Cost-Related Security Roles

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Only a few security roles allow users to see monetary values. For example, the AccountingWorkOrder role lets a user see the actual costs of materials (but not labor) on a work order.

Someone with the WorkOrder security role but not AccountingWorkOrder will be able to create work orders but will not be able to see or specify material costs on the work order. For example, you'll be able to record that you used a particular spare part on a job but you won't know how much the part cost. You'll only be able to see material costs if you have the AccountingWorkOrder role (or some other accounting-related role). Furthermore, AccountingWorkOrder isn't sufficient to see labor costs; for that, you need Accounting or AccountingView.

If you don't have an appropriate accounting security role, you can't directly enter monetary values. However, MainBoss can enter monetary values for you. Loosely speaking, if you record that Joe Smith worked five hours, MainBoss can calculate the cost of that work based on Joe's salary, even if MainBoss doesn't tell you what that cost is.

More specifically, when someone creates a demand for labor or materials on a work order, the person creating the demand has a choice of three options related to the actual cost of the labor or materials:

Current value calculation: If you choose this option, you tell MainBoss to calculate costs based on the current value of labor and materials.

For materials, MainBoss checks its inventory records and determines the historic cost of the materials used; it uses this cost as the actual cost of the materials. For example, if you specify that a particular job uses a quart of oil, MainBoss determines the cost of a quart of oil from its inventory records. That cost is then used as the actual cost of the oil used.

For labor, MainBoss checks its labor cost records (hourly inside, per job inside, hourly outside, per job outside) and uses the costs specified in those records. For example, if you specify that employee Joe Smith worked five hours, MainBoss checks its hourly inside records to determine Joe's hourly wage. MainBoss then uses that hourly wage to determine the actual cost of five hours of Joe's time.

Demanded: This is similar to Current value calculation except that it uses costs as they were at the time of the original demand rather than the time the actual materials and labor were recorded. This makes a difference, for example, if a worker's hourly wage changes between the time of the demand and the time that actual hours are recorded.

Current value calculation and Demanded are useful in situations where costs can be specified by the person who creates the original demand, but not by the person who eventually records actual labor and material usage. This might happen when work orders are created by a dispatcher who has the roles WorkOrder and AccountingWorkOrder, but then the work orders are closed off by workers who only have the WorkOrderFulfillment role.

Manual entry: When this option is specified, the person who records actual costs must have AccountingWorkOrder or some other accounting role that allows costs to be entered directly. In this case, the "actualizer" may either choose the same calculations as Current value calculation or Demanded, or may manually enter some different cost.

Note that these options specify defaults to be used in situations where the person who records actual labor and material usage doesn't have permission to specify costs. If the person recording actual usage has cost permissions, that person can override the defaults if and when desired.

Costs on Reports: In every report window, the Advanced section has a Suppress Costs option. This tells MainBoss not to print any costs that would normally appear in the report. This option is always in effect if you don't have an appropriate accounting-related security role.

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