Invoice Billable Customers - status update Russ, Louise, Jamie
All costs to be applied against Jobs need to be recorded.
These costs are in 3 parts (time, materials, expenses)
Time
Labour applied to each job
* All staff time allocated against each job, must be entered into Netsuite
* This time entry must use a set group of labour item codes.
* Labour item codes exist for business, after hours and call-out labour costs
* Labour item codes exist for Do&Charge, Inspection&Test, Project work,and Consulting types of work
* Labour item codes exist for Services for Sale, and Services for Resale (only Services for Resale are used on PO's for subcontractors)
* Labour item codes used on PO's for subcontractors specify different rates for each subcontractor (vendor)
* Labour item codes need review and finalisation before publishing to staff
* All staff involved must be trained in the use of these labour item codes.
* If staff are doing this themselves they need Employee Centre access, and training on how to enter this information for themselves
* If Louise is doing this on their behalf, they need to submit fill in their time-sheets with this information accurately recorded.
* Time entered into Netsuite is 'actual' time applied. How this time is to be billed to customer must be accurately recorded by technician on the Tech Report (for invoicing purposes)
Materials
Material Expenses applied to each job
* All materials required to complete the Job must have Purchase Orders (PO's) created for them.
* Technicians need to be trained in all Item Codes, which could apply to their work.
* Item Codes need to be published for their reference purposes.
* Technicians must specify which item codes apply on their Tech Reports
* All Purchase Orders must be allocated to the JC job they are to be applied to in Netsuite, with no exceptions.
* Any PO's which apply against a JC job must be noted on the Tech Reports
* When a Tech Report specifies the Job 'completed', then this must be verified by John Taylor or Manager in case any of the following apply
o job halted on Friday afternoon and resumed the following week (cuts across pay period)
o Attending tech is wrong trade skill, so another tech then allocated this job
o Attending tech decides that an Estimate is necessary for this work, so it is not D&C, but Project based
o Multi-technicians attend this job in sequence, and they are not aware of each others involvement, so initial tech report says 'completed'
o It is an after-hours call-out and no Job/work # was available from the client, before attendance
Expenses
Additional expenses such as fuel, car parking, accommodation need to be taken into account.
* Costs to be applied against a job.
* This can be entered by technicians via the Employee Centre if the expenses are specific to a job.
* If expenses aren't specific to a job, they can be journaled across by Jim manually. (on a periodic basis)
Invoice Billable Customers (Wendy)
* John provides Wendy with Tech Reports,
* Wendy assumes that this Job is completed and ready for Invoice.
* Wendy uses Invoice Billable and selects the Job desired.
* She enters this job, and uses the information on the Tech Report/s to alter the Invoice as necessary. e.g. she relies on the accuracy of the item codes listed on the Tech report, and any information which relates to 'correct billable hours', which may be different to the 'actual' time entered into Netsuite.
* Wendy completes the Invoice and saves it
* Wendy prints a hard-copy for Jim to review
* Invoice is forwarded to Customer
*NB.. the key is review and finalisation of Item Codes, a tight work-flow process which is enforced and thorough training of staff
Invoice Billable Customers: - Outcome of meeting Russ/Louise/Jamie - 23 Sep 2008
Action Items:-
1. using I- as a prefix for installation codes as opposed to just I (why?, because there are reasons for codes other than installation codes to begin with the letter "I".) e.g. Russ has begun trialling this with I-TPS075C2RED-100m
* action is to review the existing installation codes in Netsuite, and change these across to "I-" prefix.
2. with the activity prefixes I,M,R e.g. Install, Modify, Remove, suggestion is that we change my Intranet summary to I=Install, M=Modify, C=Change, R=Remove.
* action is to review the existing prefixes in Netsuite, with a view to conforming to the above prefix rules
3. consider different item code alternatives for managing Labour call-outs
* separate into Site Establishment and Unit of Labour
* consider setting a min quantity of 2, for a call-out labour code, trial this in Dingo
* separate the billing and non billing components of a call out labour code
4. verify the GL impact of moving across "service for sale" (labour) across to "services for resale" (labour)
* how does a "service for resale" code impact the General Ledger (Forecast/Income/COGS/Expenses) for all of Estimate/Sales Order/Invoice/Purchase Order
* use Dingo to check this, if no impact on expenses when a Service for Resale is used in a Forecast/Income/COGS/Expenses, then we can migrate all desired Labour codes from Services for Sale across to Services for Resale.
5. Simplify all Labour codes, reduce them down to minimum
* remove those codes which specify departments, e.g. LITB, as this gets picked up at the transaction level, and is no longer assigned here.
* remaining Labour codes should now be allocated to services on COA e.g. there are now only 2 Labour Codes necessary. e.g. Labour business, and Labour afterhours
6. Disable sundry codes which are tempting to use
7. Develop a set of generic codes (Stewarts Security - invoice to ME) commoditise the codes so that we have 80%+ covered
1. Code for the problem
2. Code for the solution
3. Items used/applied
4. Conclusion
* NB..challenge is to ensure that what admin staff interpret as the problem is same as the actual problem. Needs to ask right questions
* export out of Netsuite a set of Case data
* analyse by class e.g. FA
- replace smoke detector
- fixed manual call point
- fault on fire panel
* identify the most used codes
8. SEEL code to be reviewed as it takes up too much screen space when creating a transaction e.g. estimate.
* Russ has considered covering Car Parking expenses in another way e.g. CP1 $14, CP2 $28, CP3 $42
9. Consider the value of assigning an employee to a Class or Department
10. Russ has created a new Item Group for filling out a Tech Report e.g. IFATR
11. Evaluate making Job assignment on Purchase Orders a mandatory field
12. A separate project before activating "Invoice Billable Customers" is to redo the Tech Report e.g. LA's Yes/No box's, irrelevant info etc.
13. Review of best way to create an 'IT' Item Group.
* check whether a Kit or Item Group can be a member of an Item Group.
