Workbench Release Notes
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Upcoming Functionality & News
Workbench API Licence
The use of the Workbench API will now require a licence. An extra System Admin licence will enable you to access all the Workbench functionality available through our API.
Contract Progress Claim Process - upcoming changes you need to know
We will be making changes to improve the Claiming process on Contract Claims, and users will soon be able to:
Capture This Claim Claimed Values.
Capture this Claim Certified Values.
With the Contract schedule claiming process, we recognise the importance of capturing the final certified value and the actual claimed value to have a full picture and history of the claims (similar to how it is done on Subcontract Claims).
Available from July 2024 as beta feature.
New Features
Custom Views on List screens
As an initial release of Custom Views, we have released 4 system views on JobSales Invoices:
LC Values, Outstanding, Claims, Data Dump, Internals.
Click on the Default View option under Apply Filter. You will see a list of views. You can select one of them and make it your new Default, by choosing Set Current As Default. This will add a * to the View name, to indicate that you have marked it as your preferred
The default view, and every time you open this screen this will be displayed.
Custom Views will progressively be released in most of the List screens. And soon users with the right permissions will be able to create additional Views for all users to consume.
Jobs
Contracts - Project Trust Accounts 💸 🔒
For those clients in Queensland, Australia with specific construction projects that must hold project funds on trust accounts dedicated to that project, to comply with QBCC new regulations, we are now releasing the last stage for the management, reporting, and compliance for Project Trust Accounts (PTA). Support for managing Subcontract Retention Trust Accounts (RTA) was released in September 2023 and can be used in conjunction with this new functionality.
New Trust Accounts Ledgers on a Contract, Project Trust Account Ledger and Retention Trust Account Ledger.
Updates coming on next release on Xero API integration to bring across to Workbench the Cash accounts for Payments and Receipts, to verify if these transactions have been done using the right Trust Account on the Job.
We have already done updates on MYOB AccountRight, MYOB Advanced (Receipts only, and adding Payments on next release).Ability to indicate when a PTA Top-up has been done, a withdrawal of funds from PTA, transfer of retention funds from PTA to Retention Trust Account (RTA). This is done via the new PTA Transfers screen.
Utility to automatically send email notifications for:
payment notifications to subcontractors,
and notifications when retention money has been transferred from PTA to RTA.
Remember this functionality is still in a Beta phase and must be enabled with Control Parameter BETA FEATURE - Contract Project Trust Account'. This functionality is part of your Contracts licence.
Register to our webinar in July and join us to learn how you can use Workbench to manage your Trust Accounts.
A specialist Consultant on the QBCC legislation, Laura Hattin from Building Trusts, will be joining us to talk about Trust Accounts in Queensland, Australia.
Billing
Credit notes on invoiced Outputs:
The current credit mechanism applied to an output-based Job Invoice is purely a financial operation and the total outputs are unchanged, for example on Job Enquiry - Outputs tab. Two options are added on the [More] button for if applicable:‘Insert full credit with contra outputs’ creates negative quantity contra outputs based on the applied invoice, and auto-creates a credit line for the total. These contra outputs ensure that the outputs recorded remain balance per the invoicing.
‘Copy credit outputs to reinvoice’ creates equivalent quantity copy of outputs based on the applied invoice if these are required for re-invoicing as the original outputs are linked to the original invoice and cannot be re-invoiced.
Feature Revisions
Jobs
Contracts Forecast - new control to allow multiple opened forecasts:
A few releases back a change was introduced to disallow multiple opened Forecasts.
However, there are some scenarios where there are multiple Financial Companies, where some areas at month end are ahead of others but because the Period maintenance in Workbench is not Finco based some teams have to wait for other teams to finish so that they can create a new Forecast for the following period.
You can now control and choose to have multiple Forecasts opened with the new control parameter 'Allow multi Forecast periods'. The default is 'No'.
You should only enable it if you understand the implications of having multiple Forecasts opened for different Periods on a Job. The risk of having multiple Forecasts opened for the same Job is that if you add Adjustments to an earlier opened Forecast after later Forecasts were created, these will not come across to the later Forecasts, and the later Forecasts will be inaccurate.
Quotes
Cost Sheet Main tab - numbers formatting improved:
Month End
Utilities - wbUtilityChangeBatchDate - now supports AP batches:
This will change the AP Invoice header and its lines' Year-period value to the new value. This action is also added to the Event Log for auditing purposes.
Fixes
Lists
People and Company maintenance screen re-sized:
When opening a People record or a Company record after searching for either from the search boxes at the top of the Home page, the pop-up windows now have a standard size (larger).
Dockets & Daysheets
Daysheet - disallow time entry on a complete timesheet:
New Timesheet entries won’t be allowed on a Daysheet Timesheet if the Timesheet for that week has been Completed and/or Approved for the employee the time is being entered for.Timesheet & Plant import:
The Daysheet Time & Plant import option in Daysheets has been removed, as it was not designed to import this data in the Daysheet.
Timesheets
Validation of Job Work Centres has been added to Plant Issues added from a Timesheet. If the default WC is not a valid JWC, the WC code will not be populated.
Weekly Timesheets - Disallow entering time on a closed Work Centre:
In weekly timesheets, if a Work Centre is closed, additional time cannot be added even though the Job + Act + WC line already exists in the timesheet.
Quotes
Users can now successfully delete a comment from the Revenue line on a Cost Sheet (Revenue and Cost Element format).
Service Desk
Finalised service logs cannot be selected when doing data entry (Purchase Orders, Daysheets, AP Invoices, Timesheets).
Upvise
Syncing Companies and Jobs
Workbench Companies and Workbench Jobs, both have their own flag to indicate they must be synced to Upvise. These flags, Other for Companies, and Req. Sched. for Jobs, are shared and used for other functionality in Workbench.
We have now split and separated the Upvise flags from the Workbench flags, to avoid confusion and avoid syncing when it was not required.
Jobs and Plant Items:
Job Scheduler: Use this to indicate the Job is to be scheduled in Workbench Resource Scheduler.
Sync to Upvise: Use this to indicate the Job must be synced to Upvise.
These flags are available in Job Templates and Editable Job List too.
Companies:
The Other flag has been renamed to Upvise.
Where Require Scheduleding was ticked before this upgrade and an Upvise site licence exists, the system will automatically tick the new flag Sync to Upvise on Job Templates and Jobs/Plant Items.
Things we are busy working on...
💻 New series of webinars starting in July. Visit our new Events page on our website.
🗓️ Contract Claims: record claimed and certified values on each Claim (like in Subcontract Claims). New approval process on Contract Claims to resemble the certification process.
🔎 Custom Views on List screens, and exploring the ability to add extension columns to these views. This will expand your reporting ability on the List screens.
Audit for configuration changes.
⌛ Month End Process: controlled and easy to follow.
📈 Analysis graphs on Sales Invoices.
🔨 Interval- Based Equipment Maintenance in Upvise (e.g. 250-hour increments- 250, 500, 750, 1000 repeat)