12
ExclFARS
Instructions
ExclFARS is set up to be used during the project, for summarizing labor, equipment and materials of force account. When it is first opened it looks like this
This file will be your template for each force account you summarize. When it is first opened you should go to File, Save As. Then save this template in a location you will easily remember, and give it a name such as wo8summary.xls. This file would then represent Work Order 8, and you can open it and enter your data on a daily or weekly basis. The rest of this document is set up in chapters, with each chapter representing a different worksheet of the file.
When you first open ExclFARS you should see the tab “Weekly F.A. Labor” tab highlighted in the bottom left corner of the screen. This is the sheet that you enter all the employees and their hours on.
This sheet has a total of twelve weeks for you to enter info on. The first step on this page is entering the employee’s names, positions, and rates of pay.
By scrolling to the right you should see a yellow block of cells like this.
You only need to enter information in the yellow blocks, however you may change the positions in the “Union” column if you like. For instance if you had more than three Operators. This is an example of one I filled out.
Notice how I kept the names with their position. Also, I had 4 Operators with different pay rates, but no Teamsters. So I just changed the first teamster to an operator like mentioned above. The two columns too the right will fill in on their own later, after you have entered the daily hours. The next step is too fill in this sheets heading. Scroll to the left, or hit Ctrl Home. You should see this.
Fill in all the pertinent orange blocks. Notice how it says Week 1.
The next step on the Labor sheet is to enter your daily data. This is where you take the Daily Force Account sheets and enter the hours of each employee for each day.
Once you have entered all the daily data, this sheet gives you totals of
· Total Hours by Position
· Total Regular Hours by Position
· Total Reg. Pay
· Total Overtime Pay
Also these totals are linked to the next pages, so once you fill out this sheet, most of your work is done.
The benefits page is linked to the total hours column on the previous sheet. The “Position” column is also linked to the previous sheet. So any changes you made because of differences in position with your particular force account will also be reflected here.
The blank Benefits sheet looks like this.
When filling out the benefits sheet, it is a good idea to make a cheat sheet like the following to help you enter data. I gather the info from a payroll, and then print it out for reference. It only takes a few minutes and saves lots of time.
There are six main area to fill out in the benefits sheet. Vacation, Health and Welfare, Travel, Pension, Apprenticeship and Other, and Subsistence. If you have filled out the Labor worksheet, then all your total hours and positions should automatically be on the benefits sheet. It should look like this, and then all you have to enter are the rates.
Important Info
Notice on the Health and Welfare box that I only entered $2.95 for Laborer A one time. That’s because for all the Laborer A’s the total hours is 7.5. In other words 3 of them could have had 2 hours each and the fourth had 1.5 hours. If I placed the $2.95 on all the Laborer A’s then they would receive payment for 30 hours of work, or 4 times what they actually worked.
All these benefit totals are linked to the Summary sheet and are placed in order so that Vacation is taxed, while the others are not.
The Material and Equipment sheets are not linked to the summary. In fact on most small work orders and S.A.’s I wouldn’t even use them. I would enter them directly on the Summary. However I placed them on this sheet for BIG force accounts. They can be handy for running estimates prior to completion. They are also unprotected so that you can add columns, dates, and formulas to total your data.
The following is an example of the original Equipment sheet with some data I entered.
Then this is an example of how I changed it around to help me with a little bit more complicated equipment list.
You can also link these cells to the summary sheet if you like, but this is a little more complicated. To learn how to do this, go to the help in Excel. Type in a search for “Linking”.
The easiest way however is to select the destination cell on the summary sheet, then press the “=” key, then highlight the sheet tab of your source cell, select the source cell, and hit enter.
Both of these sheets are here if you need or desire to use them. But you don’t need to. After playing around more with the options available, you’ll find the way that suits you best, and is the quickest.
The summary looks a lot like the hand written, form TP-21659. However it has many advantages over handwriting. There are no computations since the computer does all the math for you. Another big advantage is that corrections can be made by just opening the document, and changing the correct cells, and then printing again. This is especially nice once the contractor has checked it and found errors after you thought it was finished! The summary from this program has been reviewed by Denny Springer and will be accepted at C.O.
The template summary sheet looks like this.
After the Labor and Benefit sheet have been completed, all your overtime and benefits totals are all ready there. The regular time section will not be filled out due to the fact that you need to enter the number of employees at a certain position. But the yellow block on the Labor sheet has all the info you need. The number of employees at each position, their rate, and the total number of regular hours.
To ease filling out the Labor portion of the summary, I make a cheat sheet much like I did with the benefits. I go to the Labor sheet, and select the yellow block and hours total columns by dragging the mouse over them with the left mouse button held down. Then by selecting File, Print you get a dialog box for printing.
Now you have a cheat sheet to aid in filling out the Labor section. You can also do this for equipment and material, unless you want fill them out directly on the summary.
Well Good Luck, if you need help you could GroupWise me (Andrew Dostal D1) or during winter months try to call me at (218) 723 4960 ext. 3407. Due to Construction season and field assignments, I can not guarantee support. But you can always try.