Actuals/ACWP Calculated Not Correct
Article ID: 48552
Updated On:
Products
Issue/Introduction
One or more of the following symptoms/discrepancies are reported:
Scenario 1
Actual Units(Hours) time slices vs timesheet hours do not match.
Scenario 2
Actuals / ACWP is missing the cost of hours submitted
Scenario 3
Assignment Actual Cost is incorrect
Cause
ACWP (Actual Cost of Work Performed) is the sum of the actuals on the project through a point in time.
That point in time is the project 'As Of' date.
If there are future posted actuals, it will not be included in the calculation unless the 'As Of' date is at or beyond the last date of posted actuals.
By design, the only actuals that count when calculating ACWP are those that are
1. Less than or equal to the 'As of Date' or
2. Less than or equal to the system date (if no 'As of Date' is set).
The 'As of Date' is shown on the Properties > Schedule and Performance page.
If there was a rate change in the matrix, but the Rate Matrix Extraction job was not run before the previous rate was picked up by the Post Timesheets job, the ACWP and/or the actual cost can be incorrect or missing.
If Task ACWP is lower than the assignment's actual cost make sure you are running the Update Cost Totals Job as that updates the earned value costs including ACWP.
Actual Cost comes from posted financial transactions.Note: If ia manual transaction is entered and has posted to WIP, it can be seen in the portlet(Posted Transactions Review).
If the actuals do not appear on the project task assignment, make sure the job(Import Financial Actuals) ran and processed so that the actuals are backposted to the project.
Resolution
For Hours/Units issues:
Please contact the Support team to identify and resolve discrepancies in hours.
There is an authorized utility called CSTools that will synchronize timesheet hours to time slice hours.
For ACWP/Cost issues:
1. If the system date and/or the 'As of date' does cover the period for the posted actuals,
In the Task List, click Actions > Update Cost Totals or run the Update Earned Value Totals job for the project.
2. Make sure there a matching row in the Rate Matrix and that the full Rate Matrix Extraction job completes.
Please contact the Support team to identify and resolve discrepancies cost.
CSTools will synchronize WIP cost to project task assignment cost.
Starting in 15.9.1, CSTools is now embedded. Please contact Support to run the tool as a job under Support supervision.
Additional Information
1. What is CSTools and who can administer it?
CSTools is a Support-authorized utility that synchronizes the financial ACWP/actual cost data to the project-side actual cost.
It will allow ACWP to appear as expected.
A resource will be needed to perform the following:
-Run queries against the database to generate results in a XLS file with headers
-Have access to the Clarity application folder to unzip the utility and run commands on the server.
2. What are the impacts of running CSTools?
a. Is there any downtime involved?
There is no downtime involved when running the utility.
b. Any risk of losing data?
There is low, negligible risk.
c. Do we have a backup of prod data?
Onpremise sites will need to have database backups as a precaution.
SaaS environments will have backups.
d. Can it be rum after-hours?
It can be run after-hours.
3. What caused the issue and would it happen again?
The issue is caused by one or more of the following scenarios:
a. If a rate did not exist by the time the Post Timesheets job processes a timesheet transaction.
b. If the wrong rate existed at the time the Post Timesheets job processes a timesheet transaction.
c. If a rate change was made, but the Rate Matrix Extraction job was not ran to update the rate table, before the Post Timesheets job processes a timesheet transaction.
All scenarios come down to the incorrect/wrong rate being calculated and it was not realized until afterwards by the project/financial administrator.
4. How can this be prevented?
To prevent the issue from happening again, always make sure to run the full Rate Matrix Extraction job before running the Post Timesheets job.
The timing of the jobs are important as the rates are grabbed immediately by the Post Timesheets job and then goes through the financial module via the
(Post Transactions to Financials, Post to WIP) jobs, where the actual cost is stored in the PPA_WIP.
So as a one-time fix, the CSTools utility can be ran to synchronize the PPA_WIP table to the PRASSIGNMENT table, where ACWP can now be calculated.
If it were not for the utility, it would be difficult to find out which timesheet/resource on the project team had the incorrect or 0-dollar rate.
5. What if the targeted investments are inactive?
If projects are marked inactive, it is assumed that the project is completed and any business accounting data reported on the closed project may be impacted if financial actuals are changed now that the project is closed.
Customers will need to know how they use the data from Clarity report actual costs on closed projects. It is not an impact within Clarity itself. It is more of an impact on the company financial reporting responsibility to maintain accurate accounting records in the even that their business records are audited.
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