. On the Settings page, check the box next to any additional transactions you want included in your profitability calculations. Click Finish or Next to add localization information.

    Important:

    If you use the Planned Work feature, checking the Planned Time box can result in duplicate calculation of your committed costs. For more information, see Planned Work.

20. On the Localization page, if you use multiple language, you can enter translations for your terms in your selected language.

21. When you are finished, click Finish.

In addition to creating new configurations, you can also edit and copy existing custom configurations.

Your project profitability reports are available at Reports > Projects > Project Profitability Reports. You can return to the Project Profitability Setup page directly from the standard or custom reports by clicking the Profitability Setup button at the bottom of the page.

Note:

You can select which report configuration populates the P&L subtab of project records. Go to Setup > Accounting > Project Profitability. In the P&L Default field, select the configuration you want to use for the P&L subtab on projects. Click Submit.

Project profitability reports are calculated at set times during the day. When viewing a report, you can see the time and date of the last data calculation at the bottom of the page. To initiate a recalculation manually click the Recalculate button at the bottom of the page.

To copy or edit an existing configuration:

1. Go to Setup > Accounting > Project Profitability.

2. Click Copy or Edit next to the configuration you want to change.

3. If you are copying an existing configuration, in the Name field, enter a new name for your copied configuration.

   You can use the sidebar to skip to the page you want to change, or click Next to advance to the next page.

4. When you have finished making your changes, click Reports in the sidebar under Steps.

5. Under Existing, in the Summary and Detail fields, you can update the names of your existing reports.

6. In the Action field, select Keep or Delete for each report. In the Links column, you can click the links to view either the Summary or Detail report. In the Impact column, click Display Changes to see the difference your updates will make to your existing reports.

7. Under To Be Added, in the Summary and Detail fields, you can update the names of any new reports to be created.

8. In the Action field, select Create or Do Not Create for each new report.

9. When you have finished, click Finish.

Any updated or new custom reports can be found at Reports > Projects > Project Profitability Reports .

Displaying Approved Time as Actual Costs

When creating project profitability configurations, the Treat Tracked & Approved Time as Actual Cost preference enables you to select approved time as actual costs without posting time. You can also display tracked and approved time as actual costs on the P&L subtab. Displaying approved time as actual costs ensures the estimate at completion and estimate to complete calculations are more accurate.

Include Forecast and Actual Charges

When creating project profitability configurations, the Charges preference enables you to include forecast and actual charges in project profitability configurations. All forecast and actual charges appear as committed revenue. If you have already invoiced the actual charge, NetSuite ignores the charge. If you use a project charge on a sales order, the calculation of the remaining billable amount follows the charges and not the unbilled quantity on the sales order.

Advanced Project Profitability Dataset

Some updates and actions in Work Breakdown Structure or Advanced Project Budget may not be reflected in the Advanced Project Profitability dataset immediately (for example. adding a project task). You need to wait until the financial data are recalculated. That is done either automatically every 24 hours, or manually on each of the projects.

General Notices