IEM - Advanced Job Management
Design Detail: Multiple scenarios to handle external resources in Advanced Job Management
Subcontracting work from a Job to external resources is common practise in project based organisations. To-Increase Industrial Equipment Manufacturing offers several scenarios to handle time registration and invoicing of these external resources. This blog explains the different scenarios.
The main differentiator is the Time Registration. Is the external resource registering the actual time worked in an IEM Time Sheet or not?
With time sheet
The user is assigned a Resources code which is connected to a user id to provide access to Dynamics 365 Business Central. The access can be set as Limited User using the Resource Portal to register hours on a time sheet. Time Registration is handled in the same way as all other resources. Which means the resource is planned on a Resource Planning Line from which assignments are created and maintained to the Resource Task. The resource task is selected in the time sheet from where the registration, approval and posting process is started. The Time Lines also post the Resource Planning Lines so project managers can follow the progress. However the resource, or the company of the resource, will send an invoice for the actual time which needs to be matched with the time posted.For this purpose an IEM specific function exists in the purchase invoice line "Get External Resource Lines". With this function resource ledger entries of the type "Usage" can be retrieved as purchase invoice lines and in that way in fact create the purchase invoice detail. The retrieved entries are from those resources marked as "Job Purchasing Resource' and for which a Vendor No. is specified. When posted the purchase invoice will create resource ledger entries of the type "Purchase". No postings are created in the Job since these were already made through the Time Registration system.
Best practise is this scenario is to in fact create the invoice, detail, on behalf of the vendor. In that way matching and posting the, vendor approved, purchase invoice is a snap. This scenario also implies there is no direct link between time and invoice posting as hours are posted to the Job through the time registration system and costs are taken from the resource card. The vendor invoice is "prepared" from the retrieved resource ledger entries with the same cost.
The following scenario bypasses the time registration system and provides a more tight connection with the actual invoicing.
Without time sheet
In this scenario the external resource is not connected to a user id and therefor has no access to Dynamics NAV. The resource is still being planned on the Resource Planning Line however in this case a Purchase Order is created instead of an assignment to a Resource Task.The external resource hands in the hours worked to the back office to post the Resource Planning lines accordingly. From this posting a "Payment Certificate" can be printed as an invitation to the vendor to create a purchase invoice accordingly.
With the vendor invoice the purchase order created earlier can be posted as invoiced. A specific IEM function allows you to link the purchase order line to a "Source, Job, Ledger Entry". When the purchase order is posted as invoiced Job Ledger Entries are updated accordingly to reflect the costs and quantities actually invoiced. In this scenario all related Job Ledger entries will be updated with the new, average, unit cost as is shown in the following example:
- On a Job 40 hours were purchased from an external resource for which 3 separate postings were made resulting in 3 Job Ledger entries. Initially the cost per hour was calculated as 50,60 per hour.
- Invoices came in at 3 different rates, the Avg Cost column shows the rate for each Job Ledger Entry after posting the invoice, ie after posting the final invoice each entry has a cost of 51,98.
Job LE* Cost Indirect Event Rate Avg. Cost Calculation 16 46,00 50,60 Invoice 1 45,00 49,50 45,00+10%*16)/16 12 46,00 50,60 Invoice 2 47,50 50,67 (((45,00+10%)*16)+((47,50+10%)*12))/28 12 46,00 50,60 Invoice 3 50,00 51,98 (((45,00+10%)*16)+((47,50+10%)*12)+((50+10%)*12))/40 *Job Ledger Entry