Enter the actual costing per period

Use Actual costing per period as a faster way to enter enter the lines of a particular period. Per line a maximum of five values can be recorded for each day. These then lead to as many actual costing lines. The function used to enter actual costing per period therefore makes it possible to enter the data on one line whereas this would take five lines in the function used to enter actual costing per line. The total number of hours entered is shown at the bottom of the entry layout.

Make actual costing entries changeable in another entry layout

In the properties of the entry layout for the actual costing per period, you can specify if you want to be able to change entries using a different entry layout.

To make actual costing entries changeable in another entry layout:

1. Go to: General / Management / Entry layout.
2. Select the entry layout for the actual costing per period. If you use the default entry layout, you need to create a new entry layout based on the default version.
3. On the General settings tab in the entry layout properties, specify how you want to deal with changing entries. You can choose from:
   1: Entries posted using another entry layout can be changed.
   2: Entries posted using another entry layout cannot be changed.
   If you select setting 2, you can add new lines using another entry layout, but you cannot change the existing lines.

The registration of hours worked and of other units:

1. Go to: Projects / Actual costing / Actual costing per period.
2. Complete the fields.:
   • The Project phase field is among the fields that you can add to the line fields in the entry layout. In that case you can enter the project phase per line. If you select processing the week, the project phase is then entered into every record that is generated on the basis of the line. If a project is linked to the line, you can only select project phases that are linked to the project. If no project has been entered, you can select a random project phase.
   • After the data have been entered in the selection part of the entry window, the lines for this selection are shown. If no lines were available for the combination in question of employee, financial year and period, "empty" lines are generated for all days in the period on which hours are entered by default. If for this combination lines had been entered previously, the existing lines are shown.
   • You enter the lines in the form of a matrix. Which values you can enter on the lines, depends on the layout used for the entry window. You can enter a maximum of five values on one line for every day.
   • When entering hours, you cannot enter anything smaller than a multiple of 3 minutes (0.05 hour), to prevent any rounding differences. That is because 3 minutes equals exactly 0.05 hour, while 1 minute equals 0.01667 hour.
3. Click on: Finish. 

   Note: 

   The entry matrix for entering actual costing per period should be configured to meet the organisation's requirements. For this purpose the options for field settings in the entry layout are used. This makes it possible, among other things, to enter fixed values in fields so that the user no longer has to complete them during entering. It is clear that for this function to work properly, the layout's configuration is of the utmost importance.

The lines that are entered using this function, are not immediately visible in the actual costing, but are saved in a separate file. Only after all data for a certain period has been recorded, the period is closed per employee to indicate that all hours and possible costs for the period have been accounted for. In this case a period is always equal to a period in the period table that is used for Profit Projects.

In the entry window three actions are available:

• Process
• Close a period
• Leave balance

Process actual costing lines

Use the Process action to process the lines in a period that has been closed. You can also process multiple periods of multiple users in one go.

1. Projects / Actual costing / Process periods. When you start this function, you see an overview of the periods for all employees that have not yet been processed.
2. Now select the periods and the employees for which you want to process the hours.
3. The periods that were still open, are now closed automatically and then processed.

Via Properties you can retrieve the properties of a record. You now start the actual costing per period where you can view the data entered. You cannot change anything here.

If you have entered a project phase and/or a description, this data is copied to all generated actual costing lines during the processing.

Note: 

You can only open the employees' periods that have not yet been processed.

Close a period

The Close period action indicates that for the employee all hours/units for the period in question have been entered and that the actual costing lines can now be created. The entry program is closed automatically. Any lines that have not yet been saved are now saved and marked as closed. After closing, you can still view the entered hours but you can no longer change them.

To be able to see the difference between the number of entered hours and the number of expected hours (based on the timetable), you can include the Shift hours field in the header or footer sections of the Actual costing per line entry layout. During selection (F5) this field shows the number of hours expected on the basis of the timetable recorded in HR.

If you have indicated that nothing needs to be checked, you see the question if you want to close the period. Click on Yes.

If you did set a check (Allow exception or Closing entry), Profit calculates the number of hours the employee should have worked in the period in question based on the timetable specified in Profit HR. This number of hours is then compared with the total number of hours entered in the actual costing for the period in question.

The following may now happen:

• If the total number of hours entered in the actual costing is lower than the number calculated based on the timetable, a message appears notifying you there is a difference between the expected number of hours and the entered number of hours. The period cannot be closed. Click on OK.   
• If you selected Closing entry for the timetable check and the total number of entered hours is higher than the number of hours calculated based on the timetable, a message appears and you cannot close the period.
  If the number of hours is equal to the number of hours calculated based on the timetable, you are asked if you want to close the period. Click on Yes.
• If you selected Allow excess for the timetable check and the total number of entered hours is higher than the number of hours calculated based on the timetable, a message appears notifying you that more hours than expected have been entered. If the number of hours is equal to the number of hours calculated based on the timetable, you are asked if you want to close the period. Click on Yes.

  Note: 

  The check is only performed if the Close period action is performed from an entry layout of the Actual costing per week type in which the Check (shift) timetable when closing check box is selected in the general settings.

Leave balance

When entering actual costing lines, you have the option of retrieving the leave balances of the employees. Use the Leave balance action button to do this.

Block a period

In the Profit Projects period table, you can block a closed period by selecting the Blocked check box in the properties of the period table. This way, you can prevent employees from entering actual costing in a closed period. When entering actual costing per line / per week / per period or using ProfitWeb, Profit checks to see if the hours are entered in a blocked period. This check is also performed when you import the actual costing lines. By deselecting the check box you cancel the block.