Application Setup

Overview

The following tutorial explains the continuous setup of InFocus after you have followed the steps in the Initial Setup section of this manual.

Order of Setup

The applets below are given to you in the order in which you would set them up to begin use. The one notable exception is global settings. While many of the fields in global settings should be setup up initially, some will require returning to global settings after other section setups are completed.

Administration>List Management

Lists are found in most drop-down boxes in InFocus, as well as in cases where there are more than two selections. Lists can be of two types System and User. System lists cannot be added to, edited, or deleted. System lists are viewable for reference purposes only. User lists are completely in control of the user. You can add, edit, delete and reorder these lists. Please note, the use of the individual lists will be referenced after the overview of the pertinent setup module.

For more detailed information, see the List Management section of this manual.

Administration>Global Settings

Global settings contain all system-wide settings for InFocus. In general, settings are configuration switches for the application. Typically, these are set during the initial installation of the application or when needed modules are brought into use. While many of the settings can be set up immediately upon installation, some settings must be configured after their corresponding module has been initialized. This is especially true for settings that act as default values.

For more detailed information, see the Global Settings section of this manual.

General Accounting>Organizational Units

Organizational units represent the corporate structure. They can contain an infinite number of levels. Examples of levels would be division, office, discipline or department. They can also be used for target markets, though that may be handled better using the market sector feature in InFocus. Employees, projects and G/L base accounts can be attached to org units in various scenarios. Employees can be assigned only to the lowest level of the org structure. This ensures proper revenue recognition calculations. Projects can be shared among org units at the specified level established in global settings. Projects can be owned at any level equal to or above the share level. In the case of project charging, allowable org units include not only the established owner or sharing org unit, but all its children.

For more detailed information, see the Organizational Units section of this manual.

General Accounting>Chart of Accounts

Chart of Accounts represents the allowable G/L Accounts. An allowable G/L account is comprised of potentially two parts: a base account and, optionally, an organization path. In other words, base accounts can be attached to any org path In other words, base accounts can be attached to any org path, or to no org path. Base accounts also contain properties that interact with project management and accounting processes.  This is where the integration of accounting and project management is established.

For more detailed information, see the Chart  of Accounts section of this manual.

General Accounting>G/L Budgets

Budgets can be maintained for any and all general ledger accounts per accounting period. Budgets for both accrual and cash balances can be entered. Budgets can appear and be part of calculations in financial statements.

All columns can be both pinned (column does not scroll) and filtered (only rows with designated column value will show). The push pin in the column header controls pinning and the funnel in the column header controls filtering.

For more detailed information, see the GL Budgets section of this manual.

Accounts Receivable>Clients

Clients, vendors and prospects are all considered Firms in InFocus. When you add a client it can later be flagged to also act as a vendor or vice versa. Prospects are firms that you are hoping become clients. Once they become clients they are no longer considered to be prospects. Clients are required for billable projects.

For more detailed information, see the Clients section of this manual.

Project Administration>Expense Codes

Project Administration>Expense Groups

Expense codes provide two primary functions. First, they allow for non-labor expenses to be grouped into categories. This is beneficial because it allows for billing categories to be established without the need for changing the chart of accounts. For instance, if a client demands that air travel is separated from local travel, you would not have to set up a separate ODC travel G/L account. Secondly, Expense Groups and Codes provide a mechanism for varied unit billing and markups. Once expense codes are established, they are then placed in expense groups. An expense code can belong to many groups. In turn, groups are applied to projects. Groups also can have effect dates allowing for the revision of markups/rates on perhaps an annual basis. Basically, expense groups are the expense equivalent of labor rate schedules.

For more detailed information, see the Expense  Groups and Codes section of this manual.

Accounts Payable>Vendors

Like clients, vendors are also firms. If the vendor you want to set up already exists as a client or prospect, simply recalling the firm to the screen and clicking on Save will establish it as a vendor. Vendors are a requirement to maintain accounts payable sub-ledgers.

For more detailed information, see the Vendors section of this manual.

Human Resources>Job Titles

Job Titles can be established for employees. Examples of a job title are Senior Mechanical Engineer, Surveyor, Cad Operator etc. Employees can be assigned to one or more job titles. At the project level, employees can be assigned an override set of job titles. Rate schedules can be set up based on job titles. Job titles also can provide the G/L posting accounts for labor distribution. These posting accounts override those in global settings.

For more detailed information, see the Job Titles section of this manual.

Project Adminstration>Labor Codes

Labor Codes are used to group time together for items (such as site time, meetings, phone call, etc.) that are not part of the WBS. Labor codes can be subtotals in project management reports. They are not exposed in billing, nor do they have budgets. Labor codes, when set up, are global and can be used against any project.  They can be restricted to direct or indirect projects.

For more detailed information, see the Labor Codes section of this manual.

Human Resources>Employees

Timesheet Groups provide a mechanism for the preparation of time sheet coverage periods. Timesheet coverage periods simply means the starting date and ending date for a time sheet. InFocus allows for multiple time sheet coverage periods. For instance, you can have a group of employees putting in weekly timesheets and another putting in biweekly timesheets. You can even have multiple groups putting in weekly timesheets but each starting on a different day of the week.

For more detailed information, see the Timesheet Groups section of this manual.

Human Resources>Employees

Employees and sub-contractors are entered in employee setup. These are the only items that can have time sheets entered against them. InFocus is licensed-based on active employee count (subcontractors count as employees).

For more detailed information, see the Employees section of this manual.

Project Adminstration>WBS Templates

Work Breakdown Structure Templates are tree fragments. They can represent multiple levels of nodes linked together or simply one unlinked level. WBS templates are used for fast WBS setups. After creating a project or WBS structure you can right click on a node and apply a WBS template to that node or all nodes of the same level. Please note that WBS codes must be unique with respect to parent node within a template. Since the top level has no parent nodes all top nodes must be unique among themselves within the template.

For more detailed information, see the WBS Template section of this manual.

Project Administration>Rate Schedules

Rate schedules are used to control job cost and bill rate schedules in the application. Once rate schedules are setup they can then be applied to projects. Rate schedules are date sensitive so as to all period changes to schedules perhaps on an annual basis. When time sheets are entered or edited in the system they immediately pick up rates and store them in the time sheet module so that they are available for reporting. If you want to apply rates retroactively to time entries, this can be accomplished via the Recalculate Rates Utility.

For more detailed information, see the Rate Schedules section of this manual.

Project Administration>Projects

There are five types of projects in InFocus: billable, indirect, projection, opportunity, and plan. Billable Projects can be invoiced and require a client. Indirect Projects are overhead projects that can be charged to but never invoiced. Opportunities are similar to Indirect Projects but, are client-related, and charges can be placed on hold. If an Opportunity becomes a Billable Project, the charges on hold can then be either billed or written off. The final two, Projection and Plan, cannot receive charges. Plans exist only for the purpose of project planning. Projections are used to record estimated revenue for future endeavors. Projects can always change their type. All projects can have an unlimited breakdown, called the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). You can assign names to the levels of the WBS such as phase and task. An entire WBS can be created from a template project, or portions of the WBS can be constructed from WBS templates.

When a project is first created, the top level is known as the Bill Terms Node (Project). This is the node that receives the bulk of the project information, such as who the client is, what type of project it is, etc. All nodes beneath the Bill Terms Node (Project) can

have limited information entered such as contractual caps, allowable charging date ranges, budgets and rate schedules. While the Bill Terms Node (Project) is typically the top node, it can also live at the second level. This is accomplished by inserting a roll-up

node above the Bill Terms Node (Project). In this way multiple Bill Terms Nodes (Projects) can be grouped together for project reporting purposes. Charge levels are important in the setup of projects. Charge Levels need to be established for ODC, OCC and ICC

charges. The setting dictates to what level of the WBS that charges can be applied.  By default that level is the bill terms level. Labor can only be charged to a bottom node (a node with no children).

For more detailed information, see the Projects section of this manual.

General Accounting>Accounting Periods

Accounting periods (also referred to as G/L periods) need to be established before transactions (other than time sheets) can be entered into the system.

For more detailed information, see the Accounting Periods section of this manual.

Marketing>Firms

Firms are organizations that you have done business with or would like to do business with. They can be vendors, clients, or prospects. Any entry in firms is also accessible from the client and vendor applets. The Firm navigation screen is laid out like a rolodex with alphabetic tabs representing the first letter of the firm name. An All tab contains all firms. On each tab, one or more columns will show specific data about the firm, such as firm name or main phone. These columns are customizable by the user. If you click on a firm inside of a tab a detail form will come up for that firm where you can view or change the data, depending on your permissions. The New Firm button on the tool bar allows you to enter a new firm. Note that only clients and prospects can be added from this form. By default the system assumes prospect. There is also an export button to export the contents of the grid on the currently selected tab.

For more detailed information, see the Firms section of this manual.

Marketing>Opportunities

Opportunities are a specific type of project, typically a marketing effort. Time and expense can be charged to opportunities. Opportunities are treated as indirect projects. The opportunity applet is a streamlined view of opportunity projects. Opportunities can also be accessed from the main Project Setup applet. The Opportunity applet exposes certain columns of a project that are relevant to opportunity projects. For instance, there is no billing/invoice information since it is not applicable. The navigation for the opportunity applet is a grid. You can click on any column header to  either sort by that column or to filter by that column. Clicking on a row in the grid will bring up the Opportunity Detail screen for that opportunity. There is also an export button to export the contents of the grid.

For more detailed information, see the Opportunities section of this manual.

Marketing>Contacts

Contacts, in general are people. They can be employees of your company or employees of a firm with which you do business. Contacts can also be associated with project's but only contacts for that projects client. In other words, contacts cannot exist for a project that does not already exist for that project's client.

For more detailed information, see the Contacts section of this manual.

User definable fields can be created for the following applets in InFocus: Clients, Employees, Vendors, Projects, Contacts. Whenever you are in one of these five setup screens, a "UDF Designer" button will appear on the tool bar, assuming you have proper permissions. You can also access any of the UDF designers from the UDF Designer applet located in the Administration module.

For more detailed information, see the User Defined Fields section of this manual.

Addresses can be set up for the following items in InFocus:

Addresses can be NAMED to categorize addresses for reuse. For instance, clients may have many office addresses. You can set up an address for each office, and then associate client contacts with a particular office address. If the information of the NAMED address changes, you can cascade those changes to all associated (linked) addresses in entirety, or only for fields that have a value. Sometimes addresses have specific uses, as in the case of Bill To, Pay To, and Remit To addresses. These can be unassociated addresses or linked addresses. Most often they will be linked addresses, which means you will first want to enter them as a named address prior to referencing them as a Bill To, or Remit To.

For more detailed information, see the Addresses sections of this manual.

Notes can be recorded for firms, contacts and projects. There is no limit to the number of notes or the length of any singular note. Notes are stored with a date and timestamp of when they are entered. While the creator of the note is also recorded, all users allowed into a particular Notes applet can access all notes, regardless of creator. Activities can also be associated and established with notes. Activities are calendar events. Before you can enter a note you need to establish a least one activity type in List Management. Note that types are used to categorize notes. Examples of note types might be marketing or customer support. Before you can enter an activity, you need to establish a least one activity type in List Management. Activity types are used to categorize activities. Examples of activity types might be call back or appointment.

For more detailed information, see the Notes section of this manual.