Overview
Modify the schedule of values in Applications for Payment to align with your business's progress billing needs.
Who uses this feature
Administrators, Managers, Accountants, Bookkeepers, Project Managers
Primarily for Residential Construction and Commercial Construction business types
Things to know
Generating a project's first Application for Payment prompts the choice in how the Application for Payment generates the description of work. You can select by project label or by estimate line item description
You can choose how the schedule of values displays on the Continuation Sheet on a project-by-project basis.
Regardless of the way you determine how the schedule of values is informed on your Applications for Payment, project labels and their hierarchies still control how the Budget vs Actual table displays on each project.
Select how the schedule of values appears on Applications for Payment
When creating an Application for Payment based on an estimate, the Description of Work column in the Continuation Sheet is automatically filled in based on your choice of the item's project labels or the item's description from the estimate. This allows you to choose on a project-by-project basis how you want the schedule of value items to appear when emailed or printed.
The option to select how the schedule of values populates appears on each project when you add the project's first Application for Payment.
Select project labels for Applications for Payment
When you select Use project label for your Applications for Payment, estimate items with the same project label are used to generate the description of work. The project's schedule of values is then directly populated by the project's highest hierarchies, called parent labels.
The example below shows how parent labels inform the schedule of values on the Continuation Sheet and display on the project's Budget vs. Actual table.
This parent label hierarchy uses the phased approach to track costs associated with each phase of the project. In this example, the phases of Rough In, Trim Out, and Start Up are the parent labels assigned to the project's sold estimate items and sit on top of the label hierarchy.
Because the phases are the top hierarchies, or parent labels, they populate the schedule of values on the Continuation Sheet.
By selecting the Use project label option when adding your project's first Application for Payment, the project's parent labels are used for the description of work on the Continuation Sheet. Because the phases are the highest hierarchy, or parent label, they're seen on the Continuation Sheet in the Description of Work column.
Select estimate description for the Application for Payment
When you select Use estimate description for your Applications for Payment, the estimate description from items are used to generate the description of work on the Application for Payment's Continuation Sheet. With this approach, the project labels assigned to the estimate item still control how the Budget vs Actual table is displayed.
With this option, estimate descriptions inform the schedule of values on the Continuation Sheet and control how the parent labels display on the project's Budget vs. Actual table.
This scenario also uses a phased approach to tracking expenses with project labels throughout the project. However, in this scenario, the estimate descriptions are used to inform the description of work on the Continuation Sheet.
Note: Any estimate items with a price can have their descriptions included in the Description of Work column, including equipment. For this reason, we recommend using service tasks to bill and hold revenue, with materials and equipment tasks holding costs.
Even though this workflow uses the estimate item's description for the Application for Payment, the project labels assigned to the estimate items still control how the Budget vs Actual table displays on the project.
Address uncategorized transactions on the Continuation Sheet
If there is an uncategorized item in your Continuation Sheet, it means that an item, depending on your selection for the project's Applications for Payment, doesn't have a project label or estimate description associated with it. You can remove uncategorized items by reclassifying them based on the choice you made when generating the Application for Payment.
Note: We recommend addressing uncategorized items in your description of work before generating a second Application for Payment. If you generate a second Application for Payment without removing Uncategorized from the description of work, Uncategorized appears on all additional Applications for Payment.
Project label example
In this scenario, service items with the same project label are used to generate the description of work.
When you view the project's first Application for Payment, you see Uncategorized on the Application for Payment's description of work in Column B.
To remove the uncategorized description of work, you need to add a project label to the estimate item that is unlabeled.
On the Application for Payment, click Back to project page.
On the project's side menu, click Estimates on the project record to go to the sold estimate that populated the project's financials.
Click the estimate ID to open the sold estimate.
On the estimate page, find the estimate item with revenue that doesn't have a project label.
Edit the estimate item with revenue and assign a project label to the estimate item.
Note: The project label you assign is visible on the Application for Payment, depending on how you organize the project label hierarchy. For this example, a Rough-In label is applied to the item for phased project billing.
Click the project number at the top to return to the project.
On the project, click the Actions > Add Application for Payment to resume building the project's first Application for Payment.
When the Continuation Sheet loads, Uncategorized is removed from the description of work.
Estimate description example
In this scenario, the estimate description from service items are used to generate the description of work.
When you view the project's first Application for Payment, you can see Uncategorized on the Application for Payment's description of work in Column B.
To remove the uncategorized description of work, you need to add an estimate item description to the estimate item that doesn't have a description.
On the Application for Payment screen, click Back to project page.
On the project record's side menu, click Estimates to go to the sold estimate that populated the project's financials.
Click the estimate ID to open the sold estimate.
On the estimate page, find the estimate item with revenue that doesn't have a description.
Edit the estimate item with revenue to include a estimate description.
Click the project number at the top to return to the project.
On the project, click Actions > Add Application for Payment to resume building the project's first Application for Payment.
After the Continuation Sheet loads, Uncategorized is removed from the description of work.
Primary highlights
Project labels and how they are organized drive the Budget vs Actual experience on a project page, regardless of how you decide to build Applications for Payment.
You can choose how the schedule of values displays on a project-by-project basis.
Any estimate item descriptions with an associated price display as a scheduled value when selecting Use estimate description. For this reason, we recommend using services tasks to bill for revenue, while material and equipment tasks can capture costs and inventory consumption.
If you see Uncategorized in the description of work on a project's first Application for Payment, address and categorize it before generating a second Application for Payment.