Project - Groups
Groups enables you to create a hierarchy of Cost Centres, whereby you create Parent and Child relationships which can be up to ten levels deep. This provides the opportunity to report Project values at ten different levels, and is particularly useful in Projects where different staff have different responsibility levels.
Groups also enables you to set the Status similar to that set on the Project record, in fact the Status for each new Cost Centre will default to that set on the Project record.
Cost Centre - Groups
From the Project ribbon, clicking on Groups displays a window which will be empty when first displayed for a new Project, unless the Project was duplicated from a previous Project using Groups, in which case the Group Structures can be amended by clicking on the Options menu and Amend, and using the Insert and Remove buttons (see below).
Level (not labelled) - The selection bar at the top of the window enables selection of Levels 1 to 10. Your selection will be highlighted.
Keys - Displays a menu of keyboard commands available. These enable you to Insert or Remove an entry (if Amend has been selected), and to select the Groups, which speeds up the process of inserting or deleting Cost Centres into/from the required Groups.
Options - Displays a menu with three options :
Amend - Puts the Group Structure window into Edit mode (enabling Insert and Remove), and displays the Cost Centre Selection window. This lists any Cost Centres that are still available. Clicking on an item on either of these two windows selects it, you can also Shift-click or Control/Command-click to select (or deselect) multiple items. On this window: Insert will transfer the items you select on the Selection window to the Group Structure window; Remove will move items from the Group Structure window back into the Selection window. You must click OK to save any changes you make to the Group Structure.
Highlight Group - If you select one of the Groups, then select this option, all of the Cost Centres analysed to the selected Group will be highlighted.
Print - Displays a selection window. You can print a report which contains information for the Project currently selected.
Total - First select your Cost Centre(s) in the Group Structure window. Then click the Total menu, this will display a menu with four selections. Selecting one of these options will calculate the total values and display a window which shows Budget and Actual, Cost and Sales values.
Status - Displays a drop down Menu of options available. All but the Show Status options will be greyed out and unavailable unless you have already selected Amend from the Groups Options menu.
Change Status - Offers two options, Selection Only and Selection and Below. The first option will allow you to select individual Cost Centres and change their Status, whereas the second will allow the selection as for the first, but also include all the child records that are associated with your selection.
Show Status - Will display, in the Group Structure window, the Status of each Cost Centre.
Example: Following is an illustration of how to enter a simple Group Structure with three levels for a Project to assemble a computer system.
First of all select Group Level '1' on the empty Group Structure window.
Now click on Options, select Amend and review the Cost Centre Selection list and select with the mouse (using click or Control/Command click) all of the Cost Centre records that are required for Group level '1'.
Clicking Insert on the Cost Centre Selection window will extract your selected Cost Centres from the list, and insert them into the Group Structure window as in the example.
Remember then to click on OK to save the new structure, before you can add anything else to the structure.
3-level Hierarchy for Project 'Computer'
Group 1 | Group 2 | Group 3 |
Computer | Power Supply |
|
| Storage Units | Hard Disk |
| Motherboard | Processor |
Screen | Casing & Cable |
|
Printer | Casing |
|
Click on the Group structure window and select level 2 from the Group levels bar at the top. Now select a record (Computer), that will be Parent to the level 2 Cost Centres you Insert.
Click on Options again and select Amend, and the Cost Centre selection window will be displayed. Select all of the Cost Centres that will be Children of Computer (Power Supply, Storage Units and Motherboard), and click at the bottom of the window.
Click on the Group structure window, select 3 from the Group levels bar, and select the Group 2 Cost Centre record (Storage Units) that will be Parent to the Level 3 Cost Centres you Insert.
Click on the Cost Centre selection window and select the Children (Hard Disk and Floppy Disk) of the Parent Storage Units and click on Insert.
Continue in this way until you achieve the desired result.
Removing a Cost Centre
If you Insert Cost Centres in the wrong place by mistake, select them in the Group structure window, and click Remove on the Cost Centre selection window.
Any Cost Centres that you leave in the Cost Centre selection window will continue to have a Group Level of 1.
If you select one of the Group numbers (1 to 10), then click on Highlight Group, it will display a tick in the Options pull down menu to show that it is enabled.
Also all of the Cost Centres analysed to the selected Group number will be highlighted.
When you have created a Group structure of your own you can experiment with this facility (it is usually used in conjunction with the Print and Total Options).
Group Status
When Project records are first entered into the system they are entered as either Estimate or Active Status. You can enter a default Status in Costing Options
When new Cost Centre records are entered for Projects, they automatically take the same Status as their Project.
When you change the Status of a Project, the system asks if you wish to change the status of all Cost Centres to be the same. You may however change the Status for an individual Cost Centre, or for all the Cost Centres within a Group, (so that the Cost Centre's Status is different from the Status of the Project).
You may, for example, want to stop bookings to particular Cost Centre (or Groups of Cost Centres), in which case you may Suspend them or Complete them, or you may want to lock the Original Budget on some Cost Centres, by changing their Status to Active part way through your Estimating activity.
Selecting the Status menu displays a list of options available (all but the Show Status option will be greyed out and unavailable unless you have already selected Amend from the Groups menu button).
Show Status will display, in the Group structure window, the Status of each Cost Centre. It is recommended that you always take this option when changing Cost Centre Status so that you can see immediately the result of changes as you make them.
The Show Status option changes to Hide Status in the menu so that when you have finished making changes you can return the Group structure window back to normal.
Change Status offers two options.
Selection Only will allow you to select individual Cost Centres (Control/Command click to select each required Cost Centre), and change their Status.
Selection and Below will allow you to select individual Cost Centres as described above, however the system will increase your selection to include all of the child records (and their child records etc.), that are associated with your selection.
Having made your selection from the options above you can select one of the Status options, Estimate, Cancelled etc., and you will see that the system changes the status of your selected Cost Centres straight away on the screen before you.
You can experiment with this feature - it is very easy to change the Status back to how it was before you started, and your changes are only saved when you click the OK icon on the Group structure window.