Users want to add a budget for additional services in ArchiOffice/EngineerOffice. In addition, they want to track consultant services separately so that they don't show up on invoices.
You can budget additional services just as you would regular services. However, additional services won’t be capped and hence you have to monitor them carefully.
There are many ways to handle outside consultant services in ArchiOffice/EngineerOffice. Two methods are given below:
Method 1:
You can add consultants and vendors by creating a separate Consultant phase and adding sub phases to it for every consultant. This way you can track those expenses on a project separately. There might be situations where you want to enter a negative fee or budget for such a phase to keep the amount totals in agreement with the client's contract. Here is how to handle such situations:
You can create a phase called 'Consultants' with sub phases under it called 'Structural', 'MEP', etc. The total budget for Consultants phase will be the total of all its sub phases. You can create another phase, say Contra, to adjust and cancel out the consultant fee amount. To do so, you can check it's Hourly option temporarily and then enter the negative fee amount.
The Active option should be unchecked for the entire Consultants phase and sub-phases so that it doesn't appear on any invoice and hence doesn't get billed. This is how it will appear on saving:
The contract value remains $100,000 and that is what your client and staff will see. Although the adjustment amount appears positive, the percentage and overall entry is negative.
Method 2:
You can add consultants and vendors by creating a separate Consultants job code as an 'Additional Services' item and adding sub codes to it for every consultant. This way you can track those expenses on a project separately. Here is how to handle such a situation:
From the Projects > Details screen, you can create a Main Job Code called 'Consultants' with sub codes under it called 'Structural', 'MEP', etc. All these codes are marked as 'Additional'. In order to make these job codes available in the Expense screen, you can also create a Phase called Consultants and then connect these job codes to it by selecting their check boxes. This way, your staff working on regular phases will not see the Consultants options.
The total budget for Consultants job code will be the total of all its sub codes. You can create another main job code, say Adjustment Consultants, to adjust and cancel out the consultant fee amount. This is how your budget will appear.
Note: Make sure the Consultants phase is not selected on the Projects > Billing > Options screen so that it does not appear on an invoice.
You can enter client non-reimbursable consultant expenses against these sub codes and track them separately, without having your clients and staff see this information.
An alternative to this approach is creating sub-phases for consultants. This is covered in another KB article.