What IS Project Management?

Recently clients have asked what Sage 100 Contractor can do for Project Management.  My usually annoying response is “What do you want Sage 100 Contractor to do for your organization?”  Too often they don’t give a solid response to the question nor clearly define what they want.  I then guide them to think of Project Management in two generalities: 

• Tools to help project managers do their job, and
• Tools that help owners and senior management know what’s going on in the field.

Sage 100 Contractor tools for project managers include

• Scheduling – A CPM based program with a graphical user interface can assign multiple predecessors to any task with appropriate lead or lag time, assign employee, equipment and subcontractor resources to any task, and most importantly, has multiple notification reports.
• Dispatch Board – A component of the Service Receivables module provides another graphical user interface for assigning and dispatching work orders to employees or subcontractors.
• Communication Tools – Requests for Information, Correspondence, Transmittals, Submittals, Daily Field Reports, and Punch Lists are all available in the Document Control module.  Everything is located in one central location and organized by job.
• Job Cost Reporting – Classic job cost reports give project managers great insight into how the cost of the project (both cost to date and projected cost at completion) compare with the original and current job cost budget.
• Change Order Control – Changes to the job are accurately documented, estimated and priced to ensure that all changes are requested and negotiated by the project manager with your client.  Changes requested and changes approved are available at any time, and contract value and job cost budgets are updated as soon as change orders are approved. 
• Customizable Dashboards and Alerts – Project managers can have summarized and exception-based reporting of project related data on user defined onscreen dashboards.  They can also receive alerts about exception conditions in emails or on their own customized dashboard.

Sage 100 Contractor tools for owners and senior managers include:

• Transparency – The entire program is a centralized location to drill into everything that project managers are doing (see the project manager tools listed above.)
• Top Down Views – Summarized reports of job progress are available to identify problem projects that need further attention.
• Dashboards and Alerts – Customizable dashboards and alerts can direct attention to problems as they arise.

Don’t forget that all of these tools can be accessed in the office or remotely, either remote connections to your own workstation or server, or as a remote connection to an application hosting service like TimberCloud!  Remote connection applications are now available for most mobile devices.

Period Locking Stabilizes Your Financial Reporting

Users sometimes complain that a financial statement from two months ago no longer is the same when they pull it up again in Sage 100 Contractor.  This can be quite disconcerting and can invite questions about the accounting department’s competence and the software’s reliability. 

What typically has happened is that someone came across a payable invoice or some other transaction dated two or more months ago and posted it in the system in the period it should have been recorded, even though financial statements for that period have been published to stakeholders (owners, managers, bankers, bonding companies, taxing authorities, etc.).

Users too often overlook the ability to Lock accounting periods to prevent the posting of transactions to past accounting periods.  If a responsible user using the Supervisor log in clicks on any accounting period selection icon, the Open Access and Lock Access buttons are evident near the top of the selection window.  With the period to be locked highlighted, click on the Lock Access button and the status of the period will change from Open to Locked.  When a period is locked, no user will be permitted to post a transaction to that period.  If a valid reason arises to post a transaction to a previously locked period, Supervisor can change that period’s access status to open by revisiting any accounting period selection icon, highlighting the correct period, and clinking on the Open Access button.  (Remember to return the status to Locked after the need for Open status has passed.)

I strongly encourage users to Lock Access to period 00-Prior Year as soon as their outside accountants have received the information they require for preparing financial reports and tax returns.  This will prevent changes in that information which the accountants are relying upon to perform their duties.  When the outside accountants have completed their work, any adjusting entries they provide can be posted to Period 00 after Supervisor temporarily unlocks the period.

I also suggest that future periods be locked temporarily, particularly right after the General Ledger closing, to prevent inadvertent posting of prior year December transactions (which should be posted to Period 00) to the current year December (Period 12 of the current year).

Sage 100 Contractor - Alerts Manager

Imagine a computer program that automatically sends you a note every time your checking account balance fell below a specified amount, or once a month sends you a note about all the subcontractor insurance certificates that were due to expire next month.  Did you know that capability is already included in Sage 100 Contractor?

Earlier, I wrote about constructing queries to make it easy to find certain records or information in your Sage 100 Contractor data.  I pointed out that if one could construct a query, it is a simple and logical progression to construct Alerts.

Alerts Manager (menu 7-9), after searching your company data for conditions you specify, can send an Alert to your Dashboard, or an email to specified employees, alerting to the existence of that condition.  You define how frequently, and at what time of day, the data is searched. 

The system includes a handful of Alert Queries that can be used as templates and provide insight into what one can accomplish with Alerts: 

• Bid Opening Dates Next Week,
• Checking Account Balance Below 10K,
• Client Equipment Service Due Next Month,
• Client Equipment Warranties Expiring Next Month,
• Employee Licenses Expiring Next Month [in addition to trade or drivers’ licenses, consider defining expiring employment authorizations and resident alien cards as “licenses” to work],
• Employee Training Due Next Month [consider defining employee performance or compensation reviews to be “training” opportunities as well],
• Employees Hired This Month,
• Equipment Payments Due this Week,
• Equipment Service Due Next Week (in Equipment Management), and
• Vendor Certificates Expiring Next Month.

What other conditions might you want to be alerted about?

Sage 100 Contractor Queries

One of the most powerful, but often underutilized, functions in Sage 100 Contractor is Queries.  Sometimes called the Find Records function, it can be a great help in mining data and solving problems.  Queries are accessed by the Binoculars Button found in the upper right quadrant of most data screens.  A few prebuilt queries are included in the program, although I find most of them to be limited. 

Build your own queries quickly and easily using the Query Wizard.  Click on the New Button to start the Query Wizard, give the query a name, define what data you want to see in your results and how you want it sorted and grouped, finally define how you want your data selected and filtered.  When the query is run, you will see the individual data records you asked for, with the ability to drill down into the underlying records!

Queries are limited, in that you cannot perform calculations on the data inside the query, but you can export the result to Excel and then add calculations, re-sort the data, summarize the data, etc.

Get comfortable with creating queries!  The Query Wizard is an important component of the Alert Manager function and if you can create your own queries, you can easily set up your own Alerts (but that’s a Tip for another day….).

Mac and iPad solutions for Sage 100 Contractor

Now there are several options that permit Macintosh and iPad disciples to enjoy the benefits of using Sage 100 Contractor.  Virtual machines, which are software programs that mimic a Windows PC while actually running on a Mac, were the only viable option for many years. Mac users could run VMWare or Parallels (just to name two choices) on their Mac machine and run Sage 100 Contractor in that Windows shell.  Now however, cloud computing has really opened up Sage 100 Contractor benefits to the Macintosh world.  If a company uses a cloud application server to host its Sage 100 Contractor installation in a Windows environment, Mac users can now run a remote desktop client (available free from Microsoft or client packages from other software developers) to access the program.  Even more exciting, and a benefit to all users of Sage 100 Contractor (Apple or Microsoft), is the availability of remote desktop clients for iPads and Android tablets, so that field personnel can log right into the Cloud server and see everything they might need!

Sage Third Party Developer Products

Tired of struggling to collect paper timesheets and daily reports from the field? Frustrated with incomplete and missing data?  Wish there was a better way?  Consider mobile field reporting applications from members of the Sage Third Party Developer program.  Several applications are now available for smartphones and other mobile devices to collect payroll time and daily field reports.  These applications smoothly move the data automatically from the field to Sage 100 Contractor, with appropriate review and approval steps built in.  Find members of the Third Party Developer Program at http://na.sage.com/sage-construction-and-real-estate/resources/development-partner-locator/.

Year End Tips (Part 2)

Year-end closing can become stressful if, during the closing process, the system discovers a general ledger or payroll audit error and the closing stops until the error is resolved.  With audit errors, users are directed to seek help from Sage Technical Support, or their favorite Certified Consultant, all of whom are usually quite busy at this time of year and may require the user to wait for a response and assistance.  The best solution is to identify and correct general ledger and payroll audit errors before the year end rush.  Make it a practice to run general ledger audits (menu 1-6) and payroll audits (menu 5-3-7) regularly as the end of the year approaches. Some users run audits daily, but weekly may suffice.  Errors can be identified and corrected in advance so that the actual closing can proceed without a hitch.

Year End Tips

Sage 100 Contractor users are often confused about when to actually close their books for a calendar year-end.  No transactions can be entered for the new year until the books are closed for the old year, so delaying the closing is not an option!  The rule of thumb is to make sure all of your Customer Cash Receipts, Vendor Payments and Payroll Records are all entered and posted through the end of the year, and then close your books for period 12. Remember that you can enter Payable Invoices, Receivable Invoices and Journal Transactions that belong to the prior calendar year after the closing by selecting Posting Period 0 while entering these transactions in the new year company and then responding “Yes” to the message that will pop up when the transactions are saved.  In most cases you do not enter transactions directly into the prior year archive company.