UniPhi 17 - New scheduling sub module for cash flow and effort

UniPhi 17 has split out the phasing of a contracts deliverables into two. In prior versions, a user could cash flow a contract by scheduling the deliverables and then using linear monthly phasing across those dates to drive when the forecast of when invoices will be raised. This then consolidates across the portfolio of projects to generate a corporate cash flow profile that can be sliced into states, sectors or any other portfolio subset imaginable.

UniPhi 17 expands this functionality considerably by adding an additional "effort" phasing screen and expanding the phasing algorithms to include other linear methods (i.e. quarterly, half year and yearly) as well as a standard "s" curve for main building contracts.

New effort view for contract schedule

The effort screen is only available for revenue contracts and only when you have developed your contract values from a bottom up estimate of task and assignment. By assigning resources to tasks and phasing out the effort, the end user instantly has a baseline earned value profile for that project. Note we can then cash flow at a higher level for milestone claims and as these don't represent the effort profile, both are catered for.

Feedback to the end user is presented in the form of total contract hours estimated, current actual hours and forecast remaining. Updated schedules push out the remaining hours only.

A baseline function enables users to compare current forecast to the original profile and also is the trigger for the budgeted cost of work scheduled when assessing earned value on the deliverable.

Finally, the hours phased in the contract screen push to the resource planning module to provide a bottom up cumulative effort profile for each person on the project, enabling a virtuous circle from proposal estimate to project management to timesheets to invoicing to cash flow to profitability to resource planning and back to estimating at completion costs.

This to our knowledge, is the only system in the world capable of doing this.

UniPhi 17 - New invoice sub-nav

UniPhi 17 simplifies various contract screens by moving components into their own sub-navigation. Included in this is the summary screen which displays summary information about the contract

 

The edit details screen

 

The value screen which we have covered in several blog posts on UniPhi 17

The schedule screen which is the topic of our next blog post.

And the Invoice screen which we're covering today. 

Believe it or not, in UniPhi 16, all of this information was captured in the one screen!

Breaking these components (which are utilised at different stages of a projects life and by different users) has allowed for enhanced the features available. My personal favourite in the invoice screen is the "incomplete" filter that allows you to remove from view all line items that have been invoiced to 100%. This has made invoicing for our complex projects significantly simpler.

The recommendation view is a QS dream (actually not quite, we still need to incorporate the ability to add custom fields to this screen - The 20 columns there currently just aren't quite enough).

The colour coding represents the relevant sections of the recommendation including value, contractors claim, the QS assessment and reasons for variances to contractors assessment.

Instead of having all related templates for the contract in a panel in that one monster screen referenced earlier, each sub-nav has a new documents action button that contextualises the template list to that section of the system . For example, clicking new document in the cost contracts invoice screen presents you with the progress payment templates list:

 

Time in motion studies and our own assessment of time for month end invoicing has demonstrated these changes can save 50% over UniPhi 16 when preparing and processing invoices.