4castplusENABLING “THE INTELLIGENT JOBSITE” FOR REAL-TIME FIELD COST CAPTURE, VENDOR INVOICE MATCHING AND BILLING

In this explainer presentation, I’m going to walk you through a scenario where field data is tracked from the jobsite …

And automatically routed for approval and billing … all in 4castplus

First I’ll describe the scenario so that you get a picture of all the steps and moving parts.

Then I’ll take you through each step, showing you how to perform each step in 4castplus. So, first …

The Scenario

You have a crew at a jobsite that need to track their hours for labor and equipment, along with materials & any other charges – On a Daily Basis

At the end of each day, your Site Foreman produces a “LEM” Report that needs to be signed by the client.

You might call it a Superintendent Report, or Site Foreman’s Report.

In any case, it’s a summary of all the hours & associated costs from the resources & any 3rd party charges that occurred on the day.

Once that report is signed by the client, it gets scanned, uploaded and is ultimately used as “Invoicing Backup” by accounts receivable when billing the client.

In addition to the client sign-off, all the daily LEM entries need to be recorded as cost & billing transactions on the project.

So … When he’s got the report signed by the client, and all the documents uploaded, the Site Foreman will submit the whole thing for internal approval.

Once it’s approved, the finance team can take all the LEM entries, and attached documents, and invoice the client.

The scenario looks a bit like this ...

Site Foreman:• Enters LEM data• Prints LEM Report

1

Customer:• Client Reviews and

signs report

2 4

Project Manager:• Reviews and Approves

submitted Daily LEM Timesheet

• Other approvers may also approve

Site Foreman:• Uploads Report• Uploads other documents• Submits the whole thing for

internal approval

3 5

Accounts Receivable:• Creates customer invoices using

approved LEM transactions and uploaded documents

• Matches and approves 3rd party (vendor) invoices

JOBSITE OFFICE

Each of the above steps occurs directly in 4castplus

As you saw in the last slide, the submitted “Jobsite Timesheet” will be (optionally) routed for approval.

After the entries are approved, they will be visible to Accounts Receivable for client billing.

Accounts Receivable creates invoices using the LEM data (billable transactions and progress) and Documents tracked from the jobsite.

Accounts Receivable can also use 4castplus to match and approve 3rd party vendor charges.

So, that’s the end of the scenario

Now I’ll show you how all this happens in 4castplus.

Tracking Jobsite LEM Data1

The next slide shows a screenshot of the 4castplus “Daily Jobsite Timesheet”.

In that one screen, your field personnel can capture ALL field data. Including…

Field Data that can be Captured by 4castplus:

1. Labor, Equipment and Materials

2. Labor Expenses like Subsistence, Hotel, Fuel, etc.

3. Non-PO Third-Party charges: any ad-hoc vendor expenses not previously committed on a purchase order

4. Any Uploaded Documents

5. Physical progress of any measurable work

6. Site Foreman’s Daily Log

7. Third-Party receipts from items previously committed on a purchase order. (Field Receiving)

In the following slides, I’ll show that 4castplus screen again, broken out into the sub-sections. With some annotations about where to enter stuff

Here’s were you capture your LEM

entries

Here’s were you capture your 3rd party (non-PO)

charges

3rd Party Charges can be marked up, passed

through, or not charged to the client

Here’s were you upload any documents. Just drag

& drop into the configurable drop-zones.

These documents can be made available in the

Billing module for invoicing backup

Here’s were you enter any physical progress

completed on the day.

Progress amounts can be billable on Unit Price projects. Or used as Progress Measurements on Fixed

Price Projects

Here’s were you enter the Site Foreman’s Daily Log .

Each of these Log Sections is configurable

and reportable.

Once the information has been entered & saved, the user can generate a summary LEM report. See the next screen …

Here’s were you can generate a formatted

report.

Customer Sign-off2

That report can be printed, signed, scanned – then uploaded into the Documents area

The whole package is now stored in the system in a big fat database so that the data can be reported on and accessed by many other people and used for many other purposes …

Like Billing for example. Or reporting project Costs, Revenues, WIP, Payroll, Progress, etc.

The next step for the Site Foreman, is to “Submit” the Jobsite Timesheet for Approval.

Submit for Approvals3

Using approvals is optional, but recommended, since mistakes can be made in the Field – and this is your source for payroll, cost & revenue information

In 4castplus, you can design multi-level, multi-role approvals workflows that the system will auto-manage. You’ll have reporting, debottlenecking, overrides, delegates, SOD, etc. capabilities built-into the approvals system.

To submit the package for approval, the Site Foreman simply has to click the Submit button.

That will route the package to the appropriate people to be approved.

Site Foreman:• Enters LEM data• Prints LEM Report

1

Customer:• Client Reviews and

signs report

2 4

Project Manager:• Reviews and Approves

submitted Daily LEM Timesheet

• Other approvers may also approve

Site Foreman:• Uploads Report• Uploads other documents• Submits Daily Entries for

approval

3 5

Accounts Receivable:• Creates customer invoices using

approved LEM transactions and uploaded documents

• Matches and approves 3rd party (vendor) invoices

JOBSITE OFFICE

We’re here now

Once fully approved, all the transactions and documents will be available to Billing to generate a customer invoice.

We’ll get to Billing in a minute. First, let’s have a little chat about those Third-Party Expenses that have been entered.

Vendor Invoice Matching and Attest

4a

As we saw earlier, third-party (vendor) expenses can be PO or Non-PO expenses.

What does THAT mean?

Through the 4castplus Procurement module, you can create contractual Purchase Orders that you issue to vendors to perform work or provide materials/equipment. This is for a “Committed Purchase Order”.

For those vendor charges, you’d use the Field Receiving section to ‘receive’ the work completed on that day – or the materials delivered – against the committed amount on the line-item from the associated Purchase Order.

Situations can occur, however, where you may not already have a PO in place with a particular vendor. But that vendor did work for you and generated a chargeable expense – so you need to account for that.

That situation therefore has no Committed PO, and is considered a Non-PO expense.

For both situations, 4castplus provides tools for matching & approving the actual Invoice that you later receive from the vendor against the incurred transaction(s).

The next screen shows the Non-PO invoice matching module, called Vendor Invoice Tracking. This is also known as the second half of a 2-Way Match: Incurred, Invoiced.

The Vendor Invoice Tracking Module is where you can Match, adjust & Approve the invoices received from vendors against the original receipt entry

And the next screen shows what the PO Invoice Matching screen looks like. It’s found in the Procurement Module. This is also known as the third part of a 3-Way Match: Committed, Incurred, Invoiced.

This module allows users to match quantities or costs accrued through receiving or completion of work against committed amounts on a purchase order.

These invoice matching modules will negate the accruals generated through the original incurred entry. As a side-note to this, 4castplus provides robust Accrual Reporting.

Once your vendor invoices are approved – and any adjustments are made – you should have a complete picture for Billing.

Of course, you may not want to wait until you receive invoices from your vendors before billing your client. So that whole matching step can happen later if you prefer.

Customer Billing

4b

Now that all the field data and documents have been entered and approved, you can now use that data to bill your client.

Of course, you’ll bill for more than just one day. Maybe you invoice bi-weekly, for example.

When you create an invoice, you simply pick the billing period, and the system will collect all the jobsite timesheets, documents and transactions for that date range.

Everything’s connected together in that big fat database in the cloud, so your finance group doesn’t have to go searching for what is and isn’t billable. It’s all just there.

The next screen shows the top portion of the invoicing module which shows the summary dashboard

This is the list of created invoices and other summary invoicing information for this

project

You can invoice based on various different billing methods. For example:

• Time & Materials• Cost Plus• Fixed Price• Unit Price

You can even have a mix of more than one billing method in the same project. Like, some T&M and some Fixed Price for example. The 4castplus invoicing will take care of the combination billing for you.

4castplus will consolidate and sum all the reimbursable transactions and/or progress amounts into a single invoicing package

You can also create “Adjustments” for those situations where an audited change to transaction(s) needs to be done at time of billing.

One of the most important aspects of streamlined invoicing, is being able to easily create Invoice Backup.

4castplus has very robust and flexible invoice backup reporting …

Including the ability to attach all those signed LEM Report documents uploaded from the Jobsite.

Along with any other scanned photos, receipts, surveys, etc. that may be relevant for invoicing.

And if you need to report the transactions on a reimbursable project, or a progress report on a fixed price – or both – 4castplus has great backup reporting for those too.

You can also design your own Invoice and invoice backup using the Custom Report Templates.

Then when you’re all done, and you’ve committed your invoice, you can submit that for a multi-level approval (again, this approval step is optional).

And finally, once it’s all approved, you can additionally export your 4castplus invoices to your Finance System / ERP.

That completes the walk-through of this scenario. There were a lot of details that I’m sure you have questions about – so we’d be happy to talk to you about it all. So…

To Learn More or Contact Us:• Visit our Website at: www.4castplus.com• Sign-up for a Free Demo at: www.4castplus.com/freedemo• Contact us by Phone: +1-403-450-7887• Contact us by email at: info@4castplus.com

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