Financial Assignments Overview

ResourceFirst enables you to forecast and capture actual financials for project labor and non-labor costs.

This article covers two areas:

• Features on the Financial Assignments page
• Creating and managing financial forecasts and actuals

The sourcing of non-labor and labor costs come from different pages:

• Create non-labor financial forecast assignments and record non-labor financial actuals on the financial Assignments page. (Refer to the section below: Add a non-labor financial assignment)
• The labor financial forecast assignments and actuals are sourced from the labor assignments. Use the Post Labor Costs feature found on the project’s workspace>Financials tab to then populate the project’s financial assignment page. (Refer to the section below: Post Labor Costs )

Two Financial Assignment Page Locations

There are two financial assignment page locations. The descriptions and guidelines in this article apply to both pages with one exception which is the project’s workspace>Financials tab is the location to Post Labor Costs.

• On the blue ribbon at the top of the page>Financials>Assignments
  • Use this page when you are looking to manage the financials on more than one project during your working session.
  • Note: To post labor costs for a project, you need to go into the project’s workspace, navigate to the Financials tab, and post labor costs from there.

• On the project’s workspace>Financials
  • To get to the project’s workspace, go to a page in which the project’s name is a hyperlink, such as on the Project Data page, click on the project’s name to activate the link to the project workspace arrow, and then click on the right arrow:
    
  • Use this page when you are looking to manage just that project’s financials during your working session.
  • Note: This is the page on which you post labor costs for the project.

Features on the Financial Assignment page

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

• “+” – Press this to create a new financial assignment
• Copy – Select the row(s) to copy the financial assignment to either the same project or a different project.
• Trash – Select the row(s) to delete
• Post Labor Cost – Note: This is only found on the project’s workspace>Financials page. This converts the labor FTE or Hourly forecast into a summarized labor cost financial assignment
• Add to Scenario – Select the row(s) to add to a scenario when in the Add Assignments to Scenario window.
• Options drop down>Show Project Schedule – First, select this option. Next, click anywhere in a row and a gantt line appears reflecting the project’s start and end dates.
  • Note: Phase and milestone markings will also show on the gantt line if they are recorded on the project workspace>Project Info tab> View: Project Status> Section: Schedule Status. The Start Date and End Date values are required for each row for them to appear on the gantt line.
• Filter icon:
  • Clear all Filters – press this to reset the page to remove any column filters that are applied.
  • Filter Zero Rows – Select this to filter out rows that lack values within the time range as set for the financials in the Global Data Filter. For example, you may be filtering for the first two quarters of the year which lacks any finanical forecast; however, the last two quarters of the year do have financial forecast values. Because your Global Data Filter is set to only show Q1 and Q2, those financial rows with no values will be filtered out.
• View selection drop down – use this to select the view you would like to use.
• Edit Views icon – use this to add, remove, or re-order the columns in your view.
• Save – use this to save your updates
• Import – use this to locate the .csv you would like to import from.
• Export – use this to generate an export .csv
• Forecast/Actual – toggle this to change the values on the page.

Tips & Tricks for Financial Assignments

• The Get Data Filter reveals the financial assignment data in the timeframe that you filter for. (For more on using the Get Data Filter, refer to: Setting Global Filters and Date Parameters)
• Important Note: 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 driven by being granted with the appropriate rights which permit you to add, modify, and delete financial assignments. (For more on Rights, refer to: Administering Rights and Privileges)
• To Post Labor Costs, go to the project’s workspace>Financial tab to do this.
• You can import financial forecasts and actuals from a .csv file. Copy-Paste to a range of cells is on the roadmap. (For more on Importing, refer to: Export and Import Data)
• IMPORTANT: For all rates entered in ResourceFirst, a zero (“0”) in the field counts as a rate. Be careful to leave the rate blank if you do not want a zero rate to override any other rates for the item.

Add a non-labor financial assignment

Follow these steps to create a non-labor financial assignment and update it with either forecast or actual costs.

Step 1 – Add the financial assignment: On the financial assignment page, click the plus “+” icon at the upper left of the page.

• Select the Project name.
• Select the Cost Center for the assignment from the Org drop-down.
• Select all Cost Items that apply.
• Click either Add & Close or Add.

Step 2 – Enter the forecast or actual costs: Once the financial row is created, you will find the date columns on the right side of your screen.

Important to first check the value type: The financial assignment page is used to enter and manage both forecast and actual values. Which value type is being shown is determined by what is showing on the far right side of the upper grey ribbon. There you will find a drop down with either Forecast or Actual shown (screen shot below.) When you toggle between both selections the values on page range correspondingly switch.

• To enter forecast costs: Select Forecast then enter the forecast values in the date range cells and then press Save.
• To enter actual costs: Select Actual then enter the actual values in the date range cells and then press Save.

Screen shot below: Make sure the appropriate value type is displayed when entering your values on the page.

Note that “Revenue” items are excluded from totals on the Financial Assignments page.

Methods for importing financial forecasts or actuals

There are two methods for importing financial forecasts rather than manually entering them:

• Importing from a .csv file.
• Importing from one of your company’s financial systems

Post Labor Cost

This feature is currently available only on the project workspace Financial page (accessible by clicking on a project hyperlink and going to the Financials tab).

• To get to the project’s workspace, go to a page in which the project’s name is a hyperlink, such as on the Project Data page, click on the project’s name to activate the link to the project workspace arrow, and then click on the right arrow:
  

Post Labor Cost posts the current labor forecast (hours or FTE) into a financial assignment for labor, using the monthly resource rate (upon request, PDWare can set this to use an hourly rate).  The built-in functionality posts only forecast. If posting of actuals is desired, your PDWare representative can modify the stored procedure on the back end upon request.

Below are instructions.

Click the Post Labor Cost button.

Select a start date for calculating labor cost from the current skill and resource assignment demand.

If there is more than one Labor assignment on the project, the first one encountered will be updated with the current labor spend forecast. The update is immediate.

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