We are construction company and has created projects accounts in assets. To control project expenses we have also created special accounts which are linked to projects. We usually give advances to our staff to incur expenditures on these projects, who are mostly supervisors who control cash on different project.
Supervisors at a time may be controlling multiple projects and we have created account for each supervisor in current asset for the sum given to them. Once we give advance to them, we debit supervisor and credit bank. Then supervisor spend money on different project and we record them project wise expense through special account. For example Rs. 5,000 fuel expense on project 1.
We want report of supervisor wise spending on different project. For example we have advanced Rs. 500,000 to supervisor A, who is in-charge of project 1, 2 and 3. Is it possible to get report of Rs. 500,000 that how the supervisor spent money advanced to him and on which project?
Currently we can able to generate report on total project cost through GL transaction Summary and the same for supervisors as whole, not a project wise. The ledger report of one of the supervisors is enclosed. We require the enclosed report project wise.
Your description reveals several problems. Special accounts are not for recording expenses. Journal entries should not be used to record payments or receipts. Most of what you apparently want could have been done more easily with tracking codes. But your workflow and accounting structure are not clear, so I may misunderstand what you are explaining.
Since we have constructions projects, which takes time to complete usually more than a financial year. Therefore we can’t charge out expense till the project is get completed. If we charge expense in profit & loss account than we will unable to see the complete cost of project up to date. For example if the project is in third year, the cost incurred on the project is our asset till the completion of the project. Since, manager.io is not supporting tracking codes in balance sheet therefore we are using special accounts to control specific cost on each project.
You can generate profit and loss statements by tracking code for any time period, not just your current financial year. This is one of the advantages of perpetual accounting systems like Manager.
@yameen101 - your initial post was about advances to supervisors which you appear to be operating via “we have created account for each supervisor in current asset for the sum given to them”. Can it be suggested that those current asset accounts should actually be “Cash on hand” petty cash accounts.
Therefore, when you give an advance you are in effect transferring money from being stored at the bank to being stored in the supervisors pocket (Petty Cash Tin). Then any expenditure is entered via New Payment (Spend Money).
Creating a “payment or receipt” custom field may then allow the entry of a project name which a report can then show how the advances have been spent.
Also, your project special accounts are in effect “work-in-progress” accounts and its very appropriate to record project expenses that way for later transfer (on completion) to the P&L By giving each project its own special account is a form of tracking code.
The alternate is to post all expenses (project and operating) to the P&L with the use of tracking codes and then at each year end, do a journal to transfer the project WIP to the balance sheet - more messy but workable.
I have now created cash in hand with each supervisor name and now recording payments made by each supervisors through “Receipts & Payment” option instead of Journals.
While recording payment we are using tracking codes for each project which is workable.
However, we are still unable to get supervisors (cash in hand) report containing each project name using custom fields as you suggested. The images for payment and cash summary are also enclosed for your review.
The cash accounts you have created for each supervisor do not allow separation of projects in the Cash Account Summary. If Mr. ABC has only one cash account, but manages 3 projects, all those projects will be grouped together. Fuel expenses for Project 1 will be combined with fuel expenses for Project 2 unless you have two separate fuel expense accounts.
The solution for this, if I understand what you are trying to do, is to create separate cash accounts for each project: Mr. ABC1, Mr. ABC2, and Mr. ABC3. You can get the same information—and more—without separate cash accounts, however. Create Profit and Loss Statement reports by tracking code. You could combine all of Mr. ABC’s projects on a single report by adding columns for tracking codes of each project he supervises.
This does not resolve the issue of the cash account reporting as you are assuming that all costs related to a project are going to be passing through the supervisors cash account.
E.G. - The company has fulltime labours who work on the projects and are paid via the business bank account. The supervisor may engage casual day labour and are paid via the cash account. The P&L report with tracking codes is going to detail both payments not just the cash.
Also, I am assuming that these supervisors cash accounts are only for incidentals costs, not all the supplier material charges.
I was thinking more along the lines of creating a Custom Report rather then the inbuilt Cash Account Summary.
If the custom field contained Project A, Project B etc, then perhaps the sort may group these. I understand that this may mean entering all Project A payments as one payment transaction and Project B as another payment transaction rather then mixing Project A and Project B within the one payment transaction.
If there was a Payment & Receipt “Custom Field - Line” option then this conflict could be resolved, but unfortunately there is not one unless it’s been recently added.
“we have created account for each supervisor in current asset for the sum given to them”
I would like to make a suggestion towards the above quote.
I think you need to use “Expense Claims” in reverse and this can be achieved as follows;
Activate and set up expense claims as an Asset - and you can name it " Accountable Imprest"
Set Expense Claim Payers - these should be your supervisors
Your Payment are to be made from your so called Project acccounts to the Accountable imprest account.
What will happen is that when a payment is done from your project account to the Accountable imprest account, a provision of a drop-down list of your supervisors will show. At this point you can choose which supervisor you would like to debit with the payment. However, note that this transaction is not an expense transaction. It is only a transfer of value, for luck of a better term, from one Asset to another. In short the supervisor is owing the organization.
To see what supervisors are owing go to reports then expense claims, you find amounts owing by your supervisors. This can also be seen in your balance sheet as an asset.
When supervisors begin to execute intended expenses on projects, they need to do so by making sure receipts are collected for every expense for them to account and retire the money issued to them. Without receipts as proof of expense the step below would not be undertaken to clear the supervisor, meaning they would be owing the organization until receipts are availed
In manager, the use of journal entries would be necessary at this point to post the expenses to a particular cost center. This action would credit Accountable Imprest of a particular supervisor and debit the cost of that particular cost center.
Trucking codes in this case would be very useful to allocate funding and expenditure to that project. trucking codes will be found in the journal too.
Your use of Expense Claims is creative, however why the need for Journal Entries.
If the Supervisors spending of the Imprest were entered as an Expense Claim transaction then those expenses could be allocate to a cost centre / tracking code without the need of Journal entries.
