JOB COSTING
If this is where your core business activities are recorded, you will be well aware of the need for accurate, up to date information. You need to know if you really made money on that last job, if you are currently over budget for another, and ideally should be able to quickly locate details for jobs similar to the one you are doing a quote for at the moment.
Most of the hard work is done automatically within other modules of the system eg. Payroll will automatically update your labour figures using prime cost, or overhead recovery costing, and actual times are also recorded. Purchase Orders update outstanding commitments for a Job or materials and expense allocations when receipts are recorded. Inventory stores requisitions may also update material figures, and expense can also be recorded directly from the Accounts Payable System.
In the absence of these other modules, the information can be recorded directly with the Job Costing system, but obviously greatest gains are to be made from a totally integrated system, where General Ledger Work in Progress figures can easily be substantiated and reconciled to, say a Job Progress Report.
Jobs can be manually initiated for any costing project, or can be generated from other related systems, like Service for repair work, or Inventory for manufactured items. You have control of the static details maintained for all jobs, ensuring that the system retains all of the information you will require for future reference and identification.
There is no limit to the number of jobs that can be active at any one time, and each job can be broken down into individual activities. Costing information is then recorded down to the activity level, allowing you to monitor the progress of each phase of a job in greater detail, and identify individual problem areas sooner.
Activities can vary from job to job, and separate budgets can be set for each activity if required. If a job is generated from the integrated quotation system, these budget figures are extracted from the original quote.
Jobs for customers can be invoices when completed, or for progress payments, using the normal procedures of Accounts Receivable, with relevant details appearing on the Invoice from Job Costing. When a manufacturing job is completed the Inventory System stock levels will be increased for the finished product, and completed service jobs update the Service system with actual costs, materials used etc.
Full transactional details is kept for each revenue and cost component, allowing for extensive onscreen enquiry and reporting. The enquiry and reporting procedures will also give you early warning of a job that is ‘going off the rails’ rather than having to find out after the job is finished. You can quickly compare actual costs and times with budgets, or match job revenue with expense, analyse how much time is spent doing what.
JCPARAM Job Costing Parameters
This process maintains the control parameters needed by the Job Costing System. Some functions can not be performed by the system until this information has been entered, and you will be warned if this occurs.
In normal operation, this process is used when the system is first established, and would generally require no further attention. However, changes may be made at any time, as the need arises.
Great care should be taken with all of the Yes/No type questions. Generally changing such a response from a No to a Yes will cause no problems, as this has the effect of adding additional features to the system.
However, you must fully consider the impact of reducing the features of the system, and be sure that this will not adversely effect the day to day operation of your business.
For example, if you are currently using the General Ledger integration feature, disabling the feature will require the necessary details to be re-processed in the General Ledger System. As always, you must decide if this is advantageous, and investigate any necessary manual support functions.
Please note that these parameters are shared by all entities and therefore it is only necessary to enter in the initial details once.
JCSTATIC Maintain Static Details
The set of processes contained within this menu are used to maintain the static details within the Job Costing system. These static details are relatively constant, and are used throughout the Job Costing system.
Once established, these details will rarely need changing, as they reflect aspects of the basic structure of the Job Costing system.
JOBTYPE Maintain Job Types
This process maintains job type codes for use within the Job Costing system.
A job type is a means of grouping together jobs which have similar characteristics and so belong within a similar category. E.g. maintenance type jobs or construction jobs.
Some of the characteristics that may be associated with a job type are :
User-defined input fields (for recording special job details).
Processes and activities which need to be carried out, and the work instructions associated with these activities.
General ledger accounts for Work in Progress and Cost of Sales.
ACTGROUP Maintain Activity Groups
This process maintains the file ACTIVITY.GROUPS .
Activity groups are used in reporting and in the printing of job cards. Each activity type may belong to an activity group. Activities may be allocated an activity group through the ACTIVITY process.
If an activity group still has activities associated with it, you will be unable to delete the activity group. You will be required to change the activity group entered against these activities via the ACTIVITY process.
ACTIVITY Maintain Activities
This process maintains Activities for use within the Job Costing menu. Details are the activities code, description and short description, the general ledger account and whether it is costed or not.
COSTYPE Maintain Cost Types
This code determines the costing type. These codes are defined as follows:
A - Average.
S - Standard.
F - First In First Out.
I - Itemized (Serial).
B - Batch.
LABORATE Maintain Labour Rates
This process is used to maintain the labour rates that will be accessed from within the Job Costing system.
e.g. NT for Normal Time etc.
N.B. their may be labour rates that exist on file that were created from within the payroll system via the PAYFACT process. These rates may not be accessed from this process, however they may still be referenced for labour transactions etc. These rates are flagged on the find screen with a Y if they were created from the PAYFACT process.
TIMEGRP Maintain Time Groups
This program groups labour rates and/or activities together along with their costed and/or non-costed activities for reporting purposes.
WORKER Maintain Costed Workers
This process is used to maintain workers that will be referenced within the job costing system.
Details kept include worker's code and description, labour rates that they may work under and the respective dollar per hour amounts for the labour rates.
N.B. If you have Payroll integration with Job Costing then workers that appear on the find screen and are flagged with a Y es for via EMPMAINT , may not be accessed via this process as they have been created in the EMPMAINT process in payroll.
TEAMMNT Maintain Teams
This screen maintains team codes and names, as well as a list of the members within each team. These members may be 'workers' from the Job Costing System, or may be from outside the company.
Each team is specific to a particular company.
Members outside of the company do not require a worker code.
JCAUTH Maintain Job Authorizations
This process allows you to maintain a list of those people within your organization who are authorized to create or maintain job details or job quotes. This facility is not mandatory, but may be useful if you have a need to record on job quotes or job detail records, who created the quote or detail record.
Using this facility, it would also be possible to produce reports based on the Authorized Person via Query Language or otherwise.
For example : A Query Language report could be coded to provide a list of all job quotes entered by Joe Bloggs in January this year.
An Authorized by code is prompted on the following processes (although it is an optional field) :
MAINJOB - Maintain Job Details
JCQUOTE - Job Costing Quote
QJCQUOTE - Quick Job Costing Quote
PLANT Maintain Plant Equipment
This process is used to establish items of plant that can be used within the job costing system if you nominate that you will be using Plant Costing via PAPARAM in the Payroll System.
This enables plant time to be recorded against jobs while details of labour are processed through payroll.
Each item of plant can have distinct charge rates associated with it, which can vary with the associated pay factor. Details of plant usage are recorded as expenses in the Job Costing System, with income able to be charged to a separate account in the General Ledger System.
Use of this facility is entirely optional, and details of plant items need only be established if you will be using this facility.
Plant items may be tied into the Asset Register System.
PRODPROC Manufacturing Procedures
This process allows you to maintain budget and documentation details relating to the manufacture or work done on a particular product code. Details such as the activities to be performed (and related budget times etc.) may be entered, free format text work instructions and references to QA documents may also be maintained for each product or product/job type combination.
These details can be called on when producing a quote or a job card, to act as default values.
Screen 1 allows maintenance of a list of activities associated with each product (or product/job type combination) entered. For each activity, you can also enter a budget figure for labour, materials and expenses.
Screen 2 allows you to enter notes where you can detail, as required, the procedures involved in the manufacture (or repair) of the product being maintained.
Screen 3 allows you to enter any documents (maintained via the Document Control System within Quality Assurance) which relate to the production of this product. These would typically be drawings or work instructions.
JCREPDEF Job Report Definitions
This process maintains the 'REPORT.QUESTIONS' file. It allows reports to be defined within the Job Costing system which can then be printed using the report options on the Job Report Menu ( JOBREPRT ).
MAINTJOB Maintain Maintenance Jobs
This process is used to enter and maintain information relating to ongoing maintenance jobs, that repeatedly occur with a given frequency.
For example, a customer may require a particular maintenance job be performed every six months. This job is entered in this process with the appropriate frequency (maintained in the process SYSFREQ ) and can be accessed as follows :
Reports of maintenance jobs entered with this process can be produced with the program MAINTRPT , showing which maintenance jobs require action up to a given period. Maintenance jobs requiring action are then created within the MAINJOB process, using the MAINTJOB number as a reference.
DUPMNTJB Duplicate Maintenance Jobs
This process allows you to copy or duplicate an existing Job Costing maintenance job, thereby creating a new maintenance job, with much the same details as an existing maintenance job.
You must first enter an existing JC maintenance job number, then a number for the maintenance job to be created (or this can be automatically generated depending on your setup parameters in JCPARAM ).
You will then be prompted for the basic customer details for the new maintenance job, which may or may not be the same as the existing maintenance job.
Once the maintenance job has been duplicated, you may make any further changes to the new maintenance job by using the maintenance process : MAINTJOB .
JGRPTYPE Maintain Job Group Types
This process allows you to define a type of grouping that can be used within the Job Costing System. The grouping facility allows you to examine details of Jobs that have common factors, and this job group simply allows you to look at all job groups that share a common factor.
For example, you may establish a job group with a code of FRAME that will be used to group all jobs by frame number, or SERNO to group by serial numbers and so forth.
When details for specific groups are examined, you may want to be able to find jobs relating to, say, a particular frame size, but you can not remember what the frame size is. This job grouping facility would allow you to determine all of the groups established under this generic heading of FRAME .
At least one Job Group Type must be established if you wish to use the job grouping facility, but this is entirely optional.
JOBGROUP Maintain Job Groups
This process is used to maintain a logical grouping of jobs, which can then be reported and enquired upon. This may correspond to a major project, all jobs relating to a particular type of job (eg: a brand/model of a motor), or any other grouping that may be required.
Jobs may belong to multiple groups, allowing any form of heirarchial structure to be duplicated. Each grouping simply corresponds to a view of the job costing system.
If you do not require or forsee a use for this feature there is no need to establish any job groups at all, as use of this facility is entirely optional.
JOBNOTE Job Notations
This process allows you to keep free form textual information on your jobs.
Typically this information would be general information relating to each job.
This information appears on the last screens of JOBENQ OJOBENQ and JCGRPENQ which are the Job Costing enquiry processes existing under the menu JCENQS .
JCQSTAT Quote Status Maintenance
This process is used to maintain a list of status codes that can be recorded against each Job Costing Quote.
PRDIDENT Product Identification Maintenance
This process allows you to enter the product identifications which can be referenced to a product manufactured on a job.
NXTPRDID Next Product Identification
This process allows you to allocate the next product identifier to use manually. This file will be automatically updated from the mainjob process to show the next pane to use. The next pane to use number will be used to default the product identifier onto the MAINJOB process.
JOBMENU Main Job Details
The processes contained within this menu are for the entry of labour transactions within the Job Costing menu.
The JOBLABOR process is used to enter the labour transactions into the system. The EDITJLAB process is used to validate the transactions before posting via POSTJLAB .
MAINJOB Maintain Job Detail
This process is used to enter information relating to a job. Information such as the customer, expected costs and completion dates, invoiced amounts and other details pertaining to the particular job are to be entered.
The job can be linked to a repeating maintenance job (created and maintained by the process MAINTJOB ) by entering the relevant maintenance job number in the appropriate field. This process will then look at the maintenance job, getting the required information for that job and defaulting to that job information. The next scheduled date for the maintenance job entered is also automatically updated when this job is processed.
If a quote for a customer has been entered via the process QJCQUOTE or JCQUOTE , then by entering the respective quote number, relative details for the job created will default from the information associated with the quote.
The Bill of Materials screen is updated using information from either the quote number or the product code on screen one, in that order of priority.
If a Work Order for a Job has been entered via the process WORKORD and you have nominated to be 'Manufacturing Stock' via JCPARAM , when entering the respective Work Order Number, relative details for the job, default from the information associated with the Work Order.
JOBCARD Print a Job Card
A job card lists the procedures involved in completing a particular job type. These procedures can be maintained through the process JOBTYPE.
JOBPKSLP Print a Job Picking Slip
This process will allow you to print picking slips for selected jobs which have outstanding products on them. i.e. it will display Job Number, Product Code, Description, Outstanding Quantity and the Location of the goods.
DUPJOB JC Mainjob Duplication