Managing Projects with xTuple

Just as it does with other features in xTuple ERP, project accounting integrates seamlessly with the existing xTuple financial reporting tools. There is no additional setup or configuration required to generate project financial reports. All you need to do is enter a project number, select the report type you want to see, and then run the report.

Of course, having data to report on is one prerequisite. But if you're managing several projects in xTuple and performing regular transactions linked to each, over time you'll have plenty of information to report on. Remember, every time a virtual G/L account hits the general ledger, you've got one more data point you can use for financial reporting.

One of the primary financial reports—not just for project accounting, but for accounting in general—is the income statement. The following screenshot shows an income statement for project "GREENLEAF":

Income statement by project

When project accounting is enabled, a special Project # field will appear at the top of the standard View Financial Report screen. This field is only shown when project accounting is installed and enabled. Apart from this one field, there is no difference between this screen and the standard Financial Report screen available in all editions of xTuple ERP.

If you enter a project number in the Project # field, the financial report you get when you query this screen will contain only financial information related to that project. In other words, only G/L transactions for that project's virtual accounts will be included. As you can see in the example, the type of report we selected here is an income statement. We specified a monthly column layout—and selected the month of February from the list of available accounting periods. After querying the screen using the QUERY button, the resulting revenue and expense data for project "GREENLEAF" in February is shown.

It's important to note here that project financial information may be constantly changing as transactions are processed in different areas of xTuple ERP. xTuple financial reports are updated in real time. All you need to do is re-query the financial report to see the most current data displayed there.

Another important financial report is the balance sheet. The next screenshot shows a balance sheet for project "GREENLEAF":

Balance sheet by project

The balance sheet example, like the income statement, simply requires a project number, report type, column layout, and accounting period. For this example we have specified the month of February. But if you want to report on more than one month, you can select more than one. Or you can run a trend report to see financial information spanning a month, quarter, or year. We haven't done so in this example, but if you choose the show Account Numbers option, you will see the virtual G/L accounts with their project number as the final segment.

One final point to mention here—and this may be obvious—is that you are not required to specify a project when viewing financial reports. If you don't specify a project, all the project-related transactions will be consolidated into the parent account numbers the virtual accounts were created from. When you run financial reports by project, these virtual account transactions are merely filtered out and shown separately.