Service Packages#

A service package is defined as a group of services billed to a customer for a set price. The time spent on completing the package is stated in hours, and a project is used to plan, post, and bill all related expenses and revenues.

Setup#

Work type#

To be able to use a resource as a service package, you need a work type with a unit of measure that matches the resource’s base unit and a billing unit that reflects the nature of the work being done.

This way, you can record and post the time spent on completing and delivering the package in hours but, for example, invoice the work by piece later.

Work package#

To be able to add a service package to a WBS or budget line, you also need a work package that must be filled in as described in the following table.

Projects Setup#

Specify a package#

Service packages are set up as resources in the system. The type you assign to a package doesn’t matter; still, we recommend that you specify packages as machines to better distinguish them from human resources.

You can then fill in the service package fields on the relevant resource card as described in the following table.

The other fields are set up in the same way as for standard resources.

Prices#

All packages are sold at fixed prices. When you enter the price of a package in the Sales Price field, a new line is (automatically; see note) created for it on the Project Sales Price Lists page, giving the amount in local currency. Prices in foreign currency must be added manually to the list.

The cost per unit is calculated as follows:

Planned Qty. * average unit cost of all resources who contributed to completing the package.

The result is entered in the Unit Cost field. The Unit Cost / Planned Qty. field is also updated, and a new price list line is added to the Project Purchase Price Lists page (by the system; see note).

On project budget lines#

To be able to assign service packages to a project, you need lines with suitable work packages.

We recommend that for every project, you create a WBS line on which you collect the packages that you sell to customers. Each package can then be stored on a new Resource-type budget line, where you enter the resource linked to the package.

By validating the resource number in the budget line, descriptions, units, planned consumption quantities, sales quantities, as well as sales and cost prices from the price lists are determined.

Since the two quantity fields directly depend on the values or their ratio from the service resource, they cannot be changed directly in the budget lines as usual. Through the “Service Package Quantities” function in the budget lines, the desired number of packages (sales quantity) can be adjusted, with the planned consumption quantity being automatically calculated.

Example:
A service package is calculated with 15 hours of effort. In the resource card, the billing quantity is 1 and the planned quantity is 15. These values are transferred to the budget line. If 3 packages are scheduled through the function, the planned quantity is calculated to be 45 and validated in the "Quantity" field.

You can then post to the line the time spent on completing the package, with billing set to Time & Materials at budget line level (so that all packages are sold separately to the customer).

When all values are filled in, you can also perform a target-actual comparison to see in what amount of time you expected to complete the service package and how long it actually took.

On sales document lines#

You can use the Create Sales Document function to copy service packages to sales documents. But even without running this action, you can add a package to a sales quote, for example, by entering it manually on a document line.

The line must be of type Resource. After you choose a resource in the form of a service package, the system copies to the line not only the description of the package but also its unit price and billing unit.

Record time spent#

If you want to add service packages to a project, the project must have been set up in a way that all hours spent on completing a package can be recorded at budget line level.

To simplify the recording process, the time tracking page shows only budget lines assigned to the relevant resource or its resource group and the lines of other service package resources stored in the system.