In Abtrac you can categorize reasons for write offs and write ons, and therefore more easily report on them.
You can assign write off reasons for an individual invoice, or review invoices and write offs in bulk from the Invoices >> Manage Invoice Write On/Off Reasons screen.
You can also view a report of the same information from Reports >> Performance reports >> Write – On/Offs Between Dates With Reason.
Setting up Write Off categories – reasons why a project has overrun
Under the menu choice Administration >> Maintenance >> Write On Off Reasons you can enter and maintain a list of categories for write offs. This is a pick list from which users can choose to explain the write off or write on reasons on any invoice.
Reviewing Overruns in bulk : Manage Invoice Write On/Off Reasons screen
The Manage Invoice Write On/Off Reasons page shows all committed invoices between a selected date range.
It’s used to quickly see whether an invoice recovered costs or not.
From this screen you can access further reports, or start invoicing and assigning time.
From Invoices >> click on Manage Invoice Write On/Off Reasons to go into the Invoice Write On/Off Reasons screen.
Choose the From and To dates from the dropdowns.
You can also select the type from the dropdown – Write On, Write Off, or Both.
On selecting the ‘Both’ option, it also shows the invoices where the total WIP and invoice amount match exactly.
Tick the box to also include invoices with no WIP assigned.
This grid can be grouped by Client Name, Project Code, Job Manager, Reason (Reason for Write On/Off) and Office.
Another way of grouping the grid is by clicking on the ‘Advanced’ button near ‘Group By’ and grouping by dragging a column header into the space above the grid.
Also see Tips for filtering, grouping and sorting Abtrac data.
You can click on the Report Options button to export the information in the grid to Excel or CSV.
From this screen, you can assign reason for any of the individual invoices.
Click on the arrow button next to an invoice number to assign reason.
When adding a reason, you can also write off/on against the stage as shown below. Here, too much time was spent on new employee training and it was written off against the relevant stage.
The Invoices >> Manage Invoice Write On/Off Reasons screen is to be viewed in conjunction with the Write – On/Offs Between Dates With Reason Report.
Assign Reasons for an Individual Invoice
From Invoices >> Load Invoices >> click on an ‘Invoice No’ to go into the Invoice management screen >> click on the Invoice Lines, Narratives and Amounts section.
This view of Invoice Line Details below has a fee value ‘Line Amount’ of $1,000 but it has had $1,950 worth of time in ‘Assigned Fees’ attached to it, thus incurring a significant write off of $950.00.
Clicking on the ‘Manage Write On/Off’ button a new screen opens (below) where the project manager or any other authorized person can explain the reason(s) for this write off.
Below we’ve added several reasons, one with a nominal $500.00 value given to it and two other reasons are simply narratives explaining what happened, but no values assigned.
Project managers will work through their projects assigning reasons for write offs and write ons prior to reporting.
The Comment above is optional.
Note that the total of the dollar amount for the reasons ($500.00) does not have to balance to the total write on or write off on the invoice ($950.00).
Write – On/Offs Between Dates with Reason Report
From Reports >> Performance Reports >> towards the bottom of the Reports list in the Management Analysis section is the report ‘Write – On/Offs Between Dates with Reason’.
Choose filters and options as required, such as the dates or Job Owner (which may be called Project Manager or have some other title in your instance of Abtrac).
Reporting Write On/Offs with details
When you click to view the report, there are further options in the pop-up window.
The report will look like this if the ‘Show Detail’ checkbox is ticked:
Or like this if none of the checkboxes are ticked.
Reporting to include invoices with no WIP assigned
The report will look like this if the ‘Include invoices with no WIP assigned’ checkbox is ticked. In addition, here it also shows the invoices where the total WIP and invoice amount match exactly.
Abtrac KB# 2120