Back to P120: Project Accounting Basic Scenarios

Lesson 1: Creating Project Templates and Common Tasks

Part 1: Creation of Projects

Your organization may plan to perform projects that are similar to one another, and the projects may have tasks that are like other tasks in the same project or a diﬀerent project. This lesson explains how you can expedite the process of creating projects by using project templates, project task templates, and common tasks.

Project Templates and Common Tasks: General Information

In Acumatica ERP, you can create project templates from scratch by adding every detail that you think will be required for a typical project of specific type. Alternatively, you can create a template based on an existing project which you think is a typical representative of projects of specific type. When users create projects based on the templates, they can change any settings for particular projects—templates are used only to provide the default settings, thus making the project creation easier for users.

Learning Objectives

In this lesson, you will learn how to do the following:

Create a project template based on a project
Create a project template from scratch
Create a project based on the project template
Create a common task and add this task to a project

Applicable Scenarios

You create project templates and common tasks if you need to ease the creation of typical projects and typical tasks for existing projects, respectively.

Templates Created from Existing Projects

If you need to quickly create a new project based on the existing project, you can create a copy of the project by clicking Copy Project on the More menu of the Projects (PM301000) form. If you plan to use some specific types of project in future, you create a project template based on an existing project and then use this template to create new projects of the type. On the Projects (PM301000) form, you select a project that is a typical project of specific type and click Create Template on the More menu. The system will create a project template and include the project template tasks in this project template. You can modify the settings of the created template. Also, you can delete some of the tasks or add new tasks.

Templates Created from Scratch

A project template is an entity that you select when creating a new project to auto-populate the budget, settings, and attributes of the project with default values that are appropriate for projects of the type. In the created project, you can override the default values that have been inserted based on the project template, if needed. You can create project templates from scratch on the Project Templates (PM208000) form. When you create a project template, you can specify as many settings as you want, including the following:

General information: The broad information about the projects, including the default GL accounts and subaccounts and billing period. In the Status box on the Summary area of the form, you can see whether the specific project template is available for creating new projects. You can create projects only by using project templates with the Active status.
Visibility settings: The list of functional areas where the projects based on this template will be visible.
Template tasks: The tasks to be included in the projects based on this template.
List of employees: The employees who will work on the projects and the project manager who will be monitoring projects of the type. You also specify labor items and hourly rates for employees working on this project. Also, you can specify whether only the listed employees can work for the project (by selecting the Restrict Employees check box on the Summary tab).
List of equipment: The equipment to be used for the projects with appropriate non-stock items designating setup, run, and suspend rates and respective prices specific for projects of the type. You can specify whether only the listed equipment can be used for these projects.
Notes and files: Supplementary documents and notes to be provided with a project created based on the template. If the Project Quotes feature is enabled on the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form, the files and notes attached to a project template are also copied to the projects that are created from project quotes based on this project template. The settings specified for the project template are copied to each project created based on this project template.

Template Tasks

A project template may include project tasks that are actually templates of tasks that can be included in projects based on the template. You can add project task templates to the project template. You add the project tasks to the project template and specify the settings for these tasks by using the Project Template Tasks (PM208010) form. When you create a new template task, you can specify whether it is automatically included in all projects based on the project template. Template task settings include the following:

General settings: You can specify overall information about the task, including approver, tax category, default accounts and subaccounts, and billing period. The general settings also include visibility settings, the list of functional areas in which this project task must be visible. You can make tasks visible only in the functional areas in which the parent project is visible—the scope for the task cannot be wider than the scope for the project.
Recurring billing settings: Recurring billing can be used to implement the flat-price scenario with recurring payments when your future project uses flat rates for services or products you provide to your customer regularly. For more information about recurring billing, see Project Billing Preparation: Recurring Billing.
Notes and files: You can attach supplementary documents and notes to be attached to a project task created based on this template task. If the Project Quotes feature is enabled on the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form, files and notes attached to a project template are also copied to the project tasks added to project quotes based on this project template. The settings specified for the project template task are copied to the project tasks created based on this project template. If any of these settings are not specified in the project template task, the system copies the respective values from the project template.

Common Tasks

Common tasks are also templates of tasks, but they are not linked to any specific project or project template. You can add common tasks to any new or existing project and project quote. You create common tasks on the Common Tasks (PM208030) form. Generally, you provide the same types of settings for common tasks as for the template tasks: general, budget, and recurring billing settings. The settings specified for the common task are copied to the project tasks created based on this common task. If any of these settings are not specified in the common task, the system copies the respective values from the project template specified for the project.

Project Templates and Common Tasks: Process Activity

This activity will walk you through the process of configuring project templates. You will create a common task and add this task to a project. You will also learn how to create a new project based on a project template.

Story

Suppose that the Lake Cafe customer has ordered a juicer, along with the following services from the SweetLife Fruits & Jams company: site review, installation, and training of employees on operating the juicer. SweetLife's project accountant has analyzed the past projects and realized that customers are usually doing typical fixed- price projects that involve the sale of a juicer, along with the services of installation and site review. Sometimes customers' projects also involve training on operating the juicer. The project accountant decides to create a new project template for such a project, and to create a common task for training on operating juicers (so the task can be quickly added to projects as needed). Then the project accountant creates a project for the customer based on the created project template and common task. You will perform the needed actions in the system, acting as the project accountant.

Configuration Overview

In the U100 dataset, the following tasks have been performed to support this activity:

On the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form, the Project Accounting feature has been enabled to provide support for the project accounting functionality.
On the Billing Rules (PM207000) form, the COMBINED billing rule has been configured.

Process Overview

You create a project template on the Project Templates (PM208000) form. You create a common task on the Common Tasks (PM208030) form. Then you use the Projects (PM301000) form to create a project based on the created project template and add the common task to the project.

System Preparation

To sign in to the system and prepare to perform the instructions of the activity, do the following:

Launch the Acumatica ERP website, and sign in to a company with the U100 dataset preloaded; you should sign in as project accountant by using the brawner username and the 123 password.
In the info area, in the upper-right corner of the top pane of the Acumatica ERP screen, make sure that the business date in your system is set to 1/30/2025. If a diﬀerent date is displayed, click the Business Date menu button and select 1/30/2025 on the calendar. For simplicity, in this activity, you will create and process all documents in the system on this business date.

Step 1: Creating a Project Template To create a new project template, do the following:

On the Project Templates (PM208000) form, add a new record.
In the Summary area, specify the following settings:

Template ID: INSTALL
Description: Installation project

On the Summary tab, specify the following settings:

Project Properties section:
Revenue Budget Level: Task and Item
Cost Budget Level: Task
Project Manager: EP00000001
Billing and Allocation Settings section:
Billing Period: On Demand
Billing Rule: COMBINED

On the Tasks tab, add a new row, and specify the following settings in the row:

Task ID: PHASE1
Type: Cost and Revenue Task
Description: Site review

Add one more row, and specify the following settings:

Task ID: PHASE2
Type: Cost and Revenue Task
Description: Installation By default, the system inserts By Billing Period as the Billing Option of each project task and the COMBINED billing rule as the Billing Rule.

On the Revenue Budget tab, add each line of the project revenue that is listed in the following table by clicking Add Row and specifying the listed settings in the row.

    Project Task                Inventory ID                 Original Budgeted           Unit Rate
                                                             Quantity
    PHASE1                      SITEREVIEW                   2                           50

    PHASE2                      JUICER10                     1                           1500

    PHASE2                      INSTALL                      4                           100

   For each line, the system inserts REVENUE as the Account Group because the sales account specified in the
   settings of the stock and non-stock items is mapped to this account group, which has the Income type.

Save your changes to the project template. When you save the project template, the system automatically creates project template tasks corresponding to the tasks you have added to the project template.
On the form toolbar, click Activate to assign the project template the Active status, which makes it possible to use the project template for creating projects.
On the Tasks tab, in the Task ID column, click the PHASE1 link to open the task on the Project Template Tasks (PM208010) form. On the Summary tab of this form, notice that the Automatically Include in Project check box is selected by default. With this setting, the project template task will be automatically included in any project created based on the associated project template.
You have created a project template and project template tasks. In the next step, you will create a common task.

Step 2: Creating a Common Task A common task is a task that can be added to any new or existing project (unlike a project template task, which is associated with just one project template). To create a common task, perform the following instructions:

On the Common Tasks (PM208030) form, add a new record.
In the Summary area, specify the following settings:

Task ID: TRAINING
Description: Training on juicer usage

On the Budget tab, add a budget line with the following settings:

Account Group LABOR The system automatically inserts Expense in the Type column when you select the account group.
Inventory ID: TRAINING
Cost Code: 00-000
Description: Training on juicer usage
UOM: HOUR
Unit Rate: 50

Save your changes to the common task.
You have created a common task. In the next step, you will create a project based on the project template you have created.

Step 3: Creating a Project Based on the Project Template To create a project based on template, do the following:

On the Projects (PM301000) form, create a new project, and specify the following settings:

Project ID: INSTLAKE
Customer: LAKECAFE
Template: INSTALL When you select the project template, the system fills in the relevant elements of the project with the settings specified for the template, including tasks and revenue budget lines.

In the Summary area, enter Installation project for Lake Cafe as the Description of the project.
On the Summary tab, clear the Change Order Workflow check box.
Save your changes to the project.
On the Tasks tab, make sure that the PHASE1 and PHASE2 tasks have been copied to the project from the selected project template.
On the table toolbar of the tab, click Activate Tasks to change the status of the added tasks to Active.
On the Revenue Budget tab, make sure that three revenue budget lines have been copied to the project from the selected project template.
In the line with the PHASE1 task and the SITEREVIEW item, specify 4 as the Original Budgeted Quantity. When you enter the Original Budgeted Quantity in each line, the system automatically calculates the Original Budgeted Amount as the Original Budgeted Quantity multiplied by the Unit Rate (see the screenshot below).
In the line with the PHASE2 task and the INSTALL item, specify 8 as the Original Budgeted Quantity. 10.In the line with the PHASE2 task and the JUICER10 item, specify 2 as the Original Budgeted Quantity.
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   Figure: Revenue budget lines in the project

11.Save the project.
12.On the form toolbar, click Activate. The system assigns the project the Active status.
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You have created the project based on the project template. In the next step, you will add the common task to the project.

Step 4: Adding the Common Task to the Project To add the common task to the INSTLAKE project, perform the following instructions:

While you are still reviewing the INSTLAKE project on the Projects (PM301000) form, on the table toolbar of the Tasks tab, click Add Common Tasks.
In the Add Tasks dialog box, which opens, select the check box in the unlabeled column for the line with the TRAINING common task, and click Add Tasks & Close. The system adds the common task to the project and closes the dialog box.
On the Tasks tab, select Active as the Status in the line with the TRAINING task, which you just added.
On the Cost Budget tab, make sure that the line with the TRAINING common task has been added to the cost budget of the project. Specify 1 as the Original Budgeted Quantity in this line.
Save your changes to the project.
You have finished configuring the project based on a project template and have added the common task to the project. Part 1: Creation of Projects | 16