Use the Calculate project line items process to calculate the items on the lines in the specified projects, and to display the data from the sales offers, sales orders, and internal production files that are linked to the project. The following items are calculated:
All project items are always calculated, no matter which project line you start the process from.
Usually, the Calculate project line items process only calculates the items of current projects. A project is 'current' when a project line of type 'Project' has not been finalized. If you try to calculate the items of a finalized project, a message will be displayed. If you have selected multiple finalized projects, no message will be displayed. The finalized projects will be skipped during the calculations, however.
What does the process do?
You can link various data to a project line, including data from sales offers, sales orders and production files. You can create top-level links (for example, to link a project line to a sales order), but also detailed links (for instance, to link a project line to a shipping schedule line, periodic invoice line, production operation, or purchase line). If you use this link, the costs and revenues from the linked lines are important for the project.
If you select the Recalculate current linked sales files check box, the items in the linked files are recalculated during the Calculate project line items process. If you do not select this check box, the most recent calculation data are retrieved for the linked files. The setting of this check box is saved on a per-user basis, which means that your last choice is automatically used the next time you start the process.
In addition to the links above, you can add plan groups to project lines, allowing you to make a rough calculation consisting of various costs and turnover categories. Also plan groups may have costs and revenues you want to include when calculating project data; these costs and revenues will be taken into account in the Calculate project line items process.
The exact data calculated depend on the types of project links and the selection you make on the processing form. To view a detailed overview of the implications of these choices, go to Processes > Project management > Calculate project items.
After the Calculate project line items process has calculated and collected all relevant data, these data will be displayed on the corresponding project lines on the Units/costs tab. The details of the costs are displayed on the Financial analysis form.
Finalized projects
It is very important that the items of finalized projects are not recalculated. Performing calculations is a relatively demanding process on the server. Not calculating completed files will significantly reduce the time needed to make the calculations.
You can calculate the items of finalized projects only if you explicitly choose the Calculate finalized project items option on the processing form. If you choose this option, a message will appear asking you to confirm that you want the items of non-current projects to be calculated.
When calculating the items of a project, you can choose to have the items of current linked sales offers and orders recalculated. Because the process is very resource-intensive, it is not possible to recalculate the items of finalized sales offers and orders from within the Projects module.
Remarks
The first time you use this option, the items of the historical projects have not yet been calculated. To register these data, you need to perform a one-time recalculation of the historical projects.
Note: It is important to finalize projects once they have been dealt with. Not doing so will cause their items to be calculated each time you calculate the items of your current projects. As the number of 'old' projects increases, the process becomes increasingly slower. Also, the calculations for files already dealt with are not performed just once and then registered, but they are calculated continuously using current prices, which means you cannot build a historic overview of these files.