HOMEBUILDER:  COST GROUPS AND COST DETAILS

In This Article:

Cost Groups | Cost Group Structure | Defaulting GL Code and Tasks | Cost Details | Cost Detail Structure | Cost Group Code | Budget Amount Rule | Actions - Cost Details

Cost Groups

Cost Group and Cost Detail dimensions are the key to quality reporting. Once setup they work for you in the background and populate data through the financial part of the system as well as the construction reporting pages.

In the page "HomeBuilder Setup", specify which Dimension Codes are used for:

• Cost Groups.
• Cost Details.
• Phases.
• Lots.

Once setup, you will rarely enter a Cost Group. Most commonly, you attach a Cost Detail to a Construction Item, and the Cost Detail is automatically entered along with the Cost Group.

Take care and define enough information that makes sense to you. We have a demo database that can give you ideas about what level of detail to use. If you just want to use our values as the starting point let us know and we will bring them into your database.

Cost Group represents a category for cost codes defined in the Cost Detail table and used for cost analysis. The examples of how to build your Cost Groups are as follows:

Cost Group Structure Suggestions:

A Cost Group aggregates either revenue or expense cost codes, but not both. Each Cost Group may have a Dimension Value associated with it.

The 'Blocked' checkbox retires a Cost Group without deleting it. A blocked Cost Group can no longer be selected on a Cost Detail, and its Dimension Value is blocked at the same time, so it also stops being available for dimension entry. Cost Details already pointing at it are unaffected.

To define Cost Groups, open the page "Cost Groups" by searching for it or by navigating in the Roles Center (i.e., Homebuilder - Setup - Cost Groups).

 

 

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Cost Details

Cost Detail is used both for reporting, budget control, and to default things like a GL charge on purchases. Two benefits of using Cost Details are:

• Consistent approach for financial reporting

and

• Defaulting GL Code and Tasks , which cut your team's admin time.

Consistent approach:

When used as intended, you will find a more consistent approach to how you track information. You can establish the concepts of budgets as rolling up a series of charges from your vendors so you can choose to control cost to budget at the detail level e.g., First Floor Framing = $x or, if you prefer, you can control costs at a more general level e.g., Framing for the house costs $y.

There are a series of pre-built reports and Excel outputs that use Cost Detail to show your progress of costs for each lot.

Each Cost Detail belongs to a Cost Group and to improve financial reporting, each Cost Detail will automatically create a Dimension Value and associate the Cost Detail to this Dimension. There is nothing for you to do here other than this very small initial setup, and from this, you will get the ability to create complex financial dimensional reports.

Defaulting GL Code and Tasks:

The additional benefit that Cost Details can provide is when you assign G/L Account Nos. and Task Nos. After doing this, the document or journal lines will be auto-populated with G/L Account No. and Task No. (after entering the Phase Code and the Lot Code) upon entering the Cost Detail Code. This automation works only for the cases when the Type of document line (or "Account Type" of a journal line) is a "G/L Account".

To define Cost Details, open the page "Cost Details" by searching for it or by navigating to a Roles Center (i.e., Homebuilder - Setup - Cost Details).

In addition to reporting, Cost Details are also used to speed up entering purchase invoices and can be used to control going over pre-agreed budgets. We have defaults throughout the system, such as a default Cost Detail code that you can enter for a vendor when you only buy one thing from them.

Cost Detail Structure Suggestions:

 

 

Budget Amount Rule

Each Lot Budget Line carries two amounts that mean different things:

• Estimated Amount — what you budgeted. Usually entered up front, before any quotes were obtained, and often pushed onto the Lot from the Model budget.
• Planned Amount — what the plan actually costs. This is rolled up from the Planning Lines for that Lot and Cost Detail, so it reflects real contracted prices from Vendor Contracts.

Budget Amount Rule decides which of those two becomes the Budget Amount, (the figure the Lot is measured against). It is set per Cost Detail, in the Budget Amount Rule column on the Cost Details page, and it takes one of four values.

Where the rule is set, and who sets it

• The rule lives on the Cost Detail, so different parts of the build can be controlled differently. Framing can run on contracted prices while a site allowance runs on the estimate.
• A new Cost Detail inherits the rule from HomeBuilder Setup → Budgeting → Budget Amount Rule at the moment it is created. Changing that default afterwards does not reach back and change Cost Details that already exist.
• If HomeBuilder Setup → Budgeting → “Same Budget Rule for all Cost Details” is set to 'Yes', the Budget Amount Rule column becomes read-only on the Cost Details page and every Cost Detail follows the single rule held in the setup. Turn the flag off to vary the rule per Cost Detail.

What else does the rule affect

The Budget Amount is not just a display column, the completion figures are derived from it:

• Amount to Complete = Budget Amount − Actual Amount.
• Cost to Complete is that same figure on cost lines, where it is not negative; on revenue lines, and where the line is already overspent, it is zero.

So changing a Cost Detail from Estimated to Planned does not only restate the budget, it restates what remains to be spent on every Lot that uses that Cost Detail, and everything downstream that reads those figures. The same rule applies to Model Budget Lines.

 

Actions - Cost Details

The Cost Details page contains the following Actions:

• Copy from another Company.
• Push to Lots.
• Push to Models.
• Sync Codes to Dimensions.

Copy from another Company

This Action copies all Cost Details from the selected source company.

Push to Lots

This action creates Lot Budget Lines for selected Cost Details and selected Lots. This action is useful when you want to make postings against a lot before the lot is sited.

In the "Cost Details" page, select Cost Details to copy and press "Push to Lots". In the pop-up window, select destination Lots and press "Push to Lots".

Push to Models

This action creates Model Budget Lines for selected Cost Details and selected Models. This action allows a user to quickly populate model budgets.

In the "Cost Details" page, select Cost Details to copy and press "Push to Models". In the pop-up window, select destination Models and press "Push to Models".

Sync Codes to Dimensions

This action enforces synchronization of Cost Details with Dimensions Values of the Dimension defined for Cost Details in the HomeBuilder Setup. It also deletes Dimension Values that no longer have a matching Cost Detail, where base Business Central rules permit, and reports anything it could not delete on a validation messages page.