Project Financials: Enhanced Financial Line Item Experience

Project Financials: Enhanced Financial Line Item Experience

To provide you with a modern, consistent experience across Project Financials, Procore has released an enhanced financial line item experience. This update, which has been available as a preview release since November 2019, is now in general release. It provides all users with streamlined line item data entry in these Project Financial Tools:

• Change Events
• Commitment Contracts
• Direct Costs
• Prime Contracts ¹
• Change Orders¹ (For details on this follow-up release, see Project Financials: Added the Enhanced Line Item Experience to Change Orders)

¹ To receive this update on your project's change orders, the project's Change Events tool must be enabled.

• Improved Keyboard Navigation and Line Item Creation
  • Use keyboard strokes to add, update, and delete line items. 
  • Add a new line item above or below and existing item
    Note: The existing option to add a new line item at the bottom on the list remains in the Procore web application).
  • Advance to the next cell in a line item using the TAB key. 
  • Press the ENTER key on appropriate cell’s to reveal its drop-down list. 
  • Delete a line item by tabbing to the vertical ellipsis, pressing ENTER, and selecting Delete from the shortcut menu. 
  • Scroll actions are now more responsive.
  • Scroll up and down to switch the system focus between line item rows.
  • Change the row numbering and sort order without having to use a drag-and-drop operation.
  • Edit line item values in-line using the View/Save pages. 
• Expanded Decimal Support
  • You can now add up to four (4) decimal points in the 'Unit Cost' field. 
• Resizable Columns
  • Hover your mouse cursor over the edge of any column heading and when the border appears, move the double-arrow left or right to resize the column.
    Note: Any column sizing changes will be available the next time you use the tool, until you change the column width again. 
• Budget Code
  • Select a budget code on-the-fly. See What is a budget code? below. 
  • Create Budget Codes. Instead of using three (3) different drop-down lists to define the cost code, cost type, and sub job, you can now click a button to instantly create a budget code. To learn more, see What is a budget code? below. 
    • A budget code (see ) lists all combinations of cost codes, cost types, and sub jobs that exist on the project's budget. See Enable Sub Jobs or if your project is synced with a supported ERP Integration, see Enable Sub Jobs for Sage 100 Contractor® or Enable Sub Jobs for Sage 300 CRE®.
      Note: The new budget code drop-down list will contain all the existing cost code/cost type/sub job combinations on the budget. If you need to create a new combination that does not exist on the original budget, click the new Create Budget Code button at the bottom of the drop-down list. 
    • With the new experience, all line items added across all Financial tools will now require both a cost code and cost type. For the Prime Contract tool, line item additions will require either (1) a cost code and cost type OR (2) a division and cost type. 

  • Search for Cost Codes when Creating Budget Codes. To make creating budget codes with the financial line item experience easier, Procore will be updating the budget code drop-down to add an autocomplete function. While you are creating a new budget code, you will now be able to starting typing and an autocomplete function will suggest any matching cost code options.

  • Auto-fill Budget Codes. When creating a line item in the Change Events tool, you can now select a Vendor or Contract and the new line item will automatically input the associated Budget Code for you. Note: If there is more than one (1) valid budget code available, the system will not automatically select the code and you will need to choose the one you want. 

  • Updated the Display of Budget Code Selections. The Budget Code drop-down list has been updated so the selections now show a more complete description for easier selection. The top line shows the code associated with the sub job and cost code as well as the cost type abbreviation. The bottom line is the sub job description, cost code description, and cost type description.

Common Questions

As part of this update, a new budget code function has been added to help users select existing and create new cost code/cost type/sub job combinations. For more information, see the answers to these questions below:

• Can I switch back to the former line item experience?
• What is a budget code?
  • What are the components of a budget code?
  • What does a budget code look like?
  • How do I create a budget code?
  • Do I need special permissions to create a budget code?
  • Does the presence of the new 'budget code' change any existing data import processes?

What is a budget code?

In Procore, a Budget Code is applied to line items in Procore's Financial Management tools to give you the ability to categorize line items. It identifies costs for budgetary reporting and consists of a cost code, cost type, and sub job combination (if the 'Sub Job' feature is enabled on the project). It can also include a division to align with the CSI MasterFormat. For example, 01 General Requirements, 02 Site Construction and so on. 

What are the components of a budget code?

In Procore, a budget code can consist of the following components:

• Cost Code
  Cost codes identify the type of work being done on a project and are typically assigned to a specific division in a specification. Many construction teams in the United States choose to base their project's cost code structure on the CSI Master Format. Other teams might design a unique cost code structure to suit their company's specific business requirements. To help get you started, the Procore web application includes a default list of cost codes that can be used on projects. To learn about those default cost codes, see What are Procore's default cost codes?

  Example

  • Division: 03 00 00 Concrete
    • Cost Code: 03 01 00 Maintenance of Concrete 
      • Cost Code: 03 01 10 Maintenance of Concrete Forming and Accessories
      • Cost Code: 03 01 20 Maintenance of Reinforcing
• Cost Type
  A cost type is a set of uniquely identified costs represented by an abbreviation and label. In Procore, several cost types are defined for use by default: 

  Example

  • L=Labour
  • E=Equipment
  • M=Materials
  • C=Commitment
  • OC=Owner Cost
  • SVC=Professional Services
  • O=Other

 Notes

• The cost types for your project can be customized, so they may look different from the ones listed above. See Set Default Cost Types.
• If your company has enabled the ERP Integrations tool to work with an integrated ERP system where the 'Cost Type' concept is supported, your accounting team might classify their cost codes into different classes. 'Classes' are equivalent to 'Cost Types' in Procore

 Tip

Want to track and report on your financial data with additional granularity?

For organizations that perform job cost accounting, your company can also choose to Enable Sub Jobs on your Procore project(s). A sub job is best described as a portion of a Procore project that allows users to compartmentalize job costs within the project. In Procore's Project Financials tools, a 'Sub Job' is represented in a separate 'Sub Job' column. Although a 'Sub Job' is NOT a segment in the budget code, it allows Procore users to track and report on their financial data with an additional level of granularity.

Some reasons for creating a sub job in Procore include: 

• To track buildings, floors, areas (and so on) as separate line items within the project budget. 
• To track change orders as separate line items within the project budget.
• To track follow-up or finishing work for the project.  

What does a budget code look like?

The example in the following table provides you with an example of a budget code. In this example, the project's cost codes are using the Procore default cost codes, which are based on the CSI Master Format. The cost codes in your specific environment may look different. As you can see in the illustration below, the cost code description appears below the code, to make selecting the correct code from the list simpler. 

Example Budget Code	Division-Cost Code	Cost Type
	01-904	S=Subcontract

 The example below shows you the corresponding line item in the budget for the example budget code above:

 

How do I create a budget code?

Procore users have two (2) ways to create budget codes in Procore:

• Using the Create Budget Code Button
  The 'Create New Budget Code' button that comes with the line item experience allows users to create new, un-budgeted combinations of cost code, cost type and sub job. To use this button, click the Budget Code cell on a line item. Finally, click the new Create Budget Code button at the bottom of the drop-down list.  This capability is available in the following Project level tools:
  • Change Events
  • Change Orders
  • Commitments (Purchase Orders and Subcontracts)
  • Direct Costs
  • Prime Contracts
• Adding a New a Budget Line Item
  Procore also automatically creates budget codes when you add a new line item to your project's budget. See Add a Budget Line Item.  

Do I need additional permissions to create a budget code?

No. To create a budget code, you only need permission to create or edit an item with the corresponding Project Financials tool. For example, to create a budget code while adding a line item to a direct cost, you would need permission to create a direct cost. See Create a Direct Cost.

It is important to note that the budget code feature does NOT allow you to create new budget codes on the fly. Instead, it was designed to simplify the process of selecting the three components that comprise an unbudgeted cost code, cost type, sub job combination. An unbudgeted combination simply means that while the separate components (for example, sub job, division, cost code and cost type) exist on the Procore project, they have NOT been added to the project's original budget. 

As in previous versions of Procore, sub jobs, divisions, cost codes and cost types will continue to be created with the Company and Project Admin tools. For instructions, see one of the links below:

• Add a Sub Job to a Procore Project
• Add and Edit Project Cost Codes
• Set Default Cost Types

Does the presence of a 'budget code' change any existing data import processes?

No. The budget code feature has no effect on the existing processes for importing data into Procore. This is because the components of a budget code continue to be comprised of a combination of a cost code, cost type, and sub job (if enabled). Users who want to import Project Financials data into one of Procore Project Financials tools must continue to use the existing import template, template structure and steps detailed for each tool's import process. To learn more, see Procore Import Templates.

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See Also

• Create a Change Event
• Add Change Event Line Items
• Create a Purchase Order
• Create a Subcontract
• Add a Line Item to a Commitment's Schedule of Values
• Create a Direct Cost
• Edit a Direct Cost