Cost-related processes are those related to the following:
- Budget Change
- Commitment Change
- Commitment
- Commitment Invoice
- General Invoice
- Retainage amounts
- Allowances
The biggest convenience of integrated cost process is that cost items automatically update in the appropriate area in the Cost Module, requiring no further data input within e-Builder. For instance, a potential change order (PCO) can include a link to the commitment change cost item in order to facilitate a change to a contract or purchase order (PO). When the PCO is approved, the commitment change is automatically approved in the Cost module as well. As the PCO is being routed for approval the commitment change has a status of pending. While this is occurring, the appropriate project cost summary columns are automatically updated and reflected in your key reports. As the initiator of a cost process, you must ensure that cost item data fields are completed before submitting the process step.
Allowances
Commitment items can be flagged as allowance items by selecting the Allowance check box at the item level. If there are contractual stipulations that no invoices are to be applied against these allowance amounts until approved, e-Builder knows not to invoice directly against these amounts until there is an approval.
The behavior of entering or updating cost items in a process is the same as in the Cost module. For more information, refer to the following sections for details on e-Builder's Cost-related functions:
- Budget Changes
- Commitments
- Commitment Changes
- Actual Cost
- Allowances
- Retainage
Depending on your process settings, you may or may not be able to do the following:
- Update the reason code for commitment changes and budget changes
- Select whether the invoice is a commitment invoice or general invoice
- Change the commitment type
- Pick the type of unit costs that applies to the commitment
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