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Many businesses live and die based on the profitability of unique projects or jobs. But how do you know if your business needs a job cost solution or a project accounting solution?

Job cost solutions are often designed specifically for industries whose main goal is to control project costs beyond the traditional spreadsheet package. Many job cost solutions are custom packages designed for internal cost controls, with less emphasis placed on the invoicing, financial integration, profit recognition and project management features.

Project accounting solutions tend to be more integrated to the financial modules. Costs should flow into the project accounting application from other business areas, such as accounts payable, purchase orders, inventory control, fixed assets, timesheets/payroll and others, while revenues should flow out of the project accounting application into invoicing, accounts receivable and the general ledger.

PROJECT ACCOUNTING SUITE for SAP Business One

Is your business organized around projects or jobs? If so, your success, and ultimate profitability, is achieved by carefully managing and measuring financial and operational performance against project and job budgets.

Companies in this industry and economic climate become successful, and remain successful by managing details. Each project or job has a virtually limitless combination of variables that can affect its final outcome. It is not good enough to see the results tomorrow, or next week … data is needed today – up to and including the last transaction. Making decisions that proactively influence the results, rather than by reacting to the outcome, is key to flourishing and growing in a highly competitive professional services or job based industry.

isgi’s Project Accounting Suite (PAS) is the comprehensive solution specifically designed to extend the power of SAP® Business One’s state-of-the-art management control tools for Project and Job Cost organizations. Know in real-time which customers, jobs and projects are profitable… and get the information to manage those that are not. It also enables you to understand which employees and resources are productive and profitable, allowing you to better manage those that are not meeting expectations.

Combining the power of SAP® Business One’s CRM, management workflow, inventory and financial modules with the robust Project and Job Costing functionality of isgi’s Project Accounting Suite provides an unparalleled 360 degree view of your business. Now you are in control … empowered to control your business … not the other way around!

Don’t Need a Full Project Accounting Product? PAS/Job Cost Edition is designed to deliver the sub-set of functionality required by Job Cost type organizations. It focuses on the collection of cost data against jobs and activities using the PAS architecture, creating a Job Ledger system with full reporting and financials integration. Deployed on a per user basis, this solution will compliment SAP® Business One for these smaller organizations.

Click here to find out more about isgi’s Project Accounting Suite, PAS/Job Cost Edition and SAP® Business One.

This type of management philosophy empowers employees to create customized solutions for their customers, thus creating a competitive advantage. This type of management philosophy is called management by projects.

This is not the same as project management. In fact, project management represents a significant phase in the entire project life cycle, more specifically; project management addresses the planning needs associated with material and resource allocation. Management by projects gives managers the perspective needed to make real-time adjustments to project strategies when key indicators show a change is needed.

Job cost applications have not been designed with project phases, work breakdowns or detailed time capturing in mind, and thus they can merely report how much has been spent or collected, but not why a certain project is losing or winning money. Project accounting’s objective is to centralize all data and produce reports that will help every department manager improve their bottom line and make quicker, more informed strategic decisions from profit planning and resource allocation to strategic marketing and quality control.

Strategic Marketing. With good project financial information, marketing executives can look across all projects to identify profitable types of clients/projects and aggressively target those for future business. Conversely, they can identify losers and avoid them.

Profit Planning. With accurate project data for past years, financial executives can build more accurate forecasts and budgets for future years. It’s a constructive approach where each project is a building block used to assemble the corporate financial vision. This aggregated projects approach provides insight, accuracy, and sometimes a level of accountability that can’t usually be achieved with more traditional top-down general ledger accounting or departmental budgeting.

Empowerment of Project Managers. Project managers who can access timely, complete project information can manage a greater number of projects with greater success. Greater efficiency leads to leveraged resources as well as higher quality customer work.

Strategic Resource Allocation. In many technologically advanced industries, the availability of skilled labor has become a critical constraint because resources are scarce and geographically dispersed. With detailed employee and project information, resources (both human and material) can be allocated more efficiently across projects.

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