Creating and Managing Vendor Contracts

Purpose

A Vendor Contract is essentially a price list from a Vendor that may have multiple revisions.

The prices that you enter into the Vendor Contracts are used to automatically fill in the budgets (actually this is the Lot Planning Lines) on the Lots (upon siting a Model)

If you wish, you can push new prices on a Vendor Contract to Lot Planning Lines that you already created (presumably on a Lot under construction). The system will not automatically override budgets already created, but it will allow you to do that easily.

Once you have pushed the Vendor Contract prices to the Lot Planning Lines, you can automatically fill in your purchase lines on Purchase Invoices using the Populate from Planning lines button found on the Process button on the Purchase Invoice.

You can control if you want to user to be allowed to exceed the budget - see below.

For details on purchasing from Vendor Contracts, read Purchasing using Vendor Contracts

Before Setting Up a Vendor Contract

Prior to creating the Vendor Contract, you must have the following in place:

  • Core Tables and Posting setup (behind the scenes setup).
  • Vendors.
  • Phases.
  • Models (this is only mandatory if the Cost Scope on the Item is Per Model rather than Universal).
  • House Areas (minimum of ALL) however better to setup all House Areas.
  • Assign House Areas to Models and Items.
    • Note that when you push the Items to the Models, Model Items will be created only for House Areas which are applicable for the Item and at the same time defined for the Model
    • Example is that the Item House Areas of Bed2, Bed3 and Bed4 however the Model only has Bed2 and Bed3. The Model Items will be created just for Bed2 and Bed3
  • Item Categories
  • Items
    • Note that you do not assign the Vendor or the Vendor Contract at the Construction Item level. You must first push the Items to the Models (which automatically pushes to the Phase) and then you assign the Vendor Contract on the Phase Items
    • You can do this with a group of Items from the Phase Items Page as shown below
Note

Create Vendor Contracts and Auto-Populate

This section describes how to create vendor contracts and then auto-populate them with Construction Items.

When you want to create Vendor Contracts the following steps are most effective when run in the order described here:

  • Create the Construction Items (see note below). You should have already created Construction Item Categories and House Areas along with general setup before Construction Items.
  • Click on the Push to Models button on the Construction Item Card or list.
  • Go to the Phase and perform two functions:
    • Create a Vendor Contract
      • Select the phase and choose Vendor Contracts Action Button, then fill out the fields This will create a new Vendor Contract
    • (Back in the Phase page) Click on the Phase Items button and then click on the Assign Vendor Contract button to attach this Contract to the Items you are on.

Once complete you can go to the Contract and you will see the Items were automatically added here by clicking on the button Latest Revision Items from the Vendor Contract page.

Tip

Don't worry too much if you perform these tasks out of sequence and do not see items in the Vendor Contract - Latest Revision Items page. There is a Re-populate button in the Latest Revision Items page, click on it and the system will add all your Phase Items back in.

Note

Regarding Construction Items - Create Base Contracts first, Colour Chart next and finally After-sales. Even though these are all Construction Items, it is best to treat each group of items individually. What has been described in this section is the standard setup. There are many more options than described here and a guide to how additional settings are created is explained lower in this help file.

Tip

It is best to create Vendor Contracts from the link in the Phase. If you want to create them from the cue in the main page you must have a Phase entered to My HomeBuilder Settings.

Updating the Vendor Contract Price

Using Excel to Import Prices and Price Changes

From the Contract Revision Items you have two buttons - Export and Import:

  • Export:
    • This action exports contract revision items into an Excel spreadsheet, which can be given to the Vendor to fill-in "Unit Cost".
    • The spreadsheet has some pre-defined format which allows a user to import this spreadsheet later to update "Unit Cost" in contract revision items and in the entities of origin.
    • Advise your Vendors not to change the format of the Excel spreadsheet, but to change values only in the "Unit Cost" column.
  • Import:
    • This action allows a user to import "Unit Cost" values from an Excel spreadsheet to Contract Revision Items. Please note, that the importing routine only updates "Unit Cost", it does not create Contract Revision Items.
Note

If you change the columns in the Excel sheet, the import will not work. If you add lines or change Items in the Excel sheet the import may not work. The import does not add new Contract Revision Items.

What Gets Updated and When?

  • If the Cost Scope on the Construction Item is Model/HA then the Unit Cost on the Model Items is automatically updated.
  • If the Cost Scope on the Construction Item is Universal then the Unit Cost on the Phase Item AND the Model Items is automatically updated.
  • By selecting lines in the Contract Revision Items page within the Contract AND then by clicking on the Push Costs to Lots button; the system will ask you if you want to update all lots. If you continue, you will get a message about how many Lot Planning Lines were updated.

See the below video to see how to Update Lot Planning Lines (Budget) from Vendor Contracts.

Video

Note

If you do not want to push new prices from Vendor Contracts to all Lots; you will need to find all the Planning lines that you do want update and change them one by one. You may find this easiest from Phase - Planning Lines where all Planning Lines for all Lots in the Phase are listed in one list.

Budget Control

There are settings in three areas built to stop or allow exceeding budgets with purchases (generally created by Vendor Contract Pricing).

  • On the HomeBuilder Setup:
    • Allow Planning Overage (turning on this option allows any user to post any value based upon each Planning Line without warning)
    • Allow Budget Overage (turning on this option allows any user to post any value based upon each Cost Detail Code (budget line) without warning)
  • On the Users page under the User Functional Roles Fast-tab add the role EXCEED BUDGET. (Adding this code will warn the user if they are about to exceed the budget with the amount that they will exceed it; they are allowed to select yes at the time of posting to continue.)
  • On the Lot - Planning Lines - increase the Budget Amount (Unit Cost) line by line. (If the user has permissions to modify Planning lines, they can go directly into the Planning Line, increase the Unit Cost, and return to the purchase to complete the posting)

Underlying Design Concepts and Actions

Vendor Contracts are defined for each Construction Phase. To maintain the list of Vendor Contracts for a Phase, select the Phase in the "Phases" page and click "Vendors Contract" in the page ribbon. Alternatively, the page "Vendor Contracts" can be opened using the main menu item or cue in the Role Center, or simply by using "Search".

On the Ribbon you will find the following buttons:

Actions

  • Latest Revision Items
  • Contract Revisions
  • Lines per Lot Related
  • Work Orders
  • Progress Bills

The Action "Progress Bill" is described in section "Purchasing". The Action "Work Orders" is described in section "Work Orders".

Technical Notes

There are six possible origins of Revision Items in Vendor Contracts.

Item/Variant/Bundle/Cost Scope Mix Options Based Upon Setup
Phase Item The item has Cost Scope 'Universal'.
The item has Designation 'Single Item' or 'Component'. If Component it is referenced from a Phase BOM Component having flag "Use Component Cost" set to 'Yes'.
It has no Variants or has flag "Cost per Variant" set to 'No'.
Output: The "Unit Cost" is defined on Phase Item level.
Phase Item Variant The item has Cost Scope 'Universal'.
The item has Designation 'Single Item' or 'Component'. If Component it is referenced from a Phase BOM Component having flag "Use Component Cost" set to 'Yes'.
It has no Variants and its flag "Cost per Variant" set to 'Yes'.
Output: The "Unit Cost" is defined on Phase Item Variant level.
Phase BOM Component The item has Cost Scope 'Universal' and Designation 'Component'.
It is referenced from a Phase BOM Component having flag "Use Component Cost" set to 'No'.
Output: The "Unit Cost" is defined on Phase BOM Component level.
Model Item The item has Cost Scope 'Per Model/HA'.
The item has Designation 'Single Item' or 'Component'. If Component it is referenced from a Model BOM Component having flag "Use Component Cost" set to 'Yes'.
It has no Variants or has flag "Cost per Variant" set to 'No'.
Output: The "Unit Cost" is defined on Model Item level.
Model Item Variant The item has Cost Scope 'Per Model/HA'.
The item has Designation 'Single Item' or 'Component'. If Component it is referenced from a Model BOM Component having flag "Use Component Cost" set to 'Yes'.
It has no Variants and its flag "Cost per Variant" set to 'Yes'.
Output: The "Unit Cost" is defined on Model Item Variant level.
Model BOM Component The item has Cost Scope 'Per Model/HA' and Designation 'Component'.
It is referenced from a Model BOM Component having flag "Use Component Cost" set to 'No'.
Output: The "Unit Cost" is defined on Model BOM Component level.