Overview:

Activities are an essential part of the Work Breakdown structure in Workbench. They are required for all Transactions and carry the General Ledger (GL) code to your financial system.

A validation can be enabled so the system checks that the selection of GL account on a Sales Code or Activity, is a valid one. 

• Valid GL Account Category for Sales Codes:

  • Revenue

• Valid GL Account Category for Activities:

  • Job Costs

  • Other Costs

There are several Code Types available which determine where the activity can be used in the system.

This screen lists all existing activities in the system with links to Create or Edit an Activity. The number of columns on this screen necessitates horizontal scrolling to view all fields.

Screen Guide:

• Code is the unique code for the activity and can be alphanumeric characters. This field also serves as the link to edit the Activity.
• Description is the longer descriptive text given to the activity.
• Code Type determines what kind of activity this is and where it can be used in Workbench:
  • Time activities are used for Timesheets and Job Budgets.
  • Disbursement activities are used in Disbursements and Expense Claims.
  • Purchase activities are used in the Purchasing module and Expense Claims
  • Stock activities are used in conjunction with the Stock module.
  • Plant activities are used for Plant Issues.
  • Internal activities are meant to be used for internal jobs and intercompany situations.
  • Subcontract activities are used in the Subcontracts module.
  • Retention activities are specifically used for holding retentions in the Subcontracts module; retentions being held by your client when you send Contract Claims use a retention Sales Code instead.
  • Revenue activities are used for Job Budgets and Job Sales Invoices.
• Cost Category lists one of the Cost Categories for grouping purposes and is useful as another layer of reporting.
• Sub Type is used in combination with the Code Type Time, subdividing this code into the following categories for reporting, selling, and other purposes:
  • Charge
  • No Charge 
  • Admin 
  • Leave 
  • Other 
  • Proposal 
  • Statutory 
  • Lieu 
  • KMs 
• GST Type is the base GST Type of this activity.
• Work Centre is the default Work Centre for this activity. Defaults are a great way to save time during data entry, but can also be generic so that the user must change the Work Centre for each transaction.
• Sales Code is the Sales Code attributed to this activity, affecting how the transaction can be sold.

• DR GL Account is the General Ledger account that this activity will debit to.
• CR GL Account is the General Ledger account that this activity will credit to.
• Base, Overhead, Other, Allowance, and Time 1 - 3 Cost columns show which cost areas of the Employee Class will be transferred to the transaction, and which ones will be ignored.

GL Account Validation:

The 'GL Account Validation' can be enabled in the 'Control Parameters.' to validate the GL Accounts against the GLAccounts table making sure the Category is correct:

• Sales Codes should have the 'Revenue' Category.
• Activities should have either the 'Job Costs' or 'Other Costs' Category.

Note: Before activating the GL validation, ensure that your GL Accounts are properly configured.

The syncing of GL Accounts from MYOB AccountRight and Xero have been modified so that:

• The GL Accounts are populated with the correct Category.

• Only P&L accounts are included.

If you're using Xero or MYOB AccountRight, you can automate GL Account imports from their configuration screens. For other systems, export GL accounts from your financial system and manually import them into the GL Accounts screen.

Next Steps:

Create a new activity using the + New Activity button, or edit an existing one by clicking on the corresponding Code.

Once activities are created, they must belong to an Activity Group to be used in Transactions. You can add them on the group screen or while editing the activity.