Single-Tier Change Management: To Prevent Direct Changes to Commitments

If you want to manage changes to a project's committed values, you can prevent the creation of purchase orders for the project on the Purchase Orders (PO301000) form and create new commitments by using change orders.

Story

Suppose that the HM's Bakery and Cafe customer has ordered a juicer from the SweetLife Fruits & Jams company, along with the services of installation and training for its employees on operating the juicer. SweetLife has contracted the Squeezo Inc. vendor to perform the installation. The project accountant of SweetLife has created a project with tasks corresponding to the installation and training phases.

Acting as the project accountant, you need to purchase the installation service from the vendor. When you purchase the budgeted service, you will lock the commitments for the project to prevent the direct processing of purchase orders for the project.

Configuration Overview

In the U100 dataset, the following tasks have been performed for the purposes of this activity:

• On the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form, the following features have been enabled:
  • Project Accounting, which provides support for the project accounting functionality
  • Change Orders, which gives you the ability to manage changes to the project’s budgeted and committed values
  • Inventory and Order Management feature, which provides the functionality of purchase orders
• On the Projects (PM301000) form, the HMBAKERY11 project has been created and the PHASE1 (for installation) and PHASE2 (for training) project tasks have been created for the project. PHASE1 is the default task of the project. The cost budget pf the project has not been configured.
• On the Non-Stock Items (IN202000) form, the INSTALL non-stock item has been configured.
• On the Vendors (AP303000) form, the SQUEEZO vendor has been created.

Process Overview

In this activity, you will create a purchase order for the project on the Purchase Orders (PO301000) form. You will then lock the project commitments on the Projects (PM301000) form to prevent the creation of purchase orders for the project on the Purchase Orders form.

System Preparation

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

1. Launch the MYOB Acumatica 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.
2. In the info area, in the upper-right corner of the top pane of the MYOB Acumatica screen, make sure that the business date in your system is set to 1/30/2024. If a different date is displayed, click the Business Date menu button, and select 1/30/2024 on the calendar. For simplicity, in this activity, you will create and process all documents in the system on this business date.
3. Open the Projects Preferences (PM101000) form, and on the General Settings tab (General Settings section), select the Internal Cost Commitment Tracking check box to expose commitments and committed values in the project budget, and save your changes to the project accounting preferences.

Step 1: Creating a Purchase Order for the Project

To create a purchase order for the project, do the following:

1. On the Purchase Orders (PO301000) form, create a purchase order, and specify the following settings in the Summary area:
   • Vendor: SQUEEZO
   • Description: Purchase for HM's Bakery & Cafe
2. On the Details tab, click Add Row on the table toolbar, and specify the following settings in the row:
   • Inventory ID: INSTALL
   • Order Qty.: 4.00
   • Project: HMBAKERY11
   • Project Task: PHASE1 (inserted automatically)
   • Cost Code: 00-000
3. On the form toolbar, click Remove Hold. The system assigns the purchase order the Open status.

   When the Open status is assigned to the purchase order, the system updates the committed values of the project.

4. On the Projects (PM301000) form, open the HMBAKERY11 project, and review the cost budget on the Cost Budget tab. Notice that the original committed quantity and amount of the budget line with the PHASE1 project task and the INSTALL inventory item are 4 and 320.00, respectively.

Step 2: Locking Commitments for the Project

To prevent the direct creation of purchase orders for the project, do the following:

1. While you are still reviewing the HMBAKERY11 project on the Projects (PM301000) form, on the More menu, click Lock Commitments.
2. On the Purchase Orders (PO301000) form, create a purchase order, and specify the following settings:
   • Vendor: SQUEEZO
   • Description: Purchase for HM's Bakery & Cafe
3. On the Details tab, click Add Row, and specify the following settings in the row:
   • Inventory ID: INSTALL
   • Order Qty.: 2.00
   • Project: HMBAKERY11

   When you select the project, the system shows an error message in the Project column that says you cannot create purchase order commitments for this project because the commitments are locked for the project (see the following screenshot).

   
   
   

4. Close the form without saving the purchase order, which was created solely for testing purposes.
   Tip: Until you unlock the commitments for the project, you can process new purchases for the project only with change orders.
5. On the General tab (General Settings section) of the Projects Preferences (PM101000) form, clear the Internal Cost Commitment Tracking check box, and save your changes to the project accounting preferences.