Better Cost Period Settings & Controls

With a linked ERP (e.g. Vista), ProjectSight has very valuable information availble to the project teams. However, without being able to easily change the visible cost period, important insights are out of reach for most users.

Today, we can change the cost period from Settings, which requires a significant amount of clicks and page loads. Setting the cost period here also sets the default cost period select for new change orders (if you use that option, which we do).

In order to facilitate fast and easy reporting tools, as well as reduce maintenance, I am suggesting the following enhancements:

1. Portfolio/Project Setting - Default Cost Period to Current Calendar Month: Give admins the ability to default the current cost period to the current calendar month.

2. Portfolio/Project Setting - Automatically Create Cost Periods: Give admins the ability to have ProjectSight automatically create cost periods for each new calendar month, as it happens.

3. Budget Screen - Set Current Cost Period from Budget: Allow project admins to set the current cost period from the Budget.

4. Budget Screen - Show Current Cost Period Setting on Budget: Show the currently set cost period on the Budget screen, to all users who have access to the Budget. This should be clear that it is the currently defined cost period for new change orders.

5. Budget Screen - Change Reporting Cost Period: This is the key enhancement that would significantly improve the value/usefulness of the budget screen. Allow users to select the cost period used in the visible budget/cost calculations. Today, if your cost period is set to the current period then the "Actual Cost to This Period" and "Actual Costs to Date" are the same value. The only way to see a difference here, is to go all the way back to settings and set your cost period back to a previous time. Whenever you want to do reporting for historyical data on your project, it's a very frustrating experience in the current form. If you're using the setting to default new change orders to the current cost period, that could lead to other users inadvertendly creating change orders in the wrong period; not to mention the time-impact it actually takes to adjust this setting in the first place.

Additionally, every user I’ve helped navigate the budget is confused by what the “Costs to This Period” column represents, because nowhere on the budget screen is the current period displayed at all.

It is just assumed that the current period is the actual current period, but that isn’t necessarily true, since the current period is a manual setting, buried in Settings > Financials > Cost Periods. It’s possible for admins to forget to update the cost period and/or for someone to intentionally change the current cost period, but other users would have no idea from the Budget screen that that has happened.