Category: Tips

A better Unbilled Job Report

The Unbilled Job Report in Accounts Receivable Billing is designed to report Jobs that are unbilled.  The problem with the report is that it requires a link from the Job Cost Task Codes to the Job Billing Line Items (which is not always a reasonable approach).

A better method of determining your ‘unbilled’ status on a Job is to create a Job Cost Formatted Report with the Date Last Billed, Contract Amount, Amount Billed, and a field called Amount Unbilled that is calculated by subtracting the Amount Billed from the Contract Amount field.

Then a filter that shows Job where the Amount Unbilled is not equal to zero will provide a useful report.

Reporting Worker’s Compensation Earnings from Payroll Detail

Periodically, Payroll Insurance Groups are not setup correctly causing incorrect Worker’s Compensation Earnings on the Payroll Insurance Report. And you can just guess how Worker’s Compensation auditors get grouchy when earnings don’t “add up”!

Fortunately, the Formatted Reports PR2 prefix, Time Card Detail, gives you access to the various earnings categories for each and every timecard transaction. Here are those fields:

110 Regular Earnings 
111 Overtime Earnings 
112 Premium Earnings 
113 Sick Earnings 
114 Holiday Earnings 
115 Vacation Earnings 
116 Bonus Earnings 
117 Per Diem (non-taxable) 
118 Expense (non-taxable)
119 Misc Earnings 
120 Other Earnings (total of 113+114+115+116+117+118+119+Union Add-On Pay)
Union Add-On Pay (is 120-(113+114+115+116+117+118+119))

So, using the PR2 prefix, earnings can be reported not only by Insurance Group (Worker’s Comp Code), and can be sorted by Job if necessary. Very helpful if you have Jobs that are wrap-up (owner paid Worker’s Comp).

What does the Purchase History by Job Report really report?

Until today, I never understood what the Purchase History by Job Report really reported. After a little research I found that the title of that report is a bit misleading. It does not report purchases, but rather it reports Purchase Order lines that have been completely received and invoiced (via AP).

Here’s some examples. For stock item, the amount of a given Purchase Order line will not be reported until the full quantity ordered is both received and invoices. For a Lump Sum amount, the report will only reflect the amount when the whole lump sum amount is fully invoiced by the Vendor.

Any lines of a Purchase Order that are partially invoiced, or partially received, will not be reflected on the report.

I vote that the name of the report be changed to “Completed Purchase History by Job Report”.

How to add a new Cash Account

If you are starting a new bank (cash) account you will need to setup that account in the various modules of Maxwell Management Suite.

General Ledger

  • Add the new Account via General Ledger, GL Files Maintenance, Account Maintenance
  • Add the Account in General Ledger, GL Files Maintenance, Bank Rec Account Maintenance

Payroll

  • In Payroll, Payroll Files Maintenance, GL Posting Account Maint, change the Cash and Direct Deposit Accounts.
  • In Payroll, Employee Files Maintenance, Direct Deposit, Direct Deposit G/L Account Maintenance add the new account
  • When doing Pay Period Initialization, make sure you refer to the new Account.

Accounts Payable

  • When doing the Accounts Payable, Payment Processing, Check Printing, it will ask for the Cash Account. Once you enter the new Account it will default to that in the future.

Accounts Receivable

  • When you do the Accounts Receivable, Cash Receipt Journal, it will ask for the Cash Account. Once you enter the new Account it will default to that in the future.

That’s it. Now go process those checks!

How is line 1 of the Quarterly 941 calculated?

Recently, a Maxwell Management Suite customer asked how to verify the number of employees that printed on Line 1 of the Quarterly 941 Report. That line is labeled “Number of employees who received wages, tips, or other compensation for the pay period including:Mar. 12 (Quarter 1), June 12 (Quarter 2), Sept. 12 (Quarter 3), Dec. 12 (Quarter 4)”. Simply stated, the count is based on the number of paychecks issued during a “pay period” encompassing the 12th calendar day of March, June, September, and December.

But the trick, of course, is knowing the date range used for those “pay periods”. A quick look at the CPR941 program showed that for the 1st quarter, if an employee is paid weekly (pay cycle), they will be counted if they received a check dated from March 12 to March 18. Of course, each pay cycle tests for a different set of date ranges as follows:
* Weekly: 12th to 18th
* Bi-Weekly: 12th to 25th
* Semi-Monthly: 1st to 17th
* Monthly: 1st to 31st

One thing to note is if an employee received two paychecks in one of those date ranges, they will be counted twice.

So if your employees are paid weekly, verify line 1 of the 941 by printing the YTD Detail PR Register, for all employees, for March 12 to March 18 and count the number of checks that print on the report.

What is the Discussion Board?

One of the new features on this web-site is the Discussion Board. The Discussion Board, powered by Simple Machines Forum software, is a community forum where you can ask (or answer) questions related to your Maxwell Systems Software.

Because of the ‘sharing’ aspect of the Discussion Board, other people can view the question you ask and they can answer your question. Once a question is asked and answered, other members will be able to benefit from that exchange.

So, if you have a question, or a comment, or a solution, please feel free to contribute to the Discussion Board. The more questions, the better!

Live Help Chat

To offer another avenue of support and to better assist visitors to this site, I’ve installed the Live Help software from Crafty Systems. Essentially, this allows you to start a chat session with me by just clicking on the “Click for LIVE HELP!” icon over to the right. A window will be displayed; there you enter your name, your e-mail address, and your question. Then, click on “Send” to initiate the chat process.

Live Help first screen

Once the chat session has begun, as each of us responds, you will see an ongoing display of our converstaion. I will see whatever you type, and in turn, you will see what I type. Click the “Say” button at the end of each of your reponses. At any time , you can end the chat by clicking on Exit. At that point, you will be afforded the opportunity to receive a transcript of the chat session via email.

Live Help chat screen

So please, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to “Click for LIVE HELP!”. I look forward to hearing from you.

Taxable Car Allowance

Assumption:
Employee must be charged with $1,000.00 taxable car allowance for a tax year. The $1,000.00 will be charged in one lump sum to the employee.

1. If you don’t have one, in Standard Rate Code Maintenance, setup a Rate Code called CAR as a Miscellaneous Pay Type.

2. If you don’t have one, setup a Deduction called CAR in Fringe/Deduction Maintenance. Make all flags for federal and state(s) Yes. If you feel the Car Allowance is not susceptible to FICA, FUTA, SUTA, or Worker’s Comp, please discuss that with your accountant.

3. In Employee Deduct/Fringe Maint. assign the CAR Deduction to the employee with a Fixed Dollar Amount of $1,000.00.

4. During the entry of an employees’ weekly TimeCard, add a Line, using the Rate Code CAR, for $1,000.00.

Note: the employee will be ‘charged’ with $1,000.00 because of the Miscellaneous Pay and the $1,000.00 will then be ‘deducted’ out because of the Fringe/Deduction. As a result the employee gets taxed for the Car Allowance.

5. If Car Allowance is to appear in a special box of the W2, you will have to put that amount manually in that special box in the W2 under Adjust Empl. Year End Earnings. The Gross Wages will already reflect the $1,000.00.

Using Advanced Filters

If you need to create a report of subcontract Vendors that have expired insurance dates, you’ll need to learn how to use Filters. There’s two types of filters. The first type of filter I call a Simple filter because you use a series of pull-down boxes to define your filter. The second type of filter is an Advanced filter where the filter definition is manually constructed.

In this example, we’ll need to use an Advanced filter, because the Simple filter can’t handle the complex logic. Remember, the report must show all subcontract Vendors (Vendors with a Normal G/L Account of 507000) where the Workers Comp, General Liability, or Other Insurance dates are expired (expired before the current terminal date).

Here’s the filter:

NORMAL_GL_ACCOUNT$="507000" AND
(WORKERS_COMP_INSUR_EXPIR_DATE$ < X$(41,2)+X$(37,2)+X$(31,2)+X$(34,2)
   OR
GENERAL_LIAB_INSUR_EXPIR_DATE$ < X$(41,2)+X$(37,2)+X$(31,2)+X$(34,2) 
  OR 
OTHER_INSURANCE_EXPIR_DATE$ < X$(41,2)+X$(37,2)+X$(31,2)+X$(34,2))

The X$ stuff represents the current date, so this filter shouldn’t need to be changed each time it’s used for a report.

If you ever need to report data and don’t want to see pages and pages of information, then remember to use a Filter. And if the Filter is complex, you may need to resort to constructing an Advanced filter.

Monarch mines for data

As good as Maxwell’s DataLink Module is at exporting reports and data to text, Excel, and PDF files, there are times when you need something more in your tool-kit. That extra tool could be Monarch Pro from Datawatch.

Monarch Pro is called a data mining or data extraction tool. It takes the output from any report you have, extracts the data from the report, and outputs it into a file, such as an Excel spreadsheet, for easy manipulation.

The beauty of Monarch Pro is it’s simplicity. Just print your report to a text file, then point Monarch Pro to that file. Then a simple to use parsing tool scans, filters, and extracts data from your report into a spreadsheet like format. The data can then be output to almost any type of file including spreadsheets. And once the parsing rules are defined, you save those rules as a template to be over and over each time you print the report.

Monarch Pro can also access data files directly. Almost any file can be read by Monarch Pro. Access and Excel files as well as any data file accessible via ODBC can be read and manipulated.

So if you can’t get just the right data extracted using your standard tools, consider Monarch Pro (priced at $559.00 at this time).