Construction Project Budget: Implementation Checklist

The following sections provide details you can use to ensure that the system is configured properly for managing budget in construction projects, and to understand (and change, if needed) the settings that affect the processing workflow.

Implementation Checklist

We recommend that before you initially manage project budgets, you make sure the needed features have been enabled, settings have been specified, and entities have been created, as summarized in the following checklist.

Other Settings That Affect the Workflow

You can affect the workflow of managing the project budget by specifying additional settings as follows:

• If you are going to use inventory items in the revenue budget of your projects, select Detailed in the Revenue Budget Update box on the General tab (General Settings section) of the Projects Preferences (PM101000) form. With this option selected, if a transaction has an inventory item specified and the revenue budget has no line with the same inventory item, the system creates a new budget line with this item.

  With the Summary option selected (the default option), the system updates the revenue budget line with the empty item code (N/A) instead of the inventory item of the transaction if such a line exists; otherwise, a new budget line with the empty item code is created.

  Similarly, the system updates the cost budget based on the option selected in the Cost Budget Update box on the General tab (General Settings section).

• If you need to make the revenue budget more detailed by adding the inventory item to the budget structure, select Task and Item in the Revenue Budget Level box on the Summary tab (Project Properties section) of the Projects (PM301000) form. As a result, you will be able to select an inventory item in a revenue budget line.
• If you need to make the cost budget less detailed by excluding the inventory item from the budget structure, select Task in the Cost Budget Level box on the Summary tab (Project Properties section) of the Projects form. As a result, you will not be able to select an inventory item in a cost budget line.
• If you want to rename the default empty item code (<N/A>), which is selected in a project budget line to indicate that no specific item is associated with the line, specify the needed code in the Empty Item Code box on the General tab (General Settings section) of the Projects Preferences form.
• To allow a user to enter subcontract lines and purchase order lines related to a project if these lines have not been initially specified in the cost budget of the project, select the Allow Adding New Items on the Fly check box on the Projects form.
• To cause the system to control whether an entered document is within the cost budget of a project, select Show a Warning in the Budget Control box on the General (General Settings section) tab of the Projects Preferences.

With these settings and entities specified, users in your company can manage the project budget quickly and accurately with a minimum of manual actions.