Engagement resourcing
The Resourcing tab is used for managing expenses and staff bookings for an engagement.
Labour expenses
The information entered in this section drives a number of elements for the engagement:
- Adds costs and markup to the engagement financials
- Adds revenue to the engagement charter and status reports for the client
- If a staff member is selected, a tentative booking is created
Use the + Add button to add a labour expense to the engagement.
Fill out the relevant sections on the add labour expenses popup screen:
Select role
Select from roles already approved in the people module.
Select services
Enter labour expenses for your client engagement by selecting from services that are already approved in the strategy module. The only services that will appear on the dropdown are approved services that have been included in the solution section of this engagement.
Estimated effort
Make an accurate estimate based on previous experience of offering this service.
Margin
The gross margin ratio represents the percentage of a company's revenue retained as gross profit, expressed on a per-dollar basis. For example, a 20% gross margin implies that for each dollar of revenue generated, the company retains $0.20, while $0.80 is attributable to the incurred cost of goods sold (COGS), in this case resourcing costs.
As a worked example, if the cost for a role is $8,000 and a 20% gross margin applies, the fees will be $10,000 and gross margin will be $2,000.
To use the organization's default margin, leave this field blank.
Notes
The notes field allows you to capture any details to explain the estimates and assumptions. This is for internal purposes only.
Intelligent resource finder
Finding staff with the right skillset and availability for a engagement is a crucial activity. advaise.app has an intelligent resource finder to streamline this task.
Select the type of employment
To find staff based on availability, ensure the 'Filter staff based on these dates' slider is blue. Select employment type from the dropdown list.
Select by location
To only view staff based in a certain location, ensure the "Filter staff based on this location' slider is blue then select a location from the dropdown list.
Filter by skills
To find staff with certain skills, ensure the 'Filter staff based on these competencies' slider is blue. The competencies assigned to the selected role are automatically populated. You can change the skill level by moving the slider up or down, and remove a competency by clicking on the bin icon. To add another competency to your search criteria, select it from the dropdown and click the + Add button. Then, use the slider to increase or decrease the competency level.
Search by availability
To find staff with availability for the project, set the "Filter staff based on these dates" slider to on. Select the start and end dates for the project.
advaise.app will find all staff who meet the selected criteria. If no staff are found, adjust the search parameters.
Create a resource booking
When a suitable staff member is found, select them from the dropdown list. Click on the information icon beside the staff name to view their profile, bookings and manager .
Click on 'email staff member' to send an email or click on the managers email address to email them. When a staff member is assigned to a labour expense on an engagement, a tentative booking is created against the engagement booking code. It is necessary to go to the staff record to change this to a booking code for the engagement and change the booking to confirmed.
Customise days
The customise days slider is found to the right of the start and finish dates. It only becomes available to use when dates are entered and a staff member is selected.
Select workdays
Tick the days that this booking will be allocated to. This is particularly useful for part-time employees or staff who are working on another engagement for set days.
Scheduling method
This field determines how the hours are allocated across the period selected.
- Distribute - The distribute method will equally distribute the effort hours across the time between the start and end dates. This does not take into account existing bookings and may result in a person being over-booked on some days and under-booked on other days. For example, someone has an existing booking of 6 hours per day for the first week of a 4 week engagement that requires 100 hours of effort. The distribute method would result in 11 hours per day booked for the first week (existing 6 hours plus 5 hours per day from this booking), then 5 hours per day for the remaining 3 weeks.
- Level - The level method will distribute the effort hours so the person has an even number of hours booked every day for the selected period. For example, someone has an existing booking of 6 hours per day for the first week of a 4 week engagement that requires 100 hours of effort. The level method would result in 6 hours 30 minutes per day booked for the first week (existing 6 hours plus 30 minutes from this booking), then 6 hours 30 minutes per day for the remaining 3 weeks.
Review availability
Each day displays the free time for the staff member (standard work hours minus already booked time). Requested shows the number of hours and minutes requested in this booking.
Selecting a staff member and hitting the save button will create a tentative resource booking against the project holding booking code. To confirm this booking, the staff manager must go to the staff section of the people module to change the staff booking to confirmed and select the booking code for the engagement.
Cost
You can view the cost for this service and role after you have saved the record. The labour expenses list displays the effort in hours, hourly rate and cost for each service and role combination. The hourly cost rate is calculated in the roles section of the people module.
The fees on the proposal document will be split into labour and expenses for each service.
Non-labour expenses
Non-labour expenses are costs associated with a project that don't involve paying for staff time. They could be anything from travel expenses to equipment rentals. This section is for estimating engagement expenses.
Click on the + Add button to create a new non-labour expense for an engagement.
Enter the details on the Add non-labour expense pop-up window.
Follow these steps:
Select a Category
- Choose a category from the dropdown menu.
- Categories are predefined by your advaise.app owner or administrator within the organisation's financials module.
Specify Service and Cost Details
- Select the service to which the non-labour expense is related. You can choose from services already added to the engagement.
- Add the cost of the non-labour expense.
- Specify the margin. Gross margin percentage is calculated as revenue minus cost of goods sold divided by revenue. If you have a passthrough cost, set the margin to 0% to ensure accurate financial calculations.
- Include any assumptions made regarding this cost.
This section is for estimating engagement expenses. Actual expenses will be added to the engagement when an expense claim is submitted and approved. Approved expenses will automatically be included in the next invoice generated for the engagement.
Staff bookings
Review staff bookings in this section. Staff bookings are automatically created as tentative bookings in the labour expenses section of this tab.
Hover over the information icon to view comments and financials for a staff booking.
Expenses
This section is for reviewing expenses for the engagement.
It contains actual expenses. Expenses are submitted by a staff member on their dashboard and submitted to their manager for approval. Only approved expenses with the booking code for the selected engagement will appear here.
Hover over the information icon to view details of the expense.
Approved expenses will automatically be added to the next invoice for the engagement if it is billable and not a fixed price engagement.