Purpose

A Project Account Group is a set of accounts that can be used by a given project or projects. The accounts that are included in a specific Account Group are eligible for use by the projects. You do not have to use every account within a Project Account Group; the group merely contains the set of accounts that are available for selection. When setting up your projects, this helps you select which accounts to use by restricting the accounts that are available. For example, you can have a Project Account Group called COM for your commercial projects, or WIP for your Work-In-Process projects.

Within each Project Account Group (PAG), you must select a function code for each account that tells Costpoint how the account is used for the selected project. Processes use this PAG Code to identify the proper accounts to use, or to restrict which accounts appear on given reports. This same PAG can assist your employees when they enter data into the project transaction entry screens.

When entering your projects, you must decide, on an individual project basis, the transaction validation method to use. The various options are controlled on the Manage Project User Flow screen. Regardless of the validation method you select, a given account must appear in the Account Group that is linked to the project if you want to use it.

Setup

Establish Account Groups on the Manage Account Groups screen. When you initialize new projects on the Manage Project User Flow screen, the appropriate Account Group is linked. You can set up unlimited Account Groups, but you must assign each project to only one Account Group. You should keep the same Account Group for all levels of the project tree.

On the Account Groups screen, the Project Accounts table window contains the accounts that are eligible for inclusion in an Account Group. Any account designated as Project Required on the Manage Accounts screen appears in this table window. Adjacent to the Project Accounts window is the Account Functions table window, which contains the 18 system-defined Function Codes.

Highlight each Account that you want to include in your account group along with the appropriate Function Code. In general, each account should have only one Function Code assigned to it within the same account group. The only exception to this rule is BILLED A/R and BILLD AR-PRGRSS, both of which can be assigned to the same account. Click the Select button to transfer the account/function code combination to the Selected Project Accounts table window.

For each account, enter an optional six-character (or less) abbreviation for the account ID in the Project Account Abbrev field. Account abbreviation codes are used strictly for project accounts. When you enter this code in the data entry screens, the project number references the account group on the Basic Info tab of the Manage Project User Flow screen. The account ID corresponding to the abbreviation code in the account group then defaults into the data entry screen.

You may find it helpful to use the same abbreviation code for the same account (or the same type of account, even if the actual account number differs) for all groups. For example, if you designated the code DL as the abbreviation for "Direct Labor" for all groups, employees performing data entry can enter the same abbreviation code regardless of the project. The abbreviation code references the associated account group and defaults to the correct account ID. You can use the same account abbreviation code in different account groups, but you cannot duplicate a code in the same account group.