Expenses on project

[Cédric Krier]

Hi,

I'm looking for a way to put expenses (purchases) into the cost of a
project.
The usual way I have seen in similar software is to use analytic account
but I think it is not the correct way for 2 reasons:

- analytic accounting almost always misses the employee cost
(because it is too much work)

- analytic accounting is a normally tool design to allow users to
create its own/custom accounting view (not for developers)

So for now, the project_revenue module computes a theoretical revenue
(list price * effort) and a cost (timesheet * employee cost).
It is only missing the expenses to get the complete picture of the
profitability of a project/task. If we use the project_invoice module to
know the real/invoiced revenue.

So my proposal is to add on project_revenue an extra_depends on purchase
which will add a many2one field on purchase line to a project (with
possibility to add line to project later via a one2many on it).
With this link we could include the invoiced amount of those purchase
line to the cost of the project.

Of course some could say that sometimes a purchase line is linked to 2
projects. I think it is a very rare case that could be solved by
splitting the line in two.

So what do you think?

Thanks,
--
Cédric Krier - B2CK SPRL
Email/Jabber: cedric...@b2ck.com
Tel: +32 472 54 46 59
Website: http://www.b2ck.com/

[Jordi Esteve]

El 01/09/15 a les 17:17, Cédric Krier ha escrit:

It sounds good.

A remark: In my experience, a lot of projects like technical ones have
travel expenses like transport, hotel, restaurant, ... They usually are
introduced in the ERP like supplier invoices, it is not worth create
purchases for this kind of expenses because they don't create shipments.
Your proposal will force to introduce them like purchases. So, maybe is
better create a relation between supplier invoice lines to projects?

--
Jordi Esteve
Consultor Zikzakmedia SL
jes...@zikzakmedia.com
Mòbil 679 170 693

Zikzakmedia SL
St. Jaume, 9, baixos, 2a
08720 Vilafranca del Penedès
Tel 93 890 2108

[Cédric Krier]

I don't want to introduce such field at the invoice level for 2 reasons:

- normally it is not the accountant job to set such information

- customer and supplier invoices share the same Model, I don't want
to have this field filled for customer invoice at all (as it will
break the computation)

Also of course you can manage expenses with a purchase order (shipping
or not is not the problem) and having this project field on it will
enforce to use purchase instead of creating direct invoice which is for
me a good practice.
But indeed, it will be much better to have a specific Model for employee
expenses and once this Model exists we will have to included to
project_revenue like we do for purchase.

[Cédric Krier]

Here is the developpement: https://bugs.tryton.org/issue4951

[Vincent Bastos]

Could you explain how the analytic account method is implemented? Or point to a good documentation?

I will also need to investigate how Tryton manages projects and costs, but I am familiar with implementations from other accounting software where it is possible to report on specific groups of expenses as well as sale lines.

1. The one I like best is Saasu which allows the user to add and create tags on each line of a purchase or sale. As it is possible to have more than one tag, lines can be associated with more than one "project". These tags can be used in reports such as Profit and Loss to show only values from specified tags.

2. Xero has a similar concept but they call it categories rather than tags.

This solution would avoid splitting the line in 2 except when the actual amounts need to be specifically linked to only one project. But there is also the scenario where expenses need to be linked to 2 different "projects" because of requirements from different government departments. It's like having more than one Chart of Accounts. This is relevant in the mining industry here in Australia where companies need to report to the mining departments based on mining licences. Instead of having deep trees where every expense account has sub accounts for each project it is better to have 2 separate chart of accounts. I have seen companies simply manage 2 copies of their accounting files: one for tax office and one for the mining department.

[Cédric Krier]

On 2015-09-09 02:41, Vincent Bastos wrote:
> Could you explain how the analytic account method is implemented? Or point
> to a good documentation?

Analytic account modules are missing documentation.

> I will also need to investigate how Tryton manages projects and costs, but
> I am familiar with implementations from other accounting software where it
> is possible to report on specific groups of expenses as well as sale lines.
>
> 1. The one I like best is Saasu which allows the user to add and create
> tags on each line of a purchase or sale. As it is possible to have more
> than one tag, lines can be associated with more than one "project". These
> tags can be used in reports such as Profit and Loss to show only values
> from specified tags.
> 2. Xero has a similar concept but they call it categories rather than tags.

This is mainly similar and Tryton can use as many analytic roots (tags)
as you want.

> This solution would avoid splitting the line in 2 except when the actual
> amounts need to be specifically linked to only one project. But there is
> also the scenario where expenses need to be linked to 2 different
> "projects" because of requirements from different government departments.
> It's like having more than one Chart of Accounts. This is relevant in the
> mining industry here in Australia where companies need to report to the
> mining departments based on mining licences. Instead of having deep trees
> where every expense account has sub accounts for each project it is better
> to have 2 separate chart of accounts. I have seen companies simply manage 2
> copies of their accounting files: one for tax office and one for the mining
> department.

As I explained my idea for project management is to not use at all
analytic. For me, analytic is a tool for the users and any modules
should rely on it to process information.
Also for now, the analytic modules are not a the best shape. I think
there are room for a lot of improvement especially the required option
which should be more flexible.