Project Series

Great Plains Dynamics Project Series is a proven favorite with consultants, engineers and software developers. Virtually any professional service firm needing to track costs associated with projects in order to provide clients with punctual and accurate billing will benefit from the Project Series. While many companies continue to use in-house spreadsheets and word processing methods, the Dynamics Project Series provides a “total solution,” seamlessly integrated with the entire Great Plains financial management solution. Companies choosing the Dynamics Project Series report reduced clerical costs, improved cash flow and more cost-effective management decisions.

Project Series enables you to efficiently track unlimited contracts and projects with as much detail as you need

Project Management: The Project Series enables you to setup contracts and projects, inquire and report on project status and profitability, and track labor, equipment, material, miscellaneous and employee expenses. Whether you need project accounting for internal or billable projects, the Project Series can accommodate your needs as a project-run organization.

Contracts, Projects and Budgets: To help you reduce data errors and increase consistency across all projects, Project Series allows you to set up “template” contracts, projects and budgets. Templates are precise definitions of contracts and projects that can be copied into any new contract and/or project. This is a tremendous time saver if you do a lot of repetitive work in your company or you do very complex projects that are time consuming to re-enter regardless of their frequency.

Typically, after copying in a template, a few adjustments to the budget for the particular project are all that is needed to get the project going. Contracts and projects can be manually entered and edited as well. Every aspect of the contract and project can be defined in as much or as little detail as your company needs to effectively manage the project.

You can create highly detailed budgets based on financial periods, or you can make them as simple as entering a single cost category to track costs and revenues against. Once a project is defined and open, transactions can be recorded against it, and changes to the initial budget can be made throughout the progress of the project when unforeseen modifications need to be made.

Project costs and revenues are captured for tracking, invoicing and reporting purposes

Project Tracking: The Project Series tracks projects in detail without relying on General Ledger account structure manipulation. Many organizations use the General Ledger account for project tracking, growing their chart of accounts to proportions beyond control. The Project Series takes away this burden through account integration at any level of a project. Details are tracked by Project and Cost Category (cost center) and the Segment Override feature allows for detail tracking by General Ledger account when needed. For example, a project could be tracked by department in the general ledger for specific profit center analysis. The structured hierarchy organizes projects in a way that is easy to understand and implement for complex projects without requiring knowledge or input of GL accounts when transactions are entered.

Select the Project Type and Revenue Recognition Method that Best Meets Your Needs: Dynamics Project Series supports three different project types which include: Time & Materials, Cost Plus and Fixed Fee projects.  In addition, users can determine how they want to recognize revenue on projects by selecting from any of the methods supported by the Project Series.  These methods include: Accrual (when billed or when performed), Percentage Completion (based on costs or quantity), Completed, or on a Ratable-basis, which allows you to spread the revenue recognition across periods of time.  And, when setting up projects, users have the opportunity to “mix & match” the project types and revenue recognition methods supported within the product, leaving room for very complex or simple project configurations.

Detailed, Periodic Budgeting: The Project Series improves a client’s project management through Budgeting at the detail level. Budget by individual line item dollar values by period with Periodic Budgeting. This feature assists finance and accounting in preparing cash budgets and revenue streams, as it provides a basis for measuring periodic performance. This functionality provides a more complete picture of actual costs compared to budgets for billable non-billable and non-chargeable tasks.

Frequency-based Billing: The Project Series alleviates one of the major pain points for professional service companies with efficient billing processes and flexible invoice formats. Frequency-based billing called Cycle Billing cuts down the amount of time it takes to review, edit and print invoices by automating the invoicing process. And, Progress Billing allows you to invoice clients based on the percentage completion of the project. Fifty invoice formats can be customized based on client needs, providing each client with a customized invoice automatically per their needs. Integration to Receivables Management means that customer balances are managed from a central location, and updated with each invoice that goes out the door. 

When clients are billed lump-sum amounts for service, project, retainer or retention fees, the Project Series Fees are flexible enough to allow fees of all types to be tracked to the project and invoiced on a scheduled basis to the client.

Anytime, Anywhere Time and Expense Entry: With the Project Series’ remote time and expense entry application, Personal Data Keeper (PDK) or the internet based time entry application e.Timesheets, a client does not have to pay for additional Dynamics users to capture timesheets and expense reports. Personal Data Keeper and e.Timesheets capture these transactions and integrates the information seamlessly into the financial system, meaning a one-time entry of time and expenses. Billing notes allow employees to document work done on timesheets, and templates can be created to speed time and expense entry. As a final step, managers can approve timesheets either offline, or via the Internet prior to posting.

Within PDK, employees can synchronize and submit their time and expenses and receive access only to projects that pertain to them, ensuring privacy and security. Information is downloaded to the desktop and can be accessed and entered offline, requiring only a phone connection for synchronization purposes.

Managing purchases: The Project Series purchasing feature provides a complete purchase order and receivings system for your company. Optimized for tracking project-specific purchases, Project Series also enables you to track all of your non-project expenses. Multiple purchase order formats give you a high degree of flexibility in defining purchase orders, and user-definable options provide extensive control in tailoring the system to your purchasing methods. With a direct integration to Inventory, all purchase activity is shared with Dynamics Payables Management, enabling you to enter information only once and deliver accurate, up-to-date information throughout your financial management solution.

Managing Inventory across projects: When you need to include inventory items in your projects, the Project Series comes through with the ability to transfer inventory from Inventory Control to the Project Series. Transfer in standard and serial/lot numbered items to a project for complete control over what will be used and when it will be available for billing.

If items are not used they can be returned back to inventory in one step for availability on other projects. After transferring, inventory information is available to print on the invoice for clear communications with clients.

Track utilization of equipment: For example, if you own a large scanner that you wish to bill usage within projects. This Equipment log would then be used to record the time that scanner was used. Expense Logs track expenses that will be billed but whose direct costs are recorded elsewhere: the classic example is copying charges. Many professional service firms charge for copying services, However, the costs of the paper, maintenance of the copier, the salary of the employee making the copies, etc. are recorded elsewhere. The Expense Log allows you to track these billable charges.

Track Miscellaneous costs: Utilize Miscellaneous cost entry within the Project Series to track miscellaneous costs against projects.  Subcontractor, overhead and non-quantity related expenses often need to be accounted for, and tracking them within projects makes for better understanding of just really how much certain projects costs related to the revenue they bring to the organization.

Recognize Revenue when you want to: Project Series allows revenue recognition to be a separate process from invoicing, meaning that you choose when to recognize revenue based on GAAP requirements and your business needs.

Accurate profitability, utilization and realization analysis: A daily challenge for project managers is tracking profitability, utilization and realization of projects. Is the project profitable or losing money? Are employees utilizing their time at appropriate levels? What realization of potential billings is being reached? The Project Series helps you answer these questions with it’s comprehensive set of reports. Each report is customizable with easy to use report writing tools. Knowing the answers to these questions will help you make well-informed decisions.

Project Work in Process Inquiry: Quick inquires allow project managers to view project status at a high level, then drill back to the project and the cost categories for greater detail regarding costs to date, projected revenue and Profit/Loss information.

General Ledger capabilities

Provides the most flexible general ledger interface in the industry: The Project Series provides the most flexible general ledger interface in the industry. With Project Accounting, you have complete control over WIP, Accrued  and Percentage Completion Revenue tracking in the General Ledger. You can also assign project-specific subaccounts tailored to your account definition to override the default subaccounts. This control extends to each cost category in each individual budget if necessary. Multiple cost categories can be assigned to the same General Ledger accounts, allowing you to simplify your General Ledger while still maintaining the reporting detail you require for project tracking. You no longer need to establish an overly complex chart of accounts just to accommodate project reporting.

Flexible cost categories: Cost categories allow you to define all of the items you wish to track. Each cost category can be assigned to one of the five transaction types. You can define an unlimited number of cost categories for each transaction type, allowing you to track costs at whatever level you deem appropriate for your company. Several default parameters can be defined for each cost category.