Workbench Release Notes

Things we are busy working on...

New series of webinars starting in July. Visit our new Events page on our website

Project Trust Accounts On Contracts.

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)

Upcoming Functionality & News

Workbench API Licence

The use of the Workbench API will now require a licence. An API User 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:

1. Capture This Claim Claimed Values.

2. Capture this Claim Certified Values.
   
   

With the Contract progress claim process, we recognise the importance of capturing the final certified value as well as 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 August 2024 as beta feature.

New Custom Views on List screens coming soon

This new functionality will give you the freedom to create your own reporting and extract your data. Custom Views will progressively be released in most of the List screens.
Admin users will be able to create any number of Views with preferred columns and filters.
Default standard views will be provided, starting with Standard Job Invoices View, Aged Debtors, Contract Claims.

Open

Custom Views

New Features

Purchasing

• Procurement Lists enhancements:
  Multiple people working on the same Procurement list?
  The system now notifies users if someone is already working on a Procurement List and another user opens it. And it also notifies the user that opened it advising a user was already editing the list. This is to avoid overlapping of work or changes.
  
  
  

  Open

  

  Same Procurement List opened by more than one user

  
  Similarly, when a user tries to add Budget lines into a Procurement List that is being edited, the user on the Budget will be notified, and advised that someone else is editing the Procurement List.
  
  

Billing

• Enhanced Sub Job Sales Billing process to handle Quoted Sub Jobs:
  Quoted jobs now also support sub-jobs with a quoted billing type. Typically, the Header job will be Quoted with a Billing Consolidation Header Job with Sub Jobs, and the subjobs would be Quoted with a Consolidation of Invoice Parent - Revenue on Job.
  
  A common use case for quoted subjobs is in the Construction industry, where a Header Job has the Contract, there is a Level 2 job for each Subdivision’s Lot, and a Level 3 job under each Lot to do billing for the different parts of each Lot’s work: charges for the Developer, charges for the Fencing on each Lot, and any extras added by each Lot owner. All these three subjobs will be quoted differently depending on each Lot.

Control Parameters

• Changes tracking on Control Parameters:
  As in many other screens where we have been adding visibility of changes done on a document for better auditability and accountability, we have now introduced a History feature in Control Parameters.

  • History button: lists all changes: Control Parameter name, the person who made the change, date and details of the original value and the new value.

  • Search: There are filters in the History screen to facilitate finding something specific.

  • New Last Updated column: date and user that made the last change, and a hyperlink to a list screen with all changes on that specific Control Parameter.

  • How awesome is this? No more guessing or asking around. Just check the History.

    
    
    

Feature Revisions

Dockets & Daysheets

• Daysheets:
  When creating a new Daysheet by copying a previous datasheet the date on the timesheet tab was not updated as per the new Daysheet header date. This has been enhanced to update the timesheet lines date to the Daysheet header date.

Subcontracts

• Subcontractor Retention Balance Report:
  This report now has an additional column for Retentions Including GST. In Queensland, Australia, Retentions are to be withheld inclusive of GST. In NZ it is up to the head contractor.
  
  You can make any additional comments or a note in the email body when sending these retention balance reports in Bulk, and clarify that you are keeping Retention in Trust Incl or Excl of GST, if you feel it has to be clarified. Use Email Template Notification - SubconRetentionStatement
  
  

  
  
  

• ‘Create Payment' option on Subcontract Claims:
  
  

  
  For Workbench instances which have a flat-file integration, the Payments on Subcontract claims can be manually created by using the Create Payment tickbox on Subcontract Claim batches. This checkbox was removed not long ago, but it has been reinstated, and can be controlled with Control Parameter 'BatchApprovedSubContractClaimsCreatePayments’
  This Control Parameter has 3 valid values:

  • OFF, this will mean the checkbox is hidden from the batches, and Payments will have to be imported by API integration.

  • Yes, it will tick the 'Create Payment' option by default.

  • No, it will not tick the 'Create Payment' option by default.
    
    

    
    
    

• Editing Subcontractors and Companies Insurance details:
  There is a new permission that is required to be able to edit a Company’s Insurance details, either from the Company record, Insurance tab, or from the Subcontract itself. The new permission is called: Edit Company Insurances
  System Roles Finance, Data Entry and Administrator include this new permission by default.

Timesheets

• Smart Award Interpretation (EBA) - re-costing original Timesheets:
  When using the EBA module, there is an option to update the cost on the original Timesheet transactions that generated the Payroll transactions, once EBA has been generated. This is done by using the Control Parameter Recost Time from EBA = yes.
  
  We have made improvements so the recosting of the Time transactions from Payroll Transactions takes the cost breakdown of the Payroll Transactions into account. e.g. Base, Overhead, Other.

  This is to get a more accurate allocation of costs to GL accounts.
  
  Example:

  Suppose that an hour of time is entered as normal time (NT) on the timesheet, but is calculated and costed as time and a half (T1.5) by EBA.

  The person’s employee class has this cost breakdown.

  The LAB activity is flagged to apply all cost elements, and the NT time code apportions these equally.

  Without EBA, the hour of time would be costed at $80, split 50, 20, 10.

  But suppose the T1.5 time code has a different cost element allocation.

The EBA creates a Payroll Transaction costed at: 150% * $50 + 100% * $20 + 50% * $10 = $75 + $20 + $5 = $100

Previously, the original timesheet line would be recosted to $100 ok, but the allocation would be based on the NT timecode with the difference in cost applied to the base cost (50 + 20), and so the split would be: 70, 20, 10.

With the change we have made, the total time cost is unchanged at $100, but the allocation is based on the T1.5 time code, and so the split is: 75, 20, 5.

The effect of this is only on the GL Coding of the labour journal, and hence what ends up in the financials.

In this example the time is just changed from NT to T1.5, but we also correctly handle the scenario where say, 10 hours of NT is converted by EBA into 8 hours NT and 2 hours T1.5.

Month End

• Utilities - update wbUtilityRebatchNegativeInvoices:
  It seems the continued access to wbUtilityRebatchNegativeInvoices means users run this when there is no longer a need to. This action affects the correct display of the retention values.
  Updated utility logic to behave like the CP - Batch negative Claims as Credit.
  
  

Administration

• Data imports

  • New data import for Job Work Centre extension column values:
    A new data import has been added to Job Work Centres, for those that require to populate extension columns on Job Work Centres. The import is available from Job Work Centres tab on a Job. And it requires the user to have the appropriate permission to be able to import.

    • it contains 4 columns: Job Code, Job Work Centre (JWC), and the Extension Column name, and Ext Col value/data.

    • the validation is that the JWC exists for the Job.

    • allows overwriting if there is existing data.
      
      

• Licences

  • Several licence changes, so you can do more:

    • My Email List every user now has access to it, regardless of the licence.

    • Stocktake Mobile access was added to the Advanced Timesheet licence.

    • Inwards Goods was added to the Standard licence.

    • Fixed an issue where to access My Approvals an Advanced Procurement site licence was required.

    • Fixed an error when allocating users a licence and the site has Shared Services Licences.
      
      

• File attachments on Documents emailed out:
  When emailing out a document like POs, Job Invoices, etc, there is now a limit of 20 file attachments including the pdf for the document itself. A warning message will be displayed if the user tries to attach more than 20 files.
  
  

  
  
  

Fixes

Document register

• The report on the Document register was not displaying the header due to the Location where the header report looks for company details, having a Timezone selected. This has been fixed.

Purchasing

• AP Invoices:

  • User was not able to edit/select a Work Centre code after changing the Activity code on a line. This has been rectified, and now the WC code defaults from the Activity code when valid, and also Job Work Centre codes are validated when they exist.

Stock

• Stock Return Batch - edit to Unit Cost:
  The edited value for Unit Cost was not saved. This has been rectified.

Billing

• Job Invoice List - Status filters:
  The 'Sent Back' option was missing from the Status filter, so users could not search for invoices with this specific status. This has been rectified.

• Bulk Finalise Invoices - header report missing in some cases:
  In those cases where the AR invoice report is a custom report, the pdf sent to the client did not include the header with the company details (logo, address, etc), which are included in a Header subreport.
  This has been rectified.

Administration

• General Config - Deleted attachments and ‘Resize Attachments For Record Types’ Control Parameter:
  When using the Control Parameter Resize Attachments For Record Types, which resizes large attachments, those attachments that were deleted did not have their re-sized copy of the file also flagged as deleted. This was causing some of those files that are included for example as attachments in Job Invoices, to have the re-sized file included, when it should have been flagged as deleted/inactive. This has been rectified.

Xero

• Xero API - update for new pricing plans in NZ and Australia:
  Xero has announced new pricing plans in Australia and New Zealand, which require some changes on the integration between Workbench and Xero API. We have made the required changes to be ready for it starting 1 July 2024 (Aus) and 12 September (NZ).

Upvise

Android App- Version 8.0

A new Android application has been released for Upvise Android users- V8.0

Daily Diary - Time

A fix was implemented to sites impacted by an issue preventing time from generating when a daily diary was submitted.

Daily Diary - Outputs Unit

A fix was implemented to sites impacted by an issue preventing unit from populating on the output subform of the daily diary.

Integration Connection- Login & Password:

Access to the credentials on the Upvise integration screen is now restricted to the Upvise Consultant responsible for the initial setup. This change prevents unauthorized updates by other users or password management software, ensuring the integration remains stable and uninterrupted.

ITP Module

The Inspection Test Plan (ITP) Module is designed to streamline the inspection and testing processes for projects. This comprehensive plan outlines necessary steps, procedures, and criteria for testing and inspection, ensuring products meet required standards and specifications.

Key Benefits:

Time Savings & Process Simplification: Streamline test planning, data entry, and report generation. Minimize paperwork and administrative tasks through digital automation.
Accuracy: Ensure accurate data collection, reducing errors and the need for re-inspections.
Collaboration: Facilitate smooth communication and collaboration among stakeholders, reducing delays and misunderstandings.
Real-Time Insights: Provide real-time visibility into inspection progress, enabling quicker decision-making.
Efficient Reporting: Automate report generation, making it easy to create comprehensive ITP reports.

Functional Features:

• Set up Default Tasks & Activities: Includes a bulk-import function for efficient setup.

• Manage Inspection Checklists: Track and update the percentage complete for each inspection task.

• Produce an ITP Booklet: Generate a comprehensive ITP booklet with related ITCs in a single click.

• Re-Order Activities: Easily re-order activities within the ITP document to assist with versioning and updates.

Preview:

Purchase Orders

We have implemented an enhancement to address the misalignment between the email addresses of Upvise users and their corresponding contacts. This issue occurred when Upvise accounts were created directly within Upvise instead of through Workbench, leading to discrepancies that prevented Purchase Orders (POs) from auto-sequencing correctly.

With this enhancement, the alignment issue has been resolved, ensuring seamless auto-sequencing of POs. System administrators are reminded to follow the correct licencing processes to prevent similar issues in the future.