Action Items: Miscellaneous to-do tasks that you can create and assign to employees and external contacts. When an Action Item is linked to a Project, you can track it on the Action Items page in the Project’s Home menu.
Actuals (column in the Budget tab): Costs incurred on the Project to date, including committed vendor invoices, employee timesheets, employee expenses, and adjusting entries. In other words, the money the general contractor (GC) has spent or owes on the Project.
Assembly: The detailed cost breakdown of a cost code in a Project’s Cost Estimate.
At Risk (column in the Budget tab): Also known as forecasted costs or estimated costs to complete. This column shows the project manager’s best estimate of the money still needed to complete the Project that isn’t already accounted for in the
Actuals or Open columns. The At Risk value starts at the original budgeted amount, and the project manager must adjust it manually throughout the Project as money is committed and spent.
Bid Package: A group of cost codes or Assemblies that are bought out or contracted together. You can send the cost codes in a bid package to vendors as a Request for Quote.
Bids: Any Project in the Draft, Request, or Proposal stage.
Budget (column in the Budget tab): The total GC costs budgeted for a cost code and category, including the original contract and any authorized customer or internal change estimates. This value updates automatically when internal or customer changes are authorized. Users with the right permissions can also adjust it manually, for example, to move money between cost codes or to correct an estimating error.
Cancelled (Project status): The status for Projects that aren’t awarded to the GC or aren’t completed for any other reason.
Change Order: A summary document that groups one or more potential changes to present to the customer. It’s often in an AIA-style format and includes multiple customer changes.
Checklist: Custom checklists that employees fill out from the web or mobile app. You build them in the Configuration menu, and you can print them for signatures or email them to external parties as needed.
Closed (Project status): The status for Projects where all work is complete, all financial transactions are finalized, and the Project documentation is read-only.
Committed: The status of a finalized document that’s locked to prevent further editing. A committed document can’t be edited unless a user with the right permissions uncommits it.
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 segment of the GC company that can be used to subdivide the company into various project types, office locations, or sub-entities for financial reporting or document formatting. Each company division may have its own legal name, address, logo, and commitment forms, but if you use a financial integration (such as Sage, QuickBooks Online, or Acumatica), all company divisions must be tracked on the same general ledger in the accounting system.
Complete (column in the Budget tab): The Estimate at Complete value for a given cost code and category. The Complete column is the 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 spent.
Contingency (column in the Budget tab): Optional column for tracking the contractor’s contingency. This column starts empty at the beginning of the Project, and the GC can manually move money from the At Risk column to the Contingency column to account for planned “cushion” or excess funds that may eventually be declared as profit. If the funds must be used for the Project, they can be moved back to the At Risk column or committed into the Open column. When the GC is ready to recognize the funds as profit, they can delete them from the Contingency column to reduce the value of the Complete column.
Credentials: Any document that must be collected and kept on file for a vendor company, employee, or piece of equipment (except lien documents). Examples of vendor credentials include W-9s, Workers’ Compensation forms, Master Service Agreements, and General Liability. Administrators can also create and track custom credentials for 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 with a direct or indirect dependency on the final schedule task is included in the critical path.
Customer: An owner or other external entity that receives 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 the Customer’s approval of a change proposal and/or Change Order. If authorized, a Customer Change with an associated cost changes the total contract value.
Demote: To move a Project back from one stage to the previous stage (e.g., a Project may be demoted from Proposal to Request status if the Customer requests edits to the proposal document).
Draft: An editable copy of a document. Users with the right permissions can edit or delete any document in Draft status.
Draft (Project status): The stage of a Project where initial scope details are entered, project preferences are established, and initial plans and specifications are uploaded. The online planroom isn’t active yet in this stage, and estimating can’t begin.
Estimate (column in the Budget tab): The total value estimated for a cost code and category in the original contract estimate and any authorized Customer Change estimates. This value only updates when new Customer Changes are authorized in the Contract tab.
Executed: A status that applies to both commitments and vendor invoices. An executed commitment has been signed and verified by the GC, meaning the vendor is authorized to begin work. An executed vendor invoice has been approved by all required approvers and is authorized for payment.
Facility (Customer Facility): A subdivision of a Customer company used to segment the Customer into branches, departments, or divisions. Facilities don’t need to be physical locations; they should represent sections of a Customer with distinct points of contact, negotiated pricing, or standard employee teams. Employees’ Project access is controlled by the Facilities Access settings in their employee profile.
In Progress (Project status): The stage of a Project where the prime contract has been awarded and work is authorized or underway. The Project should stay In Progress from the moment the prime contract is signed until all work is complete and all accounts payable and receivable are closed out.
Internal Change: A change to the prime contract of a Project that does NOT require the Customer’s approval. An Internal Change with an associated cost does NOT change the total contract value; instead, it adds to or subtracts from the GC costs in the budget, which affects the Project’s profit margin. Internal Changes should also be used to update Plans & Specifications while the Project is in Proposal or In Progress status.
Issue: A topic of discussion from meeting minutes and/or correspondence.
Locations: Custom subdivisions of the jobsite used to track census entries on Progress Reports and Requests for Correction. Examples include “Building 1,” “Main Lobby,” or “Unit 102.”
Milestone: An event on the Project schedule that serves as a benchmark for Project progress and helps show whether the Project is on schedule.
Narrative: The detailed description of a single Assembly line item. Narratives are automatically included in bid packages and bid forms that include the Assembly item and/or cost code, and they can also be included in the scope of work section of the Customer proposal.
Notification to Vendor: An email that informs a vendor or external party of the status of their submittal items. It includes the final approval or rejection status of each item submitted and whether a resubmission is required.
Open (column in the Budget tab): Committed costs on the Project, such as committed subcontracts, purchase orders, and labor or expense authorizations. This money has been “promised” or “spoken for” but not yet spent.
Opportunities: A business development tool for tracking prospective projects that aren’t 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. You can convert an Opportunity into a Draft Project at any time.
Over (Under) (column in the Budget tab): The over or under budget status of a line item at the END of the Project. This value is the difference between the Budget column and the Complete column, and it doesn’t represent the over/under value at this point in time.
Phase: A custom stage or subdivision of a Project. Financial Phases are built in the Project Preferences menu and used to track Project costs by building, unit, or project stage. Schedule Phases are built in the Gantt Schedule to track different segments of the Project and show the current phase in the daily Progress Report. Financial Phases and Schedule Phases are independent of each other and do NOT interact in any way.
Progress Report: A daily report that includes weather, activity on site, notes and observations, equipment usage, and photos or attachments to track and share with external parties.
Promote: To move a Project forward from one stage to the next (e.g., a Project must be promoted from Proposal 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 is complete and the final proposal is ready to send 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 revised proposal (demote to Request), or the Project is awarded to another GC (cancel the Project).
Qualifications: Custom lists that administrators create in the Configuration menu so the GC can categorize and filter vendors by factors such as project size, project type, region, or minority-, women-, or veteran-owned status. After the list is created, you can assign one or more Qualifications to company profiles to help select the most qualified vendors for bid solicitation.
Request (Project status): The stage of a Project where estimating and bid solicitation take place, with the goal of producing a proposal for the Customer. Plans and specs can also be uploaded in this stage, and the online planroom is active.
Request for Approval (RFA): An email requesting final approval or rejection of one or more submittal items that the GC has reviewed. It’s usually sent to an architect or engineer.
Request for Correction: A trackable task in one of the following categories: Punch, Safety, Quality, or Warranty. Requests for Correction can be created from the web or mobile app and assigned to a company for completion. You can include before and after photos, 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 requesting the initial submission of one or more submittal items from a vendor or external party.
Revenue Recognition: The calculation used to generate the revenue amount on Project financial reports and the WIP report. The two recognition methods are “Revenue equals Billing” (revenue is the total of all committed customer bills to date) and “Percentage of Completion” (revenue is calculated from actual costs to date divided by total expected costs at complete).
Role (Permissions Role): The role assigned to an employee determines their set of permissions. Roles are created, and their permissions managed, from the
Configuration menu. A user can have multiple roles in their employee profile; in that case, the permissions from each role “stack” to create a more customized set of permissions for that person.
Scope: A number used to identify the prime contract and all changes to it. Scope number 00 always refers to the original contract, and each change (Customer or Internal) gets a sequential scope number when it’s created (01, 02, 03, etc.). You can filter the budget and many other financial features by scope to track costs for specific changes.
Supplemental Markup: Any percentage-based fee the GC plans to charge the Customer that isn’t included in standard overhead costs, taxes, or GC fees (profit). Examples include General Liability, Performance Bond, and Technology Fees.
Team Member: An individual involved in a given Project. Any employee or external contact added to the Team Members list can be included in Project correspondence and documentation. Team membership does NOT control employees’ access to view and edit a Project; access is controlled separately through Facilities Access.
Third Party: Any external entity involved in a Project that won’t take part in financial transactions. Third parties can also be listed as authors when uploading Plans & Specifications documents. Third parties are most often architects, engineers, or consultants.
Trades: The Trades tab of a vendor profile lists the cost codes the vendor can perform work under. The GC can add multiple cost codes to a vendor’s profile to filter vendors by trade during bid solicitation.
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 increases from 1 to 3 and the original Assembly item quantity was 5, the new quantity automatically changes to 15 [3 × 5]).
Vendor: A subcontractor, supplier, or other external entity that submits invoices to receive payment from the GC.
WIP (Work in Progress): A report that shows all Projects in In Progress status and reflects revenue, contract value, billing totals, and overbilled or underbilled status in real time.