IBS ENTERPRISE - Version 6 - Advanced Project Management
Module
FEATURES & BENEFITS
Manage and coordinate projects from budgeting to invoicing
Full integration with back office functionality, bridging the gap between project management and operations
Track all project data – from activities, resources, products and subcontractors to expenses and milestones
Fully integrated with other IBS ENTERPRISE modules
IBS Advanced Project Management is designed to handle all roles in a company's operation – team workers, project management and resource owners as well as corporate management. It’s a fully integrated module of IBS Enterprise, with scalability that makes it suitable for projects of all sizes.PROJECT PHASES IBS Advanced Project Management includes preparing, planning, managing and controlling these phases: Project directive, Planning, Acceptance, Production and Project closing. Project follow-up is included in all phases.
Project Directive Phase The project directive is the basis for the project and its assignment. Here, you define the start and finish criteria along with any budgetary limits. Creating all phases, activities and other parts of a project can be carried out through predefined templates or via existing projects.
Planning Phase Planning is the second phase of the project. It contains several steps, including the preparation and planning of activities, material, staffing and expenses, along with the compilation of project calculations. Some steps may depend on a previous step, and it's possible to link them to each other.
The different steps make up the foundation of a project and determine how the project should be carried out to keep it within budget and time.
Activities – A project can be divided into several or many activities. For large projects with many activities, the solution lets you delegate full responsibility of different activities to selected team members.
Products/Purchasing/Manufacturing – Allows you to take advantage of agreement handling, price and discount handling, electronic purchasing orders, confirmation routines, etc. Purchase and manufacturing costs, as well as materials and services, can be controlled directly within IBS Advanced Project Management.
Staffing – Every activity is staffed with a certain set of skills, which helps to ensure the correct qualities and costs for the activity. Staffing is achieved through a resource file that can include both internal and external resources with different skills and costs.
Expenses – Handle various types of expenses, such as travel costs and per diem allowances.
Milestones – Define project milestones for critical moments in a project and specify what should be performed in terms of quantity and quality.
Documents – Create an electronic project folder that can contain the project directive and other documents, such as meeting minutes, drawings, instructions and supplier invoices.
Revenue – For external customer projects, the software offers several options for defining how revenue should be handled and invoiced – periodically or based on an invoicing plan. Projects with periodic invoicing can also book revenues according to various accounting principles – by supplementary factors per cost, by set price such as per hour, or by a fixed price for the entire activity.
Budget – Automatic budgets for expenses, revenue and cover costs are created when a project has all products planned, all activities staffed, all costs budgeted and all revenues estimated. The budget is adjusted according to further work in the project.
Acceptance Phase When the entire project is defined and planned, it must receive formal approval by the project executive before being launched. At the time of project acceptance, the project budget is locked.
Production Phase Project production and reporting may begin immediately after project approval and go-ahead in the Acceptance phase. Each resource within the planned project has received its own resource time plan from IBS Advanced Project Management. This plan presents the activities for a certain resource and shows the type of activity and the time frame for each activity's execution, along with the budgeted time that is required for each activity.
Material handling – Materials that are unique to the project can be requisitioned from stock or initialized through purchase or manufacturing orders. Time reporting and forecasting – Hours for an activity task are reported when the task has been completed. Any remaining work for an activity can also be reported, as well as any activity forecasts based on deviations from the project schedule. Expenses – Report travel expenses or other costs in connection with an activity, helping to keep track of a project's total costs. Supplier costs – When a supplier invoice is received, it’s entered in the IBS Financials system and carried over automatically to the project. Current activity elements are updated with actual costs to give a project leader total control over the project. Approval – After used hours, forecasts, expenses and supplier costs have been entered, the project leader approves recorded transactions and checks the current status of the project against the plan. Revenues – Open-account projects – Following approval of all transactions, revenue transactions are created, based on the revenue models that are attached to each activity element. Fixed-Price Projects – Revenue transactions are created according to the published invoicing plan. You can even process revenue transactions before invoices are generated. Follow-up – Follow-up helps to ensure that a project reaches its goals on time, within budget and at the promised quality. The process includes assessments of the current and planned (ideal) states of the project leader's most critical assignments.
Project Closing Phase During the project completion, a summary of the project directive assignments is created, along with a final analysis. The analysis includes a check-off of all reported transactions, together with a final report and calculations for the project. The closed project is taken off the current project file but remains in the archives, where it can be used for planning similar projects.
IBS ENTERPRISE - Version 6 - Advanced Project Management
