This document describes about project management in SAP B1 9.2. Following are the key points for project management (assuming you have initialize project management module in basic initialization tab under company details):
- Stages of your projects
- Define Project
- Transactions
- Documents Assignment
- Update project stages
- Update status
- Financial Reports
- Shortcomings
Now we’ll discuss each point in detail as follow:
1- Stages:
Define stages of your projects in setup under administration. (Like Blue print, Configuration, Testing and Go Live)
2- Project:
Define project in project management module we’ll discuss how to define according to tab
First fill the header details and do not forgot to select financial project to link this project info to financial transaction as transactions will be linked through financial project.
Key points at header level are that you can name your project as you desire, in name field at top right corner and you can define different series for different types of project.
Select risk level from standard defined levels which are low, medium or high.
Select industry from user defined industries from industry drop down.
Write if there are any applicable comments. Further, first you’ll define main project than you’ll be able to define sub projects whose status will be displayed under overview tab.
Now define stages along with their planned cost and relative percentage to project closure as shown in below screenshot
For stages, you need to define standard tasks of your projects, in tasks drop down to select relevant task for relevant stage. In description field you can write your customize description of up to 25,600 characters.
Key point at this tab is: planned cost is relating to documents in A/P module i.e A/P invoice services for travel and lodging or other purchases including items. Open amount A/P or A/R shows sum of open purchase orders and GRPOs or open sales orders and deliveries related to project (Which are assigned to selected stage of project). Assigned documents can be seen by expanding documents at lower left corner of project.
Relevant documents, issues of stage and production order can be seen at lower left corner of project by expanding relevant option and selection desired stage as described in below documents assignment step.
Values in Open Amount (A/P) or (A/R) and Invoiced (A/P) or (A/R) will be updated after posting and assigning of documents for more details see below set document assignment.
You can see overall view of project on summary tab where it shows budget values for A/P, A/R and actual values of main project and accumulated values with subprojects as well.
Further Amount for A/R will be budget under this tab as it is editable field and sum of production order’s details are also shown here.
In open amount A/P or A/R it shows sum of open purchase orders or Sales Orders and open GRPOs or Deliveries, In Invoiced (A/P) or (A/R) it shows sum of A/P or A/R invoices irrespectively they open or closeness of invoices. In accumulated values these values include effect from subprojects also. We can see these values stage wise by selecting relevant stage on stages tab.
On Remarks you can post any remarks related to project up to 25,600 characters.
In attachments you can save paths of related supported documents of project.
3- Transactions
Now while posting transactions particularly marketing documents and production don’t forget to select relevant financial project, as data will be populate based on project management in project management module. In current scenario I have posted one sales order with amount of PKR 100, one purchase order with amount of PKR 100, one GRPO with amount of PKR 50 based on posted purchase order and one delivery of PKR 50 based on posted sale order.
4- Documents Assignment
Now when we open project SAP B1 Implementation in project management it will ask me first to assign documents related to this project to relevant stages as you can see in screen shot
We’ll select document and relevant stage and by clicking arrow in the center it will be assigned or DE assigned.
After assigning documents it will update information on project accordingly and I can see relevant documents at lower left corner by selecting stage.
Further you can also assign previous document or documents on which you forget to post financial project at the time of creation of document.
5- Update stages
After completion of relevant stage check on finished as you check this it will update the percentage of completeness of project at header level as in previous step stage one is finished you can see after finished it updated percentage of completeness.
6- Project Stages:
After completion of all stages or if project is paused, stopped or finished we can update its status at header level on top right corner in status dropdown
7- Financial Reports
Now financial reports can be generate by just right click on the relevant project directly from project management. Reports includes General Ledger, Transaction Report By Project, Document Journal, Trial Balance and profit and loss statement as seen in below screen shot
8- Shortcomings
- v Assignment of documents should also be at the time of creation of documents system should ask like serial and batch number of inventory. This involves increase in work burden due to replication.
- v There should be controls like budgeting which should be triggered at the time of generation of document e.g if documents exceed budget of relevant stage it should not allowed to post.
- v On summary tab it shows only invoiced amount it should show about payments regarding invoices related to this project. (This can be solved by UDFs on stages and development but cannot be solved on summary tab)
- v It should not allow posting of any activity once project status has been changed to finished.
- v It should shows sum of service level documents separate particularly purchase to get more lucrative look like traveling and lodging will be shown in services documents and other services which obtained from 3rd party other than purchase of inventory of services.
