Financial Assignments

This article shows how to create and modify non-labor financial forecasts and actuals and how to see the cost of labor assignments on Financial Assignment pages.

Overview

A financial assignment is an association of a project, a non-labor financial item, and the responsible OBS node. Financial assignments have the same fields as labor skill assignments plus the Financial Item and Financial Category fields.

Financial assignments can be created, modified, and deleted on either the $ > Assignments page or the Workspace > Financials page of individual projects.

The capabilities described in this article apply to both the Financial Assignments page and project workspace Financials pages with one exception: Post Labor Cost is available only on the project workspace Financial Assignment page.

“Global” Financial Assignments Page

Workspace Financials Page

The financial date range is independent of the labor date range used in Labor Assignments.
You can be working with Week or Month granularity on skill or resource assignments and with Quarter or Year granularity on financial pages.

Rights: Access to financial assignment data is determined by the user’s financial right level.
(For more on Rights, refer to: Administering Rights and Privileges)

Non-labor and labor costs come from different pages:

Labor Cost financial assignments are derived from labor assignments by multiplying forecast times labor rates tables or rate data.  (Refer to the section below: Post Labor Costs)

Features on the Financial Assignment page

From left to right along the grey page toolbar near the top of the page:

• “+” – create a new financial assignment.
• Copy icon – copy the selected financial assignment row(s) to the same or a different project.
• Trash icon – select the row(s) to delete.

• [Workspace page only: Post Labor Cost – create calculated labor cost financial assignments using labor forecast and the labor rates defined in the environment.

• Add to Scenario – add the selected assignment rows to a scenario.
• Options icon – Show Project Schedule checkbox – show a GANTT bar above the period data columns for the project on the selected assignment row.
• Filter icon:
  • Custom Filter – define a custom filter for the page.
  • Clear all Filters – remove all filters on the page.
  • Filter Zero Rows – show only rows with period data values in the current date range.
    • Hide empty rows
  • Filter on Unsaved Changes – show only rows that have been changed since the last Save.
• View selection drop down – use this to select the view you would like to use.
• Edit Views icon – add, remove, or re-order the columns in your view and create new views.
• Save – save your changes
• Import – import from a .csv file.
• Export – create an export .csv
• Data Value Type Drop-Down – change the values displayed on the page among Forecast, Actual, and Actual-Forecast.
  • Actual financials can be entered or imported and saved when Actual is selected.
  • Actuals are in all past periods up to the period before the period containing the current date. Forecasts are in the period containing the current date and all future periods.

[NOTE: The larger the period granularity the less accurate the Actual-Forecast. If in Year granularity and the current date is in period 12, period 12 will display no actuals.]

[NOTE: In current versions of ResourceFirst there is no formatting distinction between actual and forecast values in the grid.]

[Note: Assignments with “Revenue” category are excluded from totals on the Financial Assignments page.]

Display Financial Data

Non-labor financials are summarized on the Financials Rollup page and in custom reports developed in the ResourceFirst-QlikView environment.

Labor cost is not available on the Financial Rollup page.

Displaying Labor Cost on Financial Pages

ResourceFirst provides options to display the cost of labor assignments as assignments on financial pages. This can be done automatically or via manual posting of the labor cost assignments for each project.

For more on labor cost calculations, see Displaying Labor Cost on Financial Pages.

For more on labor rates and cost calculations, see Understanding Labor Rates.

Financial Interface to a Corporate System

ResourceFirst can import or export financial data from/to from most corporate financial systems. Contact your PDWare representative about creating an automated interface that loads financial forecasts and actuals from the external financial system.

How To

Access the financial assignment page

Step 1: Click the “$” icon at the middle of the left icon group of the blue toolbar.

Users who do not have financial rights, will not see the “$” icon.
(See your ResourceFirst administrator.)

Access the individual project workspace financial assignment page

Step 1: Click a project name on any page with the project name field.

This drills down to the workspace of the selected project.

Step 2: Click the workspace Financials tab.

Create a financial assignment

Step 1: Click the “+” icon at left of toolbar.

Step 2: Make selections in the Add Financial Assignment dialog.

Select the project.
Select the organization (OBS) node responsible for this financial item.
Select 1 or more financial items to assign.

Step 3: Click the Add or Add & Close button.

Add creates the assignment row(s) on the financial page, but
leaves the dialog open for creating more assignments.
Add & Close executes the add and closes the dialog.

Step 4: Enter the period financial forecasts.

Be sure that the value type at the far right of the page toolbar is set to Forecast.

Copy financial assignments

Step 1: Select any cell in the assignment rows to be copied EXCEPT the project name cell.

Click in the project name cell to drill down to the project workspace.

 

Step 2: Select the destination project and click the Copy button.

The Copy operation creates new assignment rows for the source copy rows; it does NOT add period data values to an identical existing assignment.

Delete a financial assignment

Step 1: Select any assignment rows to be deleted.

Step 2: Click the trash can icon toward the left of the page toolbar.

Post Labor Cost

For instructions on posting labor costs, see Displaying Labor Cost on Financial Pages.

Add to Scenario

Step 1: Select any assignment rows you want to add to a scenario.

Step 2: Click the Add to Scenario button toward the left of the page toolbar.

Step 3: Select the destination scenario in the Scenario dialog.

Step 4: Click the Add button at the bottom right of the dialog.

Show Project GANTT Bar

Step 1: Select any assignment row.

Step 2: Click the Options icon at the right of the left group of icons on the page toolbar.

Step 3: Check the Show Project Schedule checkbox.

Display/Modify Financial Forecast and Actuals

Step 1: Select the value type you want to display and/or modify.

Entering Values in Actual-Forecast Mode

Data changes entered in past periods are saved to the actuals database table; data changes in the current period and future periods are saved in the forecast table.

[NOTE: There is no distinction between actual and forecast values in the grid when displaying Actual-Forecast. You can distinguish actual values only by looking at periods before the period containing the current date.]