How Fieldclix Usually Captures Labor-Related Payroll Costs

Companies that sync cost-actuals back from their payroll system to Fieldclix enjoy the benefit of capturing an accurate “burdened rate” that represents an employee's “true cost to the company” per hour, which is used to calculate precise Job Costing.

FCX payroll costs sync also captures labor-related costs that are not part of the burdened-rate. These other costs tend to include things like bonuses, commissions, and employee allowances. FCX takes these sums and charges them to OH, based on how the relevant Payroll Items are configured.

Use Case Explanation: When Payroll Sync May Not Capture a Payroll Cost Correctly

Sometimes, however, an employee allowance cost (or similar) cannot be captured automatically by FCX payroll costs sync. One example of this might be if the company reimburses the employee for something (like a phone plan) and has to record the cost as a “negative deduction” in the payroll system. FCX cannot currently handle negative payroll additions.

For problem costs, like negative employee allowances, FCX still strongly recommends you capture these, as well as ALL other costs inside FCX, and not just in your payroll/accounting systems: Accurate OH cost data is important to your P&L.

Best Practices for Using Ad Hoc Expenses to Capture Costs Not Correctly Captured via Sync

One way to capture costs in FCX which cannot otherwise be captured is by creating an Ad Hoc Revenue and Expense Reference Record.

When entering a payroll cost via Ad Hoc Expenses, it is recommended, where possible, that you bundle costs into a single entry. For instance, a single entry per month to represent all employee phone plan reimbursements.

Suggested Process for Entering Payroll Cost Via Ad Hoc Expense

The below screenshots illustrate how you might enter the above via FCX Ad Hoc Expenses.

The process:

• Search Quick Launch for “Build Plans”
• Find and open the Overhead BP to which you want to allocate this cost
  • Note that we cannot currently get to this BP via the Status Dashboard because that dashboard only shows Direct Cost BPs

• On the BP card, to the lower-right, find the link for “AdHoc Expenses”
  • If you do not see this link, you do not have the requisite access, reach out to your supervisor for assistance

• In the window that opens, find the “Create Record” button in the upper-left and click it to add a new AdHoc Expense record

• Fill-out the AdHoc Revenue and Expenses card per the below:
  1. Name: Give the record a unique name that will help you find it in a big list in the future if you need to look it up
  2. Type: If it is a payroll cost, use the “Time Keeping” Type
  3. Date: This should usually be the date you enter this record
  4. Build Plan: The BP from which you created this record is auto-selected
  5. Employee: If you were entering a cost for a single employee, you could specify them here
  6. Financial Account:
     • For most labor-related, but not burden-rate items, the account would be Employee Allowance
     • Try to only use “labor-related accounts” for labor-related costs and vice-versa
  7. Amount: You cannot enter a negative here
  8. Credit: The same effect as entering a negative cost to represent what is effectively income or reimbursement to the company