Now that you've completed the wizard, the integration will mostly take care of itself. Remember to always have the ESC Accounting Server open and connected. Below you will find more information on how the integration functions and how information is transferred.
Preparing for Job Costing
The ESC and Sage 50 interface allows you to track jobs for customers, so you can see how profitable your jobs are, as well as determine how accurate your estimates are. Most job costing reports are run in Sage 50, since labor costs get transferred to a job through payroll, but ESC does have a job costing report based off of the labor cost estimates associated with technician’s time on an invoice.
Before you are able to do job costing with ESC and Sage 50, you will need to first establish Job Phases in Sage 50. These phases can be very simple (Labor, Material, and Other, for example) or very complex and numerous (Residential Install Labor, Rough-In, for example). These phases are used to group job costs into particular categories for reporting purposes. To set up these phases, go to Maintain → Job Costs → Phasesin Sage 50.
Creating New Jobs
New jobs are entered into ESC in the Customer Info → Setup Jobs screen, and are sent to Sage 50 as soon as the Job record is saved. The Job is automatically created in Sage 50 with the same job name. The Description is also equal to the Job Name from ESC. Additional detail can be added to the Job in Sage 50, and will have no effect on how the jobs relate to one another.
Job Costing through Accounts Payable
The first method to get material costs to a job is through AP invoices. When a PO is created in ESC, individual line items can be attached to a particular job that has already been created. When the AP bill is created in Sage 50, the job will be referenced on the AP bill as well, and the cost for that line item will be applied to the job. Only place the Job Number on the PO when you have no plans to put those parts on an invoice or plan to use the Inventory Job Transfer screen for those parts. Doing both of these will result in double or triple costs going to the job.
Job Costing through Inventory
Instead of placing the job number on the purchase order and receiving it directly to a job, you can take items that are in your ESC inventory and apply them to a job using the Inventory Job Transfer screen located in the Inventory drop-down of ESC. This screen has you choose the part number, job and quantity that you wish to transfer, and it needs to know which cost account to apply the dollars to. Much like the Adjust Inventory screen explained in the Inventory section, the ESC system assumes the other side of the Job Transfer is the part’s Inventory Account (from the Inventory Entry screen). When the Inventory Job Transfer is saved, it will create a General Journal Entry in Sage 50.
Again, just like using the Job Number on the Purchase Order, only use the Inventory Job Transfer screen if you do not plan on putting those parts on an invoice or use a job number on a purchase order to get the cost to the job.
Invoicing Jobs
Creating an invoice for a job in ESC accomplishes two things: first, it generates revenue attached to that job, and second, any costs related to that invoice (except labor) will also be transferred and applied to that job. In order to create an invoice for a job to use job costing, all you need to do is reference the customer’s job name in the Job field of the invoice in the Sales Invoicing screen of ESC. When this posts, all costs for material and other items will transfer to the job and the revenue will be applied to that job as well. It is important to remember to not enter parts for cost if they have previously been costed through the AP invoice or the Inventory Job Transfer screen, as this will create double or triple costs.
When the invoice has a job attached to it, each line item entered on the invoice must have a Job Class (Job Phase from Sage 50) entered for it. This ensures that it will properly transfer to the job costing area of Sage 50.
Labor Costing with Jobs
Labor costs get to jobs in Sage 50 by doing payroll in Sage 50. Sage 50 gives you the option of using time sheets for your employees, and specific hours can be attached to specific jobs, or you can simply elect to place a lump dollar value from that employee’s paycheck to a particular job. More information on these procedures can be found in the Sage Help documentation. If you are using a payroll service, when you record the AP bill for the payroll service, you can elect to send some of those cost dollars to a particular job by specifying it on the AP bill.
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