SimPRO's an incredible tool. But with any deep system, there's always plenty of room for user error.
Here are three areas which reliably trip people up, and which I regularly receive queries about. Hopefully, after reading this you won't get caught out.
One Off Items: Actual Cost
Several months ago one of my clients called me, concerned that their projects weren't showing accurate profit and loss figures.
One in particular, a $2m construction project, appeared to be showing far less profit than expected. After some careful digging, we finally found a one-off item with $250,000 worth of actual costs instead of estimated costs!
Once identified, we tracked down the estimator to find out what had happened. It quickly become clear that the error stemmed from a confusion between estimated and actual costs when the job was quoted. The estimator had put in what he actually estimated it would cost.
Actual cost means you spent the money. The purpose of the one-off item actual cost field is to record unusual, out-of-the-ordinary expenses. miscellaneous expenses on the credit card, historical costs recorded outside of SimPRO, that sort of thing. It should only be used when you have a legitimate reason to bypass the purchase order / work order system.
Catalogue is not Stock
SimPRO manages stock very well; I consider it one of its strongest points. But having the ability to assign stock by specific employees from multiple storage devices, or even directly from a purchase order, means that adding a catalogue item to a job from the desktop does not automatically add an actual material cost to that job.
The material cost of a catalogue item only comes when the materials are assigned. Those materials must come from a stock storage device, purchase order, or contractor work order.
SimPRO cannot assign an actual cost if it doesn't know where the stock came from, when it was assigned, or how much it cost. Don't forget this vital part of your workflow if you really want to get accurate profit and loss reporting in SimPRO.
Locked and Unlocked Cost Centres
If a cost centre is unlocked, SimPRO is built on the assumption that it is a do & charge job. Any labour or material costs incurred will be added to the billable parts and labour, or will trigger a warning to prompt you to add them.
On the other hand, if you convert a quote to a job, SimPRO automatically locks the cost centres. If the items and prices are locked, the assumption is that, unless there is a variation, you will be billing as per the quoted works.
But what happens if you have a verbal agreement, or an email quote, or you quoted it outside of SimPRO using other software? In those instances, it is very easy to create the job, forget to lock the cost centre, and start scheduling and assigning stock. Before you know it, the billable items and budget are out the window.
Entering a fixed price job in to SimPRO? Lock those items and prices!
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