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Understand Change Management,And Alter the Way You Work
In Project Management,“change management” is thegeneral term referring to all
aspects of managing projectchanges: owner changeorders, as well assubcontractor commit-ment change orders.
Managingchanges on a construc-tion project is a com-plex task. A general contractormust deal with: 1.) potentialchanges initiated by RFIs, RFPs,or field work orders; 2.) pricingproposals submitted to thecustomer for approval; 3.)“directives to proceed” or otherinformal approvals from thecustomer; as well as 4.) formal-ized, approved owner changeorders issued by the customer.As part of the change manage-ment process, the general con-tractor must also gather subcon-tractor bids and issue subcon-tractor commitment changeorders.
Different general contrac-tors usually have varying internalprocesses and terminology formanaging changes, as do differ-ent customers and owners. Theimplementation of changemanagement in Project Manage-ment is a powerful and flexible
Understand Change Management,And Alter the Way You Work
by: Tom Moore • Gray – I.C.E. Builders, Inc.
system that can be appliedeffectively in most situations,once you understand the basicsof the system.
To best understand ProjectManagement’s change manage-ment system, you should becomefamiliar with the terminologyand structure of the system. InProject Management, everythingrevolves around two simplewords: “cost” and “price.”
• “Cost” is the estimatedamount that the generalcontractor expects to spend:the contractor’s labor,material expenses, equipmentexpenses, subcontractorfees, etc. The “cost” sideof an approved changerequest/change order willlink to the “estimate” cost inJob Cost (JC).
• “Price” is the amount that thecontractor will charge thecustomer for the work. The“price” side of an approved
change request/change orderwill link to the revisedcontract amount in Job Costand/or Contracts (CN), if that
module is installed.NOTE: There is aconcept of a vendorprice, as well. It’s whatthe sub price is to us, asgeneral contractors, or,our cost. It is referred toas a “price” from the
customer’s perspective, but inthe system, it will flowthrough to the estimate andthe commitment change order(CCO) as our cost.
Continued on page 4
Understand Change Management, And Alterthe Way You Work .............................. 1
Do I Need to Amend or to RenewThis Lease? ........................................ 2
Change Request Tool Details ....................... 3
Ryan Properties is on Target With That andOther Clients ....................................... 6
Tug Tips of the Month ................................. 7
As a Matter of Policy,Track TenantInsurance ........................................... 8
TUG Calendar .............................................. 10
TUG Online Training Opportunities .............. 10
TUG Local Chapters ..................................... 10
The End of 2005 is in Sight, So Lookinto These Tips ................................... 11
Move Your Work Along With These AdvancedUser Tips for Change Management .... 12
News & Information for Users of Sage Software, Timberline Office for December 2005
IN THIS ISSUE
“To best understand Project Management’schange management system, you shouldbecome familiar with the terminology andstructure of the system.”
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Published by the
Timberline Users Group, Inc.
and sent to all members.
Board of Directors
Tom Love, President
Mike Suhovecky, Vice President
Charlie Auger, Secretary/Treasurer
Sharon Hessong
Brady Burleson
Lynn Bitar
Robin Peterson
Jeff Pavlica
Kate Fitch-Davis
Barbara Jensen
Publications Committee
Brady Burleson
Tom Love
Robin Peterson
Tom Moore
Carolyn Boettner, Editor
Maureen Connolly, Consultant
National Administrator
Boettner Business Professionals
P.O. Box 697
Sylvania, OH 43560
Phone: 419.885.9004
Fax: 419.885.9007
Toll Free: 800.884.4630
Web Site
the TUG Pulse
This is a common questionfor those working in leaseadministration. While the
choice is sometimes an obviousone, many times it is not. An-swering a few basic questionswill take most of the guessworkout of this decision. Start byasking yourself these two ques-tions:
1. Did anything change, otherthan the expiration andrelated step dates?
2. Do I need aseparate recordof the previousTimberlinesetup?
If the answer tothese questions is “no,” then youwant to use Renewal. If youanswered “yes,” you will want toprocess the change throughAmend Lease. One exception tousing Renewal is changingsuites, then you must use AmendLease. And, you may use eitherRenewal or Amend Lease whenchanging square footage.
Suppose you have a tenantthat has exercised the option fora one-year extension at 3% overthe prior period’s base rent.Since the current information inthe lease setup is still accurate,and we will only be adding oneadditional rent step and changingthe expiration date, we have theperfect scenario for processing aRenewal.
1. Go to Tasks, Manage Leases,Renew Lease.
2. On the Dates/Status tab,change the Lease end date tothe new expiration date.
3. Click on the RecurringCharges tab.
4. Click on the charge amountfor the base rent and add theadditional step.Done, easy as that.
If the same tenant hasdecided not to exercise thatoption, but to renegotiate thelease for a new three-year term,
we would wantto do this as anamendment. Itwould beimportant toretain the leaseset-up informa-
tion from the original terms, aswell as to maintain the informa-tion for the newly negotiatedterms. Timberline does this byadding a revision number to thelease when you process theamendment, preserving theoriginal terms under a distinctrevision number. Original leaseswill always have a revisionnumber of 0, and each time thelease is amended, it is assignedthe next revision number.
1. Go to Tasks, Manage Leases,Amend Lease and NewAmendment.
2. Select the lease you want toamend.
3. Open the Recurring Chargestab and change the informa-tion to conform to the newlease terms, rememberingthat you are changing onlythe information associated
Do I Need to Amend or toRenew This Lease?
by: Patrick HughesFlagler Development Company
with the renewal; the originallease information has beensaved. You will now be ableto print reports, includingabstracts, for both the originalterms and the newly negoti-ated terms, thereby preserv-ing the tenant’s history andpossibly your sanity.
“It would be importantto retain the lease set-up information fromthe original terms…”
- 3 -December 2005
At first glance, the ChangeRequest tool layout willlook familiar to any
Project Management user. Butthere are key, unique features tothis tool: 1) the ability to leaveNumber field blank, 2) multipletabs, 3) dual grids, 4) multipleviews, and 5) the Next Actionbutton.
Number FieldAs with all Project Manage-
ment tools, the Number fieldwill pre-fill with the next avail-able number when you create anew change request. If you wishto maintain consistent number-ing between change requests andchange orders, you can leave theNumber field blank on thechange request and fill that fieldin at a later time, after a changeorder has been issued.
TabsThe Change Request tool
has three tabs, accessed acrossthe bottom of the tool, similar tothe sheet tabs in a multi-sheetMicrosoft® Excel workbook. Thethree tabs are: the main ChangeRequest tab, the Details tab, andthe Price/Cost Estimate tab. Forbasic use, you must enter infor-mation on both the main ChangeRequest tab, as well as on thePrice/Cost Estimate tab.
Grids On the Price/Cost Estimate
tab, there are two grids: the lineitem entry grid and the markup/add-on subtotal grid.
Change Request Tool Detailsby: Tom Moore • Gray – I.C.E. Builders, Inc.
Dollar values entered in theline item entry grid flow down tothe markup/add-on subtotal grid.However, each of the two gridscan be customized independentlyso you can decide which col-umns to display and whether tofreeze columns. (For moredetails, see the article, “Custom-ize Grids to Access the Informa-tion You Want,” in the September2005 Pulse.)
Views On the Price/Cost Estimate
tab, there is a pull down menuthat allows you to toggle be-tween four different views. Eachof these four views is user-customizable and is a pre-set ofgrid settings for both grids.Since there is such a largenumber of columns available, itis recommended that you createviews for each step of the entryprocess. For example, a firstview can be for entering costcodes and vendor names orcommitment numbers as part ofdefining the scope. A secondview can display all of the costcolumns for entering costs. Athird view can display all of theprice columns for enteringprices. Finally, a fourth view candisplay both the price and thecost of your key categories (suchas labor and subcontract) for any“tweaking” you need to do.
Next Action Button and Menu The Next Action button
contains a menu for executing
commands, similar to the Use Asbutton in the AB – Address BookSetup Company Contact andSetup Person Contact tools.
In version 9.1 of TimberlineOffice, the Next Action buttonon the Change Request tool hastwo commands: Prefill Estimateand Update Job Estimate. (It isanticipated that in a futureversion of Project Management,a third command will be addedto Create Commitment ChangeOrder.)
The Prefill Estimate com-mand allows you to copy alldollar amounts you’ve entered inthe Price columns into thecorresponding Cost columns foreach line item. That is, laborprice to labor cost, material priceto material cost, etc. You enter allthe numbers only once (in thePrice columns), then Timberlinereplicates those numbers into theCost columns, completing theentry.
The Update Job Estimatecommand allows you to take theamounts from the Cost columnsand send them to Job Cost toupdate the Estimate Cost for thejob. Note that this commandhappens automatically when aChange Order is approved, butcan be initiated manually in thecase when the general contractorchooses to proceed with execut-ing the change prior to formalapproval.
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• “Price” minus “cost” is thecontractor’s margin foroverhead and profit.
Three Important Tools
In Project Management, thestructure of change managementis organized around three tools:Change Request, Change Order,and Commitment Change Order.
• Change Request is a toolto track potential changes and todevelop and price proposals tothe customer. The change requestis the center of the changemanagement system. ChangeRequest is the tool for linkingthe “cost” amount to the “esti-mate” cost in Job Cost and forlinking the “price” amount to therevised contract amount inContracts and/or in Job Cost.The change request is also usedto create the owner change order,and in version 9.2, it will also bethe basis to create the commit-ment change order. Note that theChange Request tool windowhas three tabs: Change Request,Detail, and Price/Cost Estimate.(For more information, see thearticle, “Change Request De-tails,” in this issue of The Pulse.)
• Change Order is a tool fortracking approved owner changeorders and for linking the “price”amount to the job contractamount in Contracts and/or inJob Cost.
• Commitment ChangeOrder is a tool for issuingchanges to subcontractors.
Something for Everyone
Since change managementprocesses vary so widely amongcontractors and customers,
Continued from page 1 Timberline gives you lots ofchoices. There are six versions ofthe Change Request form tem-plate and three versions of theChange Order form template, somost contractors can find aversion that works for them, withlittle or no customizing.
Each change must proceedthrough a series of steps frominception to approval and execu-tion. Note that depending on thespecific process in use by thegeneral contractor (which mayvary from project to project,depending on customer require-ments), some of these steps maybe omitted:
1. Identify a potential change.2. Track the origin of the
change.3. Define the scope of the
potential change (whichtrades/cost codes are involvedand which subcontractors, ifany, will be affected).
4. Request subcontractorquote(s).
5. Estimate the cost of thepotential change.
6. Determine the price for thepotential change.
7. Submit a price proposal tothe customer.
8. Track customer approvalstatus.
If change is approved bythe customer:9. Document the approved
owner change order.10. Send price amounts to update
contract amount in Contractsand/or in Job Cost.
To execute the change:
11. Send cost amounts to updateestimate costs in Job Cost.
12. Issue commitment changeorder(s) to subcontractor(s).
In some cases, the generalcontractor may proceed withexecuting the potential changebefore the customer has issuedan approval. Note that in thesecases, the contractor wouldproceed with Steps 11 and 12,even though Steps 9 and 10 werenot completed. If and when thechange is approved, then Steps 9and 10 would be completed. Butif the change request is rejected,then the contractor would have to“eat” the cost of the work thatwas performed without approval.
Let’s look at the steps inmore detail:
Identify a potential change To identify a new potential
change, create a new changerequest, which (just like allProject Management documents)will be assigned a unique num-ber by Project Management fortracking. Enter a Description, aScope text description, and anySchedule impact.
Track the origin of the change On the main Change Re-
quest tab, you can enter a Sourceand a Source number. On theDetail tab, you can enter aStarted on date, a Reason, and anInitiated by contact.
Define the scope of the potentialchange
On the Price/Cost Estimatetab, you can enter a list of one ormore line items, each with a costcode and an associated cost codedescription, as well as anycomments.
If applicable, you can alsoenter a Vendor contact andCommitment number. Note that
“Each change must pro-ceed through a series ofsteps from inception toapproval and execution.”
- 5 -December 2005
to effectively use the Price/CostEstimate tab, you must befamiliar with setting up viewsand using Project Managementgrids. (For more information ongrids, see the article, “CustomizeGrids to Access the InformationYou Want,” in the September2005 Pulse.)
Request subcontractor quote(s)On the Price/Cost Estimate
tab, you can set a response duedate, then run the Request forQuote report from the Reportsmenu, generating a letter to eachsub or vendor.
Estimate the cost of the poten-tial change
On the Price/Cost Estimatetab, enter any sub quotes you’vereceived as a vendor price. Thatwill automatically pre-fill thesubcontractor cost, if, for ex-ample, that sub has a subcontractcommitment. This is because theprice that the vendor is chargingthe general contractor is a costthat the general will have to pay.
Calculate any self-performcost estimates, and enter yourlabor cost, material cost, equip-ment cost, subcontract cost, andother cost. Project Managementwill automatically subtotal eachcost code and calculate the totalcost estimate for the change.Since Project Managementprovides the Pre-fill Estimatecommand, it is actually morepractical to enter your costs inthe Price columns first, thenperform the Pre-fill Estimatecommand to fill in your Costcolumns.
Determine the price for thepotential change
On the Price/Cost Estimatetab, enter prices for each item:labor price, material price,equipment price, subcontract
price, and other price. SinceProject Management tracks priceand cost as separate entries, youcan add your markup item byitem, category by category, bymanually adjusting the priceamount. Or, you can set the priceequal to the cost and haveProject Management calculate anoverall OH&P markup percent-age to determine the total price.
Submit a price proposal to thecustomer
Use the Transmittal…button to have Project Manage-ment create a transmittal withthe change request attached.
Track customer approval statusOn the Change Request tab,
use the Status pull down menu toselect a status of Pending, VerbalOK, or Denied. If the status isApproved, you will use theChange Order tool to set thatstatus in the next step.
In the case of a Verbal OK,to enter the Approval Date andGiven by Contact name, use theNotice to Proceed or Approvalsection on the Details tab.
If change is approved by thecustomer:
Document the approved ownerchange order
When the customer hasissued formal approval, create anew change order, which, like allProject Management documents,will be assigned a unique num-ber for tracking. You will want toensure that the numbering ofProject Management changeorders matches the numbering ofthe change orders issued by theowner.
Enter a description, anyschedule impact and a revisedcompletion date. Use the SelectChange Request button to add
one or more change requests tothe change order, as line items.
Send price amounts to updatecontract amount in Contractsand/or in Job Cost
With the Change OrderStatus set to Approved, check theRevise contract amountcheckbox. When you save andclose the change order, the priceamounts will be used to updatethe contract amount in Contractsand in Job Cost.
To execute the change:
Send cost amounts to updateestimate costs in Job Cost
You will be promptedautomatically to perform thisstep when you approve a changeorder. However, you may alsomanually initiate this step byusing the Update Job Estimatecommand from the Next Actionbutton on the change request.
Issue commitment changeorder(s) to subcontractor(s)
In version 9.1 of TimberlineOffice, this is a manual process:
Run the PJCCO Entry byChange Order (CR) report fromthe Reports/Change Order menu.
Then go to the ContractControl menu and choose Com-mitment Change Order andmanually enter the information.
In version 9.2, this will bean automated step:
Open a commitment changeorder and click the SelectChanges button to select ChangeRequest(s) and/or ChangeOrder(s).
With these basics, you’renow ready for even moreProject Management details andtips.
- 6 -
Our User Friendly tourtakes us to the Minneapolis home office of
Ryan Properties, Inc., whereScott Pilgram, Senior Accoun-tant, tells us all about this TUGmember company.
All About Your Company
Where are you?
In addition to the homeoffice in Minneapolis, we haveregional offices in San Diego,Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, andChicago. Currently, we haveprojects in 35 states.
Is there a specialty that you focuson?
No.
Name a client, a project or anotable achievement that we mightbe familiar with.
Target, Gander Mountain,Chip Ganassi Racing(NASCAR), and Polaris.
What Timberline modules do youuse?
General Ledger, AccountsPayable, Cash Management, andProperty Management.
Do you have InformationAssistant?
Yes. It was just installed.We’re using it so that propertymanagers and assistants can lookup and print reports more easily.
Do you use Issue Manager?No.
Ryan Properties is on TargetWith That and Other Clients
Give us an idea of your size/volume.
Annual Revenue: $700million.
Square Feet Under Manage-ment: Approximately 11 million.
What software products do youuse in conjunction withTimberline?
Idysys Budget Administra-tion, Create-a-Check, and Con-struction Imaging Systems(CIS).
Do you use ODBC drivers toimport and export information?
Yes, with Microsoft® Excel,Access and Word, and withCrystal Reports and Idysys.
Do you provide Palms or PDAs toyour employees?
Yes.
Do you import information fromTimberline onto them?
Not at this time.
What is your company’s biggestchallenge?
Improving our processes.We are currently going throughL.E.A.N. (Kaizan training).
Tell Us About You:Scott Pilgram
As Senior Accountant, what doesyour job entail?
Accounting for a portfolioof properties and management ofthe Timberline software. I alsodo special reports and projects,such as preparing annual tax
returns for partnerships, assistingin training, and developingcustom reports with our consult-ant.
How long have you beenemployed there?
A year and a half.
What do you like best about yourcompany?
The company is good toboth employees and customers.Our motto is “Building LastingRelationships.”
What Timberline modules do youspecifically use/spend the mosttime in?
Accounts Payable, GeneralLedger, Cash Management, andProperty Management.
Favorite report design?
We customized our RentRoll in Crystal Reports.
Describe a way you useTimberline that other peoplemight not know about:
We recently started to useTimberline to track our tenantinsurance and will soon be ableto track vendor insurance byproject.
What single Timberline feature doyou like best?
I like them all.
What is your biggest challenge?
Continue to integrate moreTimberline features that wouldbest help our everyday use of thesoftware.
- 7 -December 2005
Converting YTD Costs to a Monthly Average
Sometimes we need to express amounts as an average or convertfigures so that Year to Date (YTD) performance can be com-
pared to performance for a particular month. As an example, thiscan be a very effective way to compare performance by buildings ofsimilar size or with similar tenants. This simple trick uses GL Unitaccount types to store thenumber of month incurredyear so that they can bepulled into FinancialStatement expressions.
1. Create a GL unitAccount to store thenumber of months.
2. Setup this account foreach of your propertyor company prefixes.
3. Create a RecurringJournal Entry for thenewly created ac-counts, designating theentries as “Monthly”and the debit amountas $1. This RecurringJournal Entry will beposted once eachmonth to increase thenumber of months yearto date.
4. In Financial State-ment, create an Accu-mulator for the MonthsGL unit account.
5. An expression can now be created the Month Accumulator. Theexpression will take the Net Year to Date divided by the number ofmonths. As an example, the expression “YTD Net/Month to Date”will return the average per month based on the YTD amount.
This expression can be used within Budget Variance reports togive another measure of performance, or, using the Entity Compari-son feature within FS, to compare properties of comparable buildingtype or use.
TO: The Guru:We occasionally need to
remove a subcontractor from thespreadsheet while leaving thedollars in the amount column.We want to leave the sub namefield blank until we decidewhich sub we want to use. Whenwe use Clear Sub, it removesboth the sub name and theamount. Any way to clear oneand not the other?
FROM: Blanked Out
TO: Blanked:The sub amount and the sub
name are linked together in thesoftware, so removing one willremove the other. However, youcan substitute one sub for an-other without changing theamount.
If you want an amount withno sub name showing, create asub in Address Book with aname of – (a dash). Instead ofusing clear sub, simply type a –in the sub name field.
FROM: Your Guru
FINANCIAL STATEMENTS ESTIMATING
TUG Tips of the Month○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
- 8 -
One aspect of theproperty management business
often overlooked istracking either tenant orvendor insurance. Mostleases specify what isrequired of the tenant andspecify that the landlordand/or the owner needs tobe provided with annualproof of coverage. Manycompanies file away thesecertificates and lose trackof them. In the event ofdamage to a building, wefirst look to the insurancecompanies to cover theloss. However, for anyowner, a lapse in insur-ance coverage can causebig financial woes.
At our company,we’ve developed a systemfor entering and trackinginsurance information. Weuse Timberline’s insuranceinformation fields on thelease record, and we addcustom fields. We can trackinsurance policies by expirationdate and by liability amounts sothey are compliant with thelease’s requirements.
The first screen shot showsyou some of the fields we added.
As a Matter of Policy,TrackTenant Insurance
by: Scott PilgramTUG Real Estate Committee Member
Ryan Companies US, Inc.
The two fields required wereliability and the e-mail addressof the agent or whoever needs tobe contacted in case of an ex-pired certificate or one that isnot in compliance with the lease.Also, we added a field for therequired deductible in case thelease specifies one.
We also wanted tomake the report simpleand easy to review forour managers, so theycan easily see who has orwill have an expiredlease. Our system willquickly show if theinsurance amounts are incompliance with thelease requirements.
In the followingreport example, you cansee that some of thetenants do not meet therequirements while sometenants do. This testapplies to each type ofinsurance that may berequired.
The report has thefollowing ranges avail-able.
1. You can sort by prop-erty manager. A propertymanager who wants to seehow his or her propertiesare doing, simply selects
his or her name.
2. And, you can put a date rangeto limit how far out you wantto see the expirations.
We are just starting to enterthis information. Now, our goalis to have staff monitor the
- 9 -December 2005
reports on a monthly basis. Thatway, we won’t be caught in asituation where a property iswithout insurance.
If you have any questions onour reports or process, you arewelcome to contact [email protected]
LEASE INSURANCE REPORTContract Types:
Active vs. Standardby: Melissa Eakman
Hermanson Company LLP
When setting up a contract inTimberline, the first thing
that you are confronted with isthe selection of a contract type:Active or Standard. Well, whatthe heck is the difference??? Itreally is simple: 99% of the timeyou will be using the Activecontract style. This is the contracttype that allows you to bill thecustomer and to tract revenue.
The Standard style is purelya template. Use this if you have acustomer or a contract style thatyou use on a regular basis—say, ifyou’re lucky enough to have acontract to build every newStarbucks. To save time, you canbuild a template. Then, when yougo to set up a new active contract,you will select Active, enter thenew contract number, and thendouble click on the Standardtemplate listed in the lowerwindow. In the example below,PGE01 is our Standard template.
Then, all you will have to dois update the contract name andcontract amount. Make sure thatit is linked to the proper job andits extras and that you’ve ap-proved all items.
So, in short, remember thesedefinitions:
Active: This is a customercontract.
Standard: this is a templatecontract used as a basis forsetting up future activecontracts.
- 10 -
December 8, 2005
Kansas City Local Chapter Meeting
December 14, 2005
Tampa-St. Pete Local Chapter Meeting
December 16, 2005
Maryland Local Chapter Meeting
January 19, 2006
Greenville, SC Local Chapter Meeting
January 26, 2006
Dallas Local Chapter Meeting
March 23, 2006
Dallas Local Chapter Meeting
May 3-5, 20062006 TUG National
Workshops & ConferenceNashville, TN
May 18, 2006
Dallas Local Chapter Meeting
July 20, 2006
Dallas Local Chapter Meeting
December 8 Payroll IDecember 16 Estimating: On Screen TakeoffDecember 22 Payroll IIJanuary 11 Beginning ODBCJanuary 20 Estimating: Intro to TakeoffJanuary 25 Basic General LedgerFebruary 17 Estimating: Advanced Takeoff
There is no charge for online training. This is one of the manybenefits of membership in the Timberline Users Group. Webinarsare held at 12:00 noon Eastern time at TUG.webex.com.To partici-pate, email the TUG office at [email protected]. You will receive anemail confirming your participation and with instructions for loggingon and joining the audio portion of the session. Keep watching thePulse for an updated calendar. Register Early. Space is limited.
Happy Holidays!
Online Training Opportunitiesfrom TUG
Florida: Ft. LauderdaleCollette Bashir
Florida: Tampa-St. PeteAnn Suchan
IndianaRob Lawyer
IowaPam Poppe
Kansas CityBarbara Kaminski
MarylandSheila Werren
NebraskaCathy Maddox
New York: AlbanyBarbara Morse
OhioGeorgeann Godsey
South Carolina: CharlestonShawn Sullivan
South Carolina: GreenvilleGwen Corder
Texas: DallasBen Beckelman
Texas: HoustonCheryl Cole
Texas: San AntonioToni Johnson
WisconsinSamantha Cook
TUG Local Chapters
- 11 -December 2005
When it comes to ending theyear, TUG members haveeverything wrapped up. Here
are several tips from experienced TUGmembers on how to handle variousyear-end operations.
General Ledger
Once we have finalized ourfigures, we make sure to create anannual backup and save it to a differentfolder. The different folder is essentialsince Timberline only allows you to rollback financial statements 12 periods—to the first period of the prior fiscalyear and cannot roll back over morethan one fiscal year end, even ifGeneral Ledger activity exists prior tothe beginning of the previous fiscalyear. See Setup, Accounts, Activity.
However, since the year-endbalances for the last five fiscal yearsare saved, you can modify a financialstatement to use those prior fiscal year-end balances. Go to Setup, Accounts,Balances.
Toni Johnson, Koontz McComb
Property Management
We print a tenant ledger for eachlease on bright yellow legal-sized paperthat includes every charge and pay-ment—with check number—receivedduring the year. This gets filed by leaseon top of all the statements andinvoices for the year. It has become agreat resource later on when propertymanagers need to pull the file, PLUS itdoes double duty as an eye-catching,colorful index.
Eire Stewart,JP DiNapoli Companies, Inc.
Audit Preparation
Our auditors use a paperless worksystem and want reports and schedulesin electronic format. We print ourTimberline reports to file in PDFformat and save them in a folder on ournetwork, along with any schedules thatwe prepare in Microsoft® Excel and anydocuments in Microsoft® Word.Because some of the work papers thatthe auditors need “reside” in othersubdirectories, I have created a single
The End of 2005 is in Sight,So Look into These Tips
Excel worksheet that is a table ofcontents listing the general ledgeraccount number. I put a hyperlinkbeside the GL number that will take theauditors to the work paper supportingthat GL balance (wherever it is on ournetwork). The auditors can open itwithout the need to move or copy filesor to give them instructions aboutwhere to find them. And, we are savingtrees. No need for the auditors to scanour printed reports then convert them tofiles.
Linda J. Parker,Bradshaw Construction Corportion
Accounts Payable
At year end, we run RemoveVendors, located in Accounts Payableunder Tools. But because we don’t wantto remove vendors after only one yearof no activity, we condition RemoveVendors to delete only those vendorswith a “Last Check Date” less than adate three years back. For example, atDecember 31, 2005, we would condi-tion for “Last Check Date” less than12/31/02.
Lila Gemellos, Gemstar, Inc.
Payroll
We keep the original (paper)timesheet for each employee in aseparate folder for each pay periodthroughout the year, but at year end wescan all timesheets by pay period andput that on a disk. We make two disks:one for the payroll department and oneto store in a fireproof safe. We can thentoss the paper timesheets. This hasreally helped to keep down our storageof paper.
Debbie Hall, Com-Serv.
We print out an earnings registerfor each employee who worked duringthe year. We are a union contractor, andour employees often ask us for theirtotal hours for the year to compare ourinformation with the union figures. Wecopy these and put one in with their W-2 and put the original copy in theiremployee file. This way we have ineach file a complete record of time andearnings for each employee going back
to the hire date. Ifsomeone needsinformation on aprior year, this is avery easy way to get theneeded information.
Pam Poppe,Venter Spooner, Inc.
1099 Preparation
We always review our list ofoutstanding checks prior to issuing1099s at year end. We void vendorchecks more than 60 days old, leavingthe invoices open so that the 1099amounts are correct when issued.
Diane L. Isaacs, CPA,Berger Realty Group, Inc.
We use ODBC and Mail Merge toprint a letter sent with form W-9 to allunincorporated vendors without tax IDnumbers. (You can download this reportformat on TUGweb.com.) The letter isconditioned off information on the1099 Settings tab on the Vendor Set-up.The letter prints for all vendors wherethe box “Vendor receives a 1099” ischecked and the tax ID number isblank. We monitor a list of the vendorsand hold all checks until a W-9 isreturned.
Eire Stewart,JP DiNapoli Companies, Inc.
Archiving Your TimberlineDirectory
When you create your end-of-the-year archive directory (File, New DataFolder), name the data folder “YE05-Your Company Name.” For example,we name ours “YE05-MarkOne.” Then,use file tools to copy all of your year-end data (payroll files, AP, AR, JC, andGL) into that data folder. That way thedata folder will appear at the bottom ofthe data folder selection list when youlogin to Timberline, and you won’taccidentally choose your 2005 archivedcompany when you want to enter 2006data.
Shanon White,Mark One Electric Co., Inc.
2005
Dec.
Move Your Work Along With These AdvancedUser Tips for Change Management
by: Tom Moore • Gray – I.C.E. Builders, Inc.
Here are some tips youcan use:
• Create a change order forinternal adjustments:
• Create a new change orderand force the number to be 0(zero). Enter the descriptionas “internal adjustment.”Create a new change request,also number it 0, and name itfor “internal adjustment.”
• Give your project managersthe ability to update theirproject cost estimate whilestill setting security so thatthey are kept out of the JobCost module:
• Use the internal adjustmentchange request/change order
to have the project managerenter cost estimate changes—positive or negative values foreach cost code. Give theproject manager securityaccess to perform the NextAction: Update Job Estimatecommand from inside ProjectManagement. The projectmanager can now adjust thejob cost estimate withoutchanging entries in Job Cost.If the changes need to bebacked out, simply“unapprove” the change orderto remove the adjustmentsfrom Job Cost.
• If you use the Contracts (CN)and Billing (BL) modules,you can use Project
Management’s change man-agement functions to adjustline item scheduled values,even after they have beenlocked (after you’ve approvedthem in Contracts and billedthem in Billing):Use your “internal adjust-ment” change request/changeorder to enter a positiveamount for one contract itemand an equal but negativeamount for another. The netchange amount will be zero,but the scheduled value foreach of those line items willnow be different.
