In Simplicate, you can record all sorts of costs in addition to hours. We distinguish between project procurement and individual expenses that you want to register as a claim (declaratie).
An example of project procurement is, for instance, hiring third parties or expenses for which you’ve received a purchase invoice and want to allocate these costs to a project.
An example of a cost claim is, for example, a course, or a set of mutation processing tasks that you wish to record in a project.
Important! This article explains how to properly configure the basic settings to be able to use costs. Once you have done this, you can register costs. How to do this is described in the articles Project procurement and Recording costs as a claim.
Activating and Configuring Cost Types
Before you can use costs, activate this first under Settings > Projects > General Project Settings. Here you decide which cost options you want to use:
Register costs via purchase invoice: When this option is checked, you can manually or via a purchase-coupling register purchases under “Project procurement” in the Projects module. Procurement is based on a purchase invoice, and procurement lines can only be booked to cost types without a unit. More information about procurement can be found here.
Register costs via employee: With this option, it is possible to record claims on an employee. This option becomes available in the Hours module under Claims. More information about the claims functionality can be found here.
Record costs directly on projects: When this option is checked, it is, among other things, possible to import costs using an import template. You can also manually book costs directly to a cost type on a project, with or without a unit.
Next, determine which cost types you want to use under the Cost Types tab.
Creating Cost Types
Now go to Settings > Projects > Cost Types. Here you add the cost types (the various kinds of costs you want to use). Think of examples like: hiring third parties, printing, software, etc.
Good to know: Both project procurement (purchase invoices) and claims (from the Hours > Claims module) use these cost types. Thus, you manage them in one place.
For each cost type, you configure the following settings:
Cost type
Here you enter the description of the cost type.
Price per unit
Only use this if you wish to book costs by quantity/units. A per-unit cost type can be used in a claim and when manually booking costs directly to a project (via project procurement).
Purchase price
Optionally enter the price of the cost type (excluding VAT). Note: you can deviate from this per service.
Margin
Optionally enter the margin (in percentage) that you standardly apply to this cost type. Note: you can deviate from this per service.
Sales price
Based on the percentage you optionally filled in under margin, the sales price is automatically calculated. You can also fill in the sales price manually, in which case the margin is automatically calculated. Note: you can deviate from this per service.
Allow Attachment
Enable this to attach a file when submitting a claim. The attachment is stored with the entry but is not shown on any issued sales invoice.
Blocked
If you no longer wish to use the cost type, you can block it. At that point, the cost type can no longer be added to a service. For services where the cost type is already linked, you can still register procurement to it. The history also remains intact.
Adding Cost Types to a Service
Option 1. From settings — adding to the default service
Via Settings > Projects > Services, you can pre-add one or more cost types per service. If 9 out of 10 times you use the same cost type per service, we recommend adding the cost type here in the default rather than per project. That saves time when adding a service to a sales process or a project. Per use, you can still deviate from these pre-added cost types.
When you add a cost type to a service, you also have the option to apply it retrospectively to all active services on existing projects. If you check the checkbox below when adding the cost type, it will be added to all active services on existing projects.
Note: To add cost types retroactively to existing services, the setting “Record costs on these existing services in the projects” must be set to “Yes.”
If you remove a cost type from the default service, you also have the option to remove it from all existing services. You remove a cost type from the default service using the red cross that appears when hovering your cursor over the cost type.
Note: The cost type is only removed from active services if no costs have already been recorded on them.
If you want to add a cost type that is already on the default service retroactively to all active services, you can first remove it from the default service, then re-add it, and in doing so check the “add to active services” checkbox.
Option 2. Add to a specific service on a specific project
You can of course also add the cost type directly to a service on a specific project. This works the same as adding an hour type.
Navigate to Projects and open a project
Click on the service at Actions > Edit
Set Cost registration to active
Add the relevant cost types you want to use
Determine the total purchase price, margin, and sales price
You can obviously also add multiple cost types to a service, each with its own purchase price, margin, and sales price.
Recording Costs via Project Procurement or Claims
Once you have completed the above steps, you can record costs to a project. This can be done via project procurement when there’s a purchase invoice present, or via a claim through Hours > Claims. The exact process is described in the subsequent articles:
When Are (Procurement) Costs Passed On?
Only if you work with the Time and expenses invoice method, the recorded purchase invoices / claims are actually prepared as billable items. If you record costs on a subscription or fixed-price service, the costs are already included in the price.
Regardless of the chosen invoicing method, registering costs always gives you insight into the budget and incurred (procurement) costs.
Insight into Registered Costs
Below is an example of a service where costs are budgeted and recorded. There is:
€ 100 budgeted for procurement (this amount is excluding margin and VAT)
€ 50 of costs (this amount is also excluding margin and VAT) recorded
An overview of all costs booked to a project can be found under the Costs tab. There you also find a detailed breakdown of costs.
Of course, you also see the costs reflected in the Project Result report. There you get an overview of all projects with, among other things, the budgeted procurement, incurred costs, and the remaining budget per project.