Back to V310: Construction Project Management

Lesson 1: Preparing WIP and Bonding Reports

This lesson explains how to prepare work-in-progress and bonding reports for construction projects.

Construction Reports: General Information

Acumatica ERP Construction Edition includes various reports that you can use to get a complete view of project data, eﬀectively track project costs, and estimate current project performance.

Learning Objectives

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

Prepare substantiated billing reports and understand what information is included in them
Prepare American Institute of Architects (AIA) reports and understand what information is included in them
Prepare work-in-progress (WIP) and bonding reports and understand what information is included in them
Prepare subcontract audit reports and understand what information is included in them
Review the project lifecycle and performance with the help of Acumatica ERP Construction Edition reports

Applicable Scenarios

You may find construction-specific reports useful in your role as a project manager in the following scenarios:

You have billed a customer for work completed for a particular period and want to provide the customer with a report of the cost transactions to support the pro forma invoice.
You need to formally request payment from the project owner.
You need to verify that the billed work has been completed according to the contract specifications.
You need to estimate the current progress of a project and the financial performance of particular project tasks.

In the construction industry, when contractors bill their customers, the customers may want to see proof of the costs. In this case, the contractors need to provide supporting documentation along with the customer statement or invoice. Acumatica ERP Construction Edition includes the Substantiated Billing (PM650000) and Substantiated Billing - Consolidated (PM650050) reports, which are specifically designed to display a detailed breakdown of the costs incurred during a specific date range, along with the supporting documentation. For a detailed description of the information included in substantiated billing reports, see Construction Reports: Substantiated Billing Reports.

AIA Reports

The common construction billing format is known as AIA progress billing, named based on the American Institute of Architects, which produces the industry’s oﬀicial forms. An AIA report serves as both the contractor’s application and the architect’s certification. Using an AIA report helps to expedite payment and reduces the possibility of errors. If the application is properly completed and acceptable to the architect, the architect’s signature certifies to the owner of the project that a payment in the amount indicated is due to the contractor. The form also gives the architect the ability to certify an amount that is diﬀerent than the amount applied for and to provide a corresponding explanation. Lesson 1: Preparing WIP and Bonding Reports | 10

For a detailed description of the information included in AIA reports, see Construction Reports: AIA Reports, Construction Reports: AIA Reports for Released Retainage, and Construction Reports: Time and Material Amounts in AIA Reports.

Bonding Reports

By using the Construction Bonding Report (PM650500), you can gain an understanding of the work in progress for both ongoing and completed projects within a selected date range. This report provides a wide-angle snapshot of all the projects in the system and can be used by your company's management or bonding companies to assess the financial health of the projects and make informed decisions. You can create a bonding report based on your preferences and needs. The typical process involves performing the following general steps on the report form:

Selecting the project you want to report on, or leaving the Project box empty to report on multiple projects.
Selecting the status (Active, Completed, or Active and Completed) of the projects you want to view. If needed, you can also exclude from the report completed projects that have an end date earlier than or the same as the date that you specify in the Exclude Projects Completed Through Date box.
Selecting the period for which you want to display data.
Selecting the source of the costs that the system will use to calculate the report values (By Cost Budget or By Cost Projection).
Checking the printing and email settings and making any needed changes.
On the report form, you can create and save the template of the report for future needs. Aer you have specified the bonding report settings, you run the report by clicking Run Report on the report form toolbar. The system opens the report. In the report, you can review the list of projects with information that reflects their financial state. All amounts are shown in your project currency. For each project, the table displays the following key financial indicators, which characterize the company's sustainability:

Percentage of project completion
Earned revenue
Costs and billings of the period
Overbilled and underbilled amounts
Turnover cost and billing amounts for the previous financial year Depending on the option selected in the Planned Cost Estimation box of the report form, the report also includes the following financial indicators:
If By Cost Budget is selected, the costs to complete and costs at completion
If By Cost Projection is selected, the projected costs to complete and projected costs at completion You can print the report or export it to a PDF or to Microso Excel.

WIP Reports

In the construction industry, some companies use the percentage-of-completion method for revenue recognition. These companies provide a work-in-progress (WIP) schedule along with their financial statements. A WIP schedule is a detailed report used in project management to track the progress of ongoing projects and their financial status. It provides a snapshot of all projects that are currently in progress and oﬀers insights into their financial performance, including the costs incurred, the revenue earned, and the percentage of completion. For more information on how you can use the WIP reports provided in Acumatica ERP Construction Edition, see Construction Reports: WIP Reports. Lesson 1: Preparing WIP and Bonding Reports | 11

Subcontract Audit Reports

Managers in the construction industry rely on subcontract audit reports to ensure accuracy in billing, verify that the work performed aligns with the contract terms, and maintain accountability. These reports help managers track costs, identify potential risks, and ensure eﬀective workflows. By using the Subcontract Audit (SC644000) report form, you can create a summary or detailed report about the subcontracts for a particular date range. This report includes subcontract balances and the documents that have aﬀected these balances, such as change orders, bills, and applied payments. Additionally, it displays the budgeted and retainage amounts for each subcontract, as well as the current outstanding balance and the unbilled, billed-to- date, and paid-to-date amounts. The report shows summary or detailed information broken down by subcontract.

Construction Reports: WIP Reports

When companies use the percentage-of-completion method for revenue recognition, they include a WIP (which can indicate work in progress or work in process) schedule with their financial statements. WIP reports are designed to track the current progress of a project, as well as the financial performance of particular project tasks. The tracking of WIP gives you the ability to determine whether a project task is overbilled or underbilled relative to its progress. In Acumatica ERP, you can use the Project WIP (PM651500) and Project WIP Detail (PM652500) reports to gather and analyze the necessary information to meet your business’s needs. The sections of this topic describe the key project metrics that you can analyze with WIP reports and give a brief overview of report columns that are useful for this analysis. For the complete list of columns in the WIP reports and formulas that are used for calculations, see the Project WIP (PM651500) and Project WIP Detail (PM652500) report reference topics.

Project Performance

In the WIP reports, you can review the project data of the selected period range (from Period 1 to Period 2) with the project actual values calculated through the period that is not in this period range (Period 3). For example, you can analyze the performance of a project through the current period, 01-2025, while the overall project details will be calculated for the previous financial year (01-2024 through 12-2024). In the Project WIP Detail (PM652500) report, you can also analyze project performance with the report information broken down by cost codes and project tasks, or by project tasks only.

Project Progress

In the WIP reports, you can analyze project progress for a particular range of periods based on the following report columns:

Period Costs and Costs to Period
Period Billings and Billings to Period
Gross Profit, Gross Profit Backlog and Est. Gross Profit
Revenue Backlog
Remaining Contract

Potential Costs

You can include cost projections in WIP reports to analyze the potential costs of every project phase and their impact on the overall project performance before these costs appear in the company profit and loss statements. The released cost projections can be included in calculations for the following columns: Lesson 1: Preparing WIP and Bonding Reports | 12

Projected Cost at Completion
Estimated Gross Profit and Estimated Gross Profit %
Billings in Excess of Costs and Cost in Excess of Billings
Gross Profit and Gross Profit Backlog
Earned Revenue
% Complete
Revenue Backlog

Earned Revenue for the Period’s End By using WIP reports, you can analyze the earned revenue of the project for the end of a financial period. You can also make adjustments to the profit and loss statements in order to comply with the matching principle of generally accepted accounting principles (which states that the expenses related to the revenue have to be recorded to the same financial period in which the revenue has been recorded). In the prepared WIP report, you can analyze the values in the Billings in Excess of Cost and Cost in Excess of Billings columns as follows:

If Billings in Excess of Costs is positive, this means that the project is overbilled—that is, the project billings exceed the earned revenue. In this case, you create and release the following GL adjustment transaction:
Deferred Revenue account, Cr, Billings in Excess of Costs total
Income account, Dr, Billings in Excess of Costs total
If Cost in Excess of Billings is positive, this means that the project is underbilled—that is, earned revenue exceeds the project billings. In this case, you create and release the following GL adjustment transaction:
Accrued Revenue account, Dr, Costs in Excess of Billings total
Income account, Cr, Costs in Excess of Billings total

Construction Reports: To Prepare a Work-in-Progress Report

This activity will walk you through the process of working with the work-in-progress (WIP) report.

Story

Suppose that the ToadGreen Building Group company is building a hotel for The Equity Group Investors, its customer, and is in the middle of the lifecycle of the construction project. The ToadGreen project estimator needs to track the progress of active project tasks, as well as their financial performance. The company uses the percentage-of-completion method for revenue recognition and includes the work-in-progress reports in the company’s financial statements. Acting as a project estimator, you will determine whether the project is overbilled or underbilled relative to its progress

Configuration Overview

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

On the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form, the Construction and Construction Project Management features have been enabled.
On the Projects (PM301000) form, the HOTEL project has been created with project tasks and their budgets. Lesson 1: Preparing WIP and Bonding Reports | 13

Process Overview

You will prepare a work-in-progress report for the project on the Project WIP (PM651500) form and review the project cost and billing information. Then you will drill down to the Project WIP Detail (PM652500) report to review the information broken down by project tasks and account groups.

System Preparation

To prepare to perform the instructions of this activity, do the following:

Sign in to the system as the project estimator by using the wendell 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 today’s date. For simplicity, in this activity, you will create and process all documents in the system on this business date.

Step 1: Preparing the Project WIP Report To prepare the WIP report, do the following:

Open the Project WIP (PM651500) report form, and specify the following report parameters:

Project: HOTEL
From Period: 03-2025
To Period: 04-2025
Planned Cost Estimation: By Cost Budget
Actuals to Period: 04-2025

On the report form toolbar, click Run Report to generate the WIP report. In the prepared report, review the amounts in the Gross Profit column in the Actual bucket, and the Cost in Excess of Billings column, as shown in the following screenshot.
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   Figure: Work-in-progress report for the project

   As the report shows, you have to bill the customer more to establish a stable project continuation.
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Now you need to investigate the work-in-progress report broken down by revenue budget lines.

Step 2: Reviewing the Project WIP Detailed Report To prepare the detailed work-in-progress report, do the following:

While you are still reviewing the prepared work-in-progress report on the Project WIP (PM651500) form, click the HOTEL link in the Project column. The system opens the Project WIP Detail (PM652500) report with the work-in-progress information broken down by project tasks and account groups.
On the report toolbar, click View PDF. The system prepares and opens a PDF file with the report in which you can review the amounts for each project task and find out which project tasks require billing.
You have prepared the work-in-progress report for the project. Lesson 1: Preparing WIP and Bonding Reports | 14

Construction Reports: To Prepare a Bonding Report

This activity will walk you through the process of working with the bonding report.

Story

Suppose that to ensure profitability, a project estimator of the ToadGreen company wants to see how projects are progressing in May 2025, and which projects may need special attention. Acting as a project estimator, you will prepare and review the construction bonding report for this purpose.

Configuration Overview

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

On the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form, the Construction feature has been enabled.
On the Projects (PM301000) form, multiple projects have been created. (The projects are in the middle of the lifecycle.)

Process Overview

You will prepare the construction bonding report for the project on the Construction Bonding Report (PM650500) form.

Step: Reviewing the Bonding Report Prepare the report by doing the following:

Open the Construction Bonding Report (PM650500) report form.
On the Report Parameters tab, specify 05–2025 in the As of Period box. Leave the default values for all the other parameters.
On the report form toolbar, click Run Report. The generated report shows the key details of all the active projects, as shown in the following screenshot.
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    Figure: Construction bonding report for May
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Lesson 2: Configuring Two-Tier Change Management | 15