Cost Book

The Cost Book is for controlling capital costs (there is no revenue stream associated to the cost book).  It’s a consolidated view of your financials in one place but there are multiple inputs into it.

Left Panel

The left-hand panel shows the information you choose to display in the “Settings”, e.g., account codes, account descriptions, estimates and purchase order information.

Right Panel 

The right-hand panel shows financial values.  90% is read only.  It is the summary view of how the project is tracking and how the estimate at completion stands. 

The information for the right-hand panel comes from different sources; e.g., estimates, ERP systems, POs, invoices, etc.   It is generally file input into the cost book and not editable, although you can enter some information:-

• Current Based Budget is added by clicking on the “Add Cost Book Line”.  The user can then add a Cost book line and assign a Pending Budget, Pending Estimate and/or Direct Cost Commit value to the line.
• Budget Transfers: There are three Cost Control Registers that an administrator can configure in the system to feed values to the Cost Book.
  1. Budget Transfer
  2. Change Request
  3. Trends

Cost Book – Top Function bar

The cost book function bar options are outlined below: 

Currency   

From the drop-down you can toggle between currencies.   For example, the project could be in a local currency but the global reporting currency might be different.   The table will flip between currency and convert the values on the display panels.

Reporting Period  

Shows the month.  This is configured in Administration | Budget Settings Configuration – Cost Book Admin – Project Forecast Period.

Add Cost Book Line

Users can add/edit/delete cost book lines and their associated costs.  

See “Adding a Cost Book Line” below, for details.

Settings

Users can manage what columns to display and set the order for the left/right panels in settings. 

See “Settings” below, for details.

Export

Export downloads an excel copy of the cost book.

Expand

Click the Expand icon to view the cost book in full screen.

Settings

Users can turn columns on/off for both the right and left-hand panels, depending on what they want displayed through the “settings” tab on the function bar.  

Note: Both the columns available for a user to select and the column labels are configured by an Administrator, dependant on the client’s requirements.  

To set the columns in the cost book, firstly navigate to SETTINGS on the Function Bar.

The following pane will open where you can select the columns you want to display on the Cost Book in both the left and right panels.  

Your chosen columns will be visible on the Cost Book screen.  

Adding a Cost Book Line

To add/edit/delete cost book lines and their associated costs, navigate to ADD COST BOOK LINE on the Function Bar.

The following pane will open where you can:- 

*Note:  A user cannot delete a cost book line if there are costs associated with it. 

• Export/Import Financials,
• Show/Hide/Save/Reset/Select/Delete Views,
• Export the Cost Book Line Items Grid.

Add

To Add a cost book line

The following pane will open where you can enter the details of the item and associated cost information.

A “Success” message will be displayed and the line item will be added to the cost book.

The new line will show in the Cost Book but will need to be submitted for approval.

• Click SAVE to save any changes you have entered to manually editable cells.
• Click SUBMIT

The following pane will open where you can choose the option to submit an Estimate for Approval into a preconfigured workflow, submit a Funding Request for Approval into a preconfigured workflow, or create an iteration of the Cost Book and COF at that point in time.

When you have selected an option, click SUBMIT to continue or CANCEL to dismiss the action.

Edit

To edit a Cost Book Line item

The following pane will open.   

The following pane will open where you can “edit” the cost book lines and their associated costs.

Delete

*Note:   A user cannot delete a Cost Book line if there are any costs associated with the line.

To remove a Cost Book Line item

The following pane will open where you can “delete” cost book lines.

Note:  A user cannot delete a cost book line if there are costs associated with it. 

The following confirmation pop-up will display:

Note:   If the bin icon is opaque, the item cannot be deleted.

Note:  A user cannot delete a cost book line if there are costs associated with it. 

Export

In the ADD COST BOOK LINE page

The following pane will open where you can choose the file type you want to export.

The file will be downloaded to your computer in excel format.

Import

In the ADD COST BOOK LINE page

The following pane will open where you can choose the file type you want to import.

To import the file, 

Upload the file.  

The successful upload will display with the green tick icon.

Note:  You also have the option to REMOVE the uploaded file

Views

In the ADD COST BOOK LINE page you can Show/Hide/Save/Reset/Select and Delete Views

The following options will display on the function bar:

Save View

To save a View:

The following options will display on the function bar:

The following pane will open where you can give your View a name.  In our example we have names the view “My CostBook View”.  You can also decide if you want to share the view with others.

Note:  When you build a view, it is only you that can see that view.  Once you tick “Shared View” it becomes available to other users on the system. 

Your saved view can be selected from the drop-down menu when you click on “Show Views”.

Delete Views

To delete a view that you have created, select the name of the saved view from the drop-down list:

The following confirmation pane will open

Reset View

The reset view option discards any unsaved changes to the current view and reloads the view as it was the last time it was saved.

Export

In the ADD COST BOOK LINE page

 The exported grid will download to your computer.

Cost Book - Bottom Function Bar

At the bottom of the screen on the function bar, you can view the Versions, Last Updated Date, Last Financial Upload, Estimate Status, Estimate Version, Budget Status, Budget Version.  On the left you have the SAVE and SUBMIT buttons.

Version:

The Cost Book screen is version controlled.  When forecasts have been updated, they can be submitted at regular intervals creating previous iterations for review and comparison.  It can also be used for submitting your forecast at budget.

When you click “Submit”, this automatically creates a version of the Cost Book and Cashout screens at that point in time. The user can label the version with their own title.

You can cycle back through previous versions to see historic versions of the costbook by clicking the Version drop-down arrow to open the list.

Clicking on a Version will result in it being displayed on screen in read only format.

Last Update Date 

This shows the last date and time the Cost Book was updated.

Last Financial Upload 

This shows the last date and time the cost book was updated with an SAP import file.

Estimate Status

This shows the last date and time the cost book was updated with an SAP import file.

Estimate Version

Displays the Version of the Estimate along with the submission description that the user specified when submitting.

Budget Status

Displays the Status of the Budget / Funding Request 

Budget Version

Displays the Version of the Budget along with the submission description that the user specified when submitting. 

Save

Click SAVE.

This saves any changes a user has entered to manually editable cells.

Submit

Click SUBMIT.

This opens the following pane where you can: 

• Submit an Estimate for Approval into a preconfigured workflow
• Submit a Funding Request for Approval into a preconfigured workflow
• Create an iteration of the Cost Book

When you have selected an option, click SUBMIT to continue or CANCEL to dismiss the action.

When you “Submit” a Pending Estimate or Pending Funds request from the Cost Book, the system automatically creates a Version of both screens (Cost Book and Cashout Forecast) at that point in time.  

Pop out Registers

To quickly view what register items make up the value shown, you can do so via a pop out. 

This pop out is available for all Cost Registers but is only visible if a value is displayed.