Action Items: Miscellaneous “to do” tasks that can be created and assigned to both employees and external contacts. These items are trackable when associated with a project on the Action Items page within the Home Menu.
Actuals (Column in Budget Tab): Costs incurred on the project to date in the form of committed vendor invoices, employee timesheets, employee expenses, and adjusting entries. For all intents and purposes, this is money spent/owed by the GC on the project
Assembly: The detailed breakdown of costs within a cost code in the project estimate
At Risk (Column in Budget Tab): Also known as forecasted costs or estimated costs to complete. The values in this column represent the project manager’s best estimate of what money will need to be spent between now and the end of the project that has not already been accounted for in the Actuals or Open columns of the budget. The At Risk value will start at the original budgeted value and must be manually adjusted by the project manager throughout the project as money is committed and spent.
Bid Package: A grouping of cost codes or assemblies that will be bought out or contracted together. Cost codes grouped into a bid package can then be sent to vendors as a request for quote.
Bids: Any project in the Draft, Request, or Proposal stage
Budget (Column in Budget Tab): The sum total value of GC costs budgeted for the specified cost code & category in both the original contract as well as any authorized customer or internal change estimates. This value will adjust automatically as internal changes & customer changes are authorized, but can also be adjusted manually by those with the correct permissions if money needs to be shifted between cost codes or if a budgeted value needs to be overridden due to an error in estimating.
Cancelled (Project Status): The stage reserved for projects that are not awarded to the GC or are for any other reason not completed.
Change Order: A summary document that can loop together one or more potential changes to present them to the customer as a group. Frequently this document is in an AIA style format and includes multiple customer changes.
Checklist: Custom checklists for employee use can be built in the Configuration Menu and then filled out via the web or mobile app. These checklists can be printed for signature or emailed to external parties as needed.
Closed (Project Status): The stage of a project where all work is completed, all financial transactions are concluded, and the project documentation is read only.
Committed: To finalize a draft document, or lock it out to prevent further editing. Any document in a committed status cannot be edited unless it is uncommitted by a user with the correct permissions
Commitment: A binding subcontract, purchase order, or other agreement made with a vendor to procure goods or services. Commitment form templates can be configured in the Configuration Menu and project specific commitments can be created in the Buyout tab of any project.
Company Division: A company division is a segment of the GC company which can be used to sub-divide the company into various project types, office locations, or sub-entities for the purposes of financial reporting or document formatting. Each company division may have its own legal name, address, logo, and commitment forms, but if using a financial integration (such as Sage, Quickbooks Online, or Acumatica) all company divisions must be tracked on the same general ledger within the accounting system.
Complete (Column in Budget Tab): Estimate At Complete value for a given cost code and category. The Complete column is a sum of the Actuals, Open, At Risk, and Contingency columns and reflects what WILL BE spent on the budget line by the end of the project if all At Risk and Contingency dollars are in fact spent.
Contingency (Column in Budget Tab): Optional Contractors Contingency tracking column. This column will begin empty at the beginning of the project and money can be moved from the at risk to the Contingency column manually by the GC to account for funds that are planned “cushion” or excess that may eventually be declared as profit. If the funds must be used for the project, they can be shifted back to the At Risk column or committed into the Open column. If the GC is ready to recognize the funds as profit, they can simply be deleted from the Contingency column to reduce the value of the Complete column.
Credentials: Any document required to be collected and kept on file for a vendor company, employee, or piece of equipment is referred to as a credential (with the exception of lien documents). Examples of vendor credentials include W-9s, Worker’s Compensation forms, Master Service Agreements, General Liability, etc., but administrators can create and track custom credentials for their employees, vendors, or equipment as needed.
Critical Path: The sequence of scheduled tasks or events that directly impact the potential finish date of the project. In the Gantt Schedule, any task that has a direct or indirect dependency with the final schedule task will be included in the critical path.
Customer: An owner or other external entity that will be receiving invoices from the GC for payment. The Customer is the signer of the prime contract on any project.
Customer Change: A change to the prime contract of a project that requires approval of a change proposal and/or change order by the Customer/owner. A Customer change that has a cost associated will change the total contract value if authorized.
Demote: to move a project backward from one stage to the previous stage (e.g. a project may be demoted from Proposal status to Request status if the owner/customer requests any edits to the proposal document)
Draft: editable copy of a document. Any document in a draft status can be edited or deleted by those with the proper permissions
Draft (Project Status): The stage of a project where initial scope details are being entered, project preferences established, and initial plans and specifications uploaded. The Online planroom is not yet active in this stage and estimating cannot yet begin.
Estimate (Column in Budget Tab): The sum total value estimated for the specified cost code & category in both the original contract estimate as well as any authorized customer change estimates. This value will only adjust as new Customer Changes are authorized in the Contract Tab
Executed: This status pertains to both commitments as well as vendor invoices. An executed commitment is one that has been signed and verified by the GC, meaning that the vendor is authorized to begin work. An executed vendor invoice is one that has been approved by all necessary approvers and is authorized for payment.
Facility (Customer Facility): A sub-division of a Customer company used to segment the Customer into various branches, departments, or divisions. Facilities need not be physical locations, but should instead represent sections of a customer with distinct points of contact, negotiated pricing, or standard employee teams. Project access for employees is controlled by their Facilities Access within their employee profile.
In Progress (Project Status): The stage of a project where the prime contract has been awarded and work is authorized or occurring. The project should stay in the In Progress status from the moment the prime contract is signed until all work has been completed and all accounts payable and receivable are closed out.
Internal Change: A change to the prime contract of a project that does NOT require approval by the Customer/owner. An Internal change that has a cost associated will NOT change the total contract value, but will instead add to or subtract from the GC costs in the budget, thereby affecting the profit margin on the project. Internal changes should also be used for the updating of Plans & Specifications while the project is in a Proposal or In Progress Status.
Issue: Topic of discussion from meeting minutes and/or correspondence
Locations: Custom subdivisions of the job site that can be used to track census entries on progress reports as well as requests for correction. Examples may include “Building 1” “Main lobby” or “Unit 102.”
Milestone: An event on the project schedule that may serve as a benchmark for project progress and help to indicate if the project is on schedule or not.
Narrative: The detailed description of a single assembly line item. Narratives will be included automatically in bid packages and bid forms that include the assembly item and/or cost code and may also be included in the scope of work section on the customer proposal.
Notification to Vendor: An email generated to inform a vendor or external party of the status of their submittal items. This notification will include the final approval/rejection status of each item submitted as well as whether or not any resubmission is required.
Open (Column in Budget Tab): Committed costs on the project in the form of committed subcontracts, purchase orders, labor or expense authorizations. This money has been “promised” or “spoken for” but not yet spent.
Opportunities: A business development tool used for tracking prospective projects that are not ready to begin the bidding process. Opportunities can be used as a CRM tool to track contacts, interactions, reminders, events, and other potential project data. Opportunities can be converted at any point into a Draft stage Project.
Over (Under) (Column in Budget Tab): Reflects the Over or Under budget status of a line item at the END of the project. This value is derived from the difference between the Budget column and the Complete column and does not represent the Over/Under value at this point in time.
Phase: A custom stage or subdivision of a project. Financial Phases can be built in the Project Preferences menu and used to track project costs by building, unit, or project stage, while schedule phases can be built in the Gantt Schedule to track different segments of the project and reflect the current phase in the daily Progress Report. Financial Phases and Schedule Phases are independent of one another and do NOT interact in any way.
Progress Report: Daily progress reports that include weather, activity onsite, notes and observations, equipment usage, and photos/attachments to be tracked and shared with external parties.
Promote: to move a project forward from one stage to the next (e.g. a project must be promoted from Proposal Status to In Progress Status when the signed owner contract is obtained and work is authorized to begin.
Proposal (Project Status): The stage of a project where estimating has concluded and finalized proposal is ready to be sent or has been sent to the Customer. The project should remain in Proposal status until the contract is awarded (promote to In Progress), the Customer requests a revision of the proposal (demote to Request), or the project is awarded to another GC (cancel project).
Qualifications: Administrators may create customized lists of qualifications via the Configuration menu to allow the GC to categorize and or filter their vendors based on factors such as project size, project type, region, minority/women/veteran owned, etc. Once the list of Qualifications is created, Company profiles can then be assigned one or more applicable qualifications in order to assist with selecting the most qualified vendors for bid solicitation.
Request (Project Status): The stage of a project where estimating and bid solicitation are taking place with the goal of producing a proposal for the customer. Plans and specs may also be uploaded in this stage and the online planroom is active.
Request for Approval (RFA): An email generated to request final approval/rejection of one or more submittal items that have been reviewed by the GC. Generally this email is sent to an architect or engineer.
Request for Correction: A trackable task that can fall into one of the following categories - Punch, Safety, Quality, or Warranty. Requests for Correction can be created via the web or mobile app and assigned to a company for completion. Before and after photos can be included in the request and lists of outstanding items can be viewed from the online planroom or emailed directly to the responsible party.
Request for Submittal (RFS): An email generated to request the initial submission of one or more submittal items from a vendor or external party.
Revenue Recognition: The calculation used to generate the revenue number on project financial reports and the WIP report. The two options for recognition method are “Revenue equals Billing” (revenue is a sum total of all committed customer bills to date) and “Percentage of Completion” (Revenue is calculated based on actual costs to date over total expected costs at complete)
Role (Permissions Role): The role assigned to any employee dictates the set of permissions that they have been given. Roles can be created and their associated permissions managed from the Configuration menu. A user may have multiple roles assigned to their employee profile, in which case the permissions from each role will “stack” on top of each other to create a more customized set of permissions for the individual.
Scope: A number used to identify the prime contract as well as all changes to the prime contract. Scope number 00 always refers to the original contract, while each change (both customer and internal) is assigned a sequential scope number upon creation (01, 02, 03 etc.) The budget may be filtered by scope to track costs for particular changes and many other financial features can be filtered by scope as needed.
Supplemental Markup: Any percentage based fee that the GC intends to charge the customer that is not included in standard overhead costs, taxes, or GC fees (profit). Examples include General Liability, Performance Bond, Technology Fees, etc.
Team Member: A list of individuals involved in a given project. Any employee or external contact added to the team members list will be eligible to be included on project correspondence and documentation. Team membership does NOT dictate access to view and edit a project for employees; access is controlled separately via Facilities Access.
Third Party: Any external entity that will be involved in a project but will not be engaging in any financial transactions. Third parties may also be listed as authors when uploading Plans & Specification documents. Most often, third parties are architects, engineers, or consultants
Trades: The Trades tab of a vendor profile lists the cost codes which that vendor can perform work under. The GC can add multiple cost codes to a specific vendor’s profile in order to allow the filtering of vendors by trade during the bid solicitation process.
Variable Item Quantity: A setting for assembly items that ties the assembly item quantity to the base cost code quantity (e.g. if the cost code quantity is increased from 1 to 3 and the original assembly item quantity was 5, the new quantity will automatically shift to 15 (3x5))
Vendor: a Subcontractor, Supplier, or other external entity that will be submitting invoices to receive payment from the GC
WIP: Work In Progress; this report shows all projects that are in an In Progress status and reflects revenue, contract value, billing totals, and overbilled/underbilled status in real time.