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Hi, 

 

I’m trying to allow my customer to spread some cost/revenues between January 1st and December 31th for each project forecast they create, with Amount/12 for each month.

Problem is, whenever I use the linear distribution or a specificly created profile with 12 intervals, I always get a non-linear distribution with small gaps between different months. I thought at first that it was linked to the project calendar (No of work days) or to the number of days during each month, but it appears it isn’t the case when I calculate these results manually.

System designed Linear Profile
Linear Profile I designed myself
Result 1
Result 2

Is there any chance you can explain to me how to get the expected result without customization ? (Of course without manual spread ?)

 

Thank you,

Best regards,

Vincent Malet

Unless you get really creative with profile with a valid from and to date, creating a lot of spread profiles since it will only work from 1-1-YY to 31-12-YY. But I don't see another option then manual for these things.

What could be an option is to solve this in the reporting and round everything on thousands. This will for the majority of projects provide enough inside about the profitability/margins.

Hello,

sorry for the late answer, but I think the best way is to use a linear spread with start date and end date on 12 months base, like this the system will not divide by 12 months, but will use the number of days of each month to spread the amount.

Hello Dominique, 

It’s great to hear from you again ;)

Unfortunately, this is a result the customer can’t seem to agree upon (first case showed up there). They really want an equal monthly basis. 

Thank you for your answer,

Vincent

Hi Vincent,

As each month has a different number of days, the "work" that can be done each month is not necessarily the same. For this reason, the ETC spread functionality is based on the number of days and not on the months. You also may know that when looking at the “Periodical Cost Graph”, you can see the earned value (cost) which is calculated on a daily basis. (and hours...)

A few years ago I had the same kind of "problem", using not the number of calendar days, but the number of working days in each month. After several tests and manual calculations, the client realized that there was very little difference between the two methods.

I understand that the customer really wants a monthly spread, but there is no such function in IFS.
A solution could be to create a custom field that would calculate the amount to be distributed per remaining month (no. of months from the 1st of the month following the cut-off date of the forecast to the end date of the activity). 
Then, could an event generate the distribution with this amount ? I really don't know.

If the monthly base amount is calculated in a custom field, it can be used manually to spread the amount. So, the manual spread is the “best” solution.

Dominique.

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