General Cost Management Settings

Project administrators can access the settings for Cost Management from the Settings tool in the left navigation. This article focuses on the General settings:

Project Process

This optional project process setting supports a straightforward setup process for different members. Based on the selected role and project preferences, you can configure which components display in Cost Management and apply appropriate permissions.

By using project process settings, the option to enable a collaborative Potential Change Order workflow is available.

Collaborative Potential Change Order (PCO) Workflow

The optional collaborative workflow for PCOs allows you to:

See the Collaborative Potential Change Order Workflow article to learn more.

Note: When "PCO as RFQ" is enabled, one PCO can only be associated with one Contract in order for collaborate access to work.
Important: The collaborative PCO workflow can't be turned on for projects with existing change orders. A subscription to Autodesk Build is required to participate in the workflow. See Autodesk Build Pricing to learn more.

Unit of Measure

Determine which unit system is used in Cost Management. To adjust the unit of measure:

  1. Click the Settings tool from the left navigation.
  2. On the General tab, click Unit of Measure.
  3. Use the drop-down list to choose Imperial or Metric units.

Units

Create custom units for cost items. To create a custom unit:

  1. Click Add in the upper left corner of the Unit of Measure section.
  2. Enter a display name to appear in the drop-down list for cost item units. You can also add a description or enter the dimension of the units using the drop-down list.

Company Setup

In Cost Management, document generation templates often require fields for the owner, main contractor, architect, and notary. You can select default members for each role using the Company Setup drop-down list. This feature will automatically assign default recipients when sending change order requests or payment applications.

To set up default recipients, follow these steps:

  1. Go to the Company Setup drop-down in General Settings.
  2. Select the appropriate member for each role, including Owner, Main Contractor, Architect, and Notary.

Once you've established the roles in your project, Cost Management will automatically assign them as default recipients when sending change order requests or payment applications. For example, if you're a contractor and you want to send a PCO (Potential Change Order), the Owner contact in the Company Setup settings is the default recipient. If you're an owner, the default recipient is the Main Contractor.

Also, you can assign permissions to the roles you have created. To learn more about Cost Management permissions, see the Cost Management Permissions article. By assigning permissions to roles, you can ensure that the right team members have the right level of access to project information.

Currency

You can set many base and foreign currencies in your project. The default base currency for every project is USD (US dollars). To change this setting:

  1. Go to the Settings tool.
  2. Switch to the General tab.
  3. Scroll down to the Currency section.
  4. Select one of the available currencies next to Base Currency.
Note: Base currency will not be updated in Project Admin.

Foreign Currencies

With multicurrency functionality, foreign supplier management is streamlined. Teams can easily manage supplier contracts, change orders, payment applications, and expenses in different currencies. The system then automatically converts all foreign currencies to the project’s base currency and displays exchange rate gains and losses for better cost control.

Check out this video for a brief introduction to multicurrency functionality:

 

To set up foreign currency:

  1. Click On in Foreign Currencies, and then click Add.
  2. Search for the abbreviation of the currency.
Tip: The full list of available currencies can be found [here](https://www.iso.org/iso-4217-currency-codes.html).
  1. Provide an exchange rate of 1 USD. Use numeric values only and a maximum of eight decimals. The exchange rate won’t be rounded.
  2. Select the dates that the exchange rate is valid from and to. Those fields are optional and can be left empty.

You can always delete foreign currency and the existing instances using this foreign currency won't be affected.

Tip: When creating a template project, the currency setting will be copied.

Once you enable foreign currencies in your project, you can now easily create and manage foreign supplier contracts, change orders, payment applications, and expenses in the set currencies.

Tip: In the flyouts and response pages, members with collaborative permission will see all monetary values displayed and editable in foreign currency. When editing, the currency's name is shown next to the value.

Budget and Contract Allocation

Members can add multiple budgets to one contract by default.

Adding multiple budget codes to a contract can be limited by selecting "One budget to one Contract" option.

Note: This setting ensures that none of the accounting integrations are affected.

You can also allocate a budget to more than one contract. When you enable this option, project members will be asked to specify a contract every time they select a budget for a:


Rounding Settings

Use the rounding settings to provide the level of detail that you would like to see in Cost Management.

Rules:

You can set accuracy up to 0.001:

You can also define how the values should add up. You can calculate on:

Refer to the provided example to understand how those values will be recalculated in each scenario.

Existing project data won't be recalculated when you change the setting.

Note: When you choose Calculate on rounded values, each line item is first rounded, and then the total is calculated based on these rounded values. In the situation where you enter the total at the summary level, the Cost Management system will automatically adjust one of the sub-items, ensuring that the manually entered total value is maintained.


Materials in Payment Applications

Cost Management currently follows the AIA G703 standard, providing a binary material tracking approach. According to this standard, materials are either considered as work completed or presently stored. If a material has been fixed in place, it is classified as work completed and placed in the column: This Period – Work Completed. On the other hand, if the material has been delivered to the site and stored, it remains in the column: This Application – Total Work Completed. This Period category accumulates materials delivered over multiple months and should only be moved to Work Completed when it is completed and put in place.

However, we also recognize that some owners prefer to view the previous period's materials as previously billed rather than previously completed. They expect to see that the full payment amount is reflected in the From Previous Application section. To address this requirement, we have introduced an option that allows the combination of work completed and materials, treating them as a unified work completed value for the next period.

With the Materials in Payment Applications setting, you can choose a method to calculate materials in This Application in budget and cost payment applications.

Important: This setting cannot be changed once any payment application is created.

To do so:

  1. Go to the Settings tool from the left navigation.
  2. In the General tab, scroll down to the Materials in payment applications.
  3. Choose a method to calculate materials:
    • Materials Stored – Includes materials newly stored in the current period and previously stored materials not yet incorporated into the project.
    • Materials Billed – Includes both materials to be billed in the current period and materials previously billed. If Materials Billed is selected, a whole new set of columns will be added to both budget and cost payment applications, replacing the original Materials Stored columns.

Switch between options to see the difference in the payment applications’ columns.

The change in setting will also be visible in the flyout panel of the budget payment application, in the Associated Costs section. The Materials Stored column changes to Materials Billed, and the new % column is added. You can also see the change in the Expense category in Associated Costs. If not visible, to see the new columns there, click the icon and choose the necessary columns.

Tip: You can choose if Work Completed and Materials Billed should be aggregated by the amount or %. When aggregating costs by %, Work Completed and Materials Billed will be aggregated by their %. Materials Stored column will always be aggregated by amount.

Retention

Allows you to specify a retention rate for completed work and materials stored for both budgets and costs. Every payment application line item gets a line for retention added to it automatically but it can be removed. The default retention cap is applied automatically to each main contract or contract and can also be adjusted. To set the retention rates:

  1. Click Settings from the left navigation within Cost Management.
  2. On the General tab, click Retention.
  3. Enter the % of Completed Work, % of Materials Stored, and the Retention Cap for both the budget and cost payment applications.
  4. Choose to calculate the tax Before Retention Deduction or After Retention Deduction.

Tip: The retention rate can also be modified and overridden at the Contract or Main Contract level.

When a retention cap is applied to the contract or main contract, members with Full Control permission will see this information in the Cost Payment Application's details view.

It's possible to establish a retention rate for a project based on a percentage of completion. To illustrate, consider a scenario where the retention rate is set at 10%, but it is limited to 5% of the total project value. On a contract worth 1,000,000 USD, distributed evenly across five months, 200,000 USD of work would be invoiced and 20,000 USD retained each month. However, by the 3rd month, the cap would be reached, as the retention can't surpass 50,000 USD.

Exceed Retention Cap

When the Total Retained amount is bigger than the retention cap amount, you'll have options to adjust the exceeded retention cap.

If you choose to:

Tax Formulas

Use the custom tax calculation feature to calculate taxes in all cost processes and show tax in the generated cost documentation to comply with government requirements. Project administrators can add multiple tax formulas to control how taxes are applied for each contract, payment application, and change order. Any existing formulas will be available in the list.

Create a Tax Formula

To create a tax formula:

  1. Within Cost Management, click Settings from the left navigation.

  2. On the General tab, click Tax Formulas, and then Add.

  3. Select the pencil icon to edit the formula's name.

  4. To update the net total default (1,000.00) in the center preview panel, click Net Total.

  5. Drag a new tax into the center column to add to the formula.

  6. Click newly added New Tax to specify the Tax Rate as a percentage. The tax rate can be positive or negative. Negative tax rates are useful for figuring out CIS deductions.

    Important: If taxes in different tax formulas have the same name, they'll be combined into a single tax in the tax summary regardless of the tax rate.

  7. Continue adding more taxes as needed to build out your formula. As you add taxes, the tax total is calculated based on the tax rate and the net total. Combined, these values produce the grand total. Taxes can be added, removed, named, and reordered as required. After setting the tax rate for each, the amounts are calculated on the Cost Basis column.

  8. Drag a new subtotal into the center column to add to the formula. The subtotal is used to support a tax-on-tax use case.

  9. On the right panel, you can choose between two options:

    • Revise Cost Basis to recalculate the cost basis for subsequent taxes.
    • Info Only to have the subtotal visible for informational purposes without recalculating the cost basis for subsequent taxes.

    Note: If there are multiple taxes above the subtotal, the subtotal will display both the tax subtotal and the subtotal.

  10. Click Save to save the tax formula.

To show tax in the generated cost documents, the document template will need to be updated with the new template available in settings.

Edit and Manage Tax Formulas

After the tax formula is created, you can use the More menu to modify the formula by:

Note: Tax formulas that have been applied to items can't be edited, deactivated, or deleted.

Apply a Tax

As a project administrator, you can add tax formulas, a tax summary, or apply a tax to the document for easy calculation in all costing processes. Showing the tax in the generated cost documentation helps to comply with government requirements too.

To apply a tax:

  1. Click the relevant Cost, Budget, or Change Order tool from the left navigation, depending on where you are applying the tax.

    Note: Make sure you added your tax formulas in advance. See the Create a Tax Formula section to learn more about adding tax formulas.

  2. Click the relevant tab. Available options are:

    • Contract
    • Cost Payment Application
    • Main Contract
    • Budget Payment Application
    • OCO
    • SCO

  3. Click a line item's name to open the details panel.

  4. In the details panel on the right, scroll to the Tax section and click Apply Tax. If you only have one tax formula available, that formula is applied to the expense. If you have multiple tax formulas, select the formula to apply.

    The applied tax is visible in the tax summary for the line item.

    Note: You may see a message indicating the base data was modified. In that case, you'll be prompted to recalculate the applied tax. Several things can lead to the prompt to recalculate, depending on where the tax is being added:
    Contract Cost Payment Application Main Contract Budget Payment Application OCO SCO
    Budget added Period work complete value changed Subitem added in table Period work complete value changed Committed value changed in cost item Approved value changed in cost item
    Budget deleted Materials stored value changed Subitem imported in table Materials stored value changed Cost item attached/detached Cost item attached/detached
    SOV amount changed in table Retention setting changed SOV amount changed in table Retention setting changed Cost item hierarchy changed Cost item hierarchy changed
    Subitem added in SOV table Retention value changed Linked budget changed Retention value changed Cost item hierarchy changed Cost item hierarchy changed
    Subitem imported in SOV table Value changed from previous period Subitem deleted Value changed from previous period OCO markup changed
    SCO added/deleted for Cost Payment Application OCO added/deleted for Budget Payment Application

    If you levy a tax on a sent or executed SCO, it will be displayed under the contract tax. You'll be able to see the net total and tax total for all change order taxes that are related to the contract. You can expand to see more detailed information, including specific change orders that affect contract tax.

  5. If necessary, use the More menu and choose Edit Tax Detail or Delete Tax.

    Editing the tax details allows you to turn on or off specific taxes as needed. The change will automatically update in the Tax summary table.

Note: If the contract status is Executed, the tax details are locked.

Documents and Attachments in Cost Management

You can choose to store documents and attachments in both Cost Management and a specified location in Autodesk Docs.

Documents and attachments will be stored in a subfolder created for each company when choosing the Autodesk Docs option. Choosing to store the files in Autodesk Docs creates a single repository of all generated documents specific to each company for future audit purposes. If desired, the folder can be shared with other project members to access the information. To do that, members must upload permission to the related folder to generate documents or upload attachments in Cost Management.

As a project administrator, you can automatically grant Create permission to the assigned company. See the Folder Permissions article to learn how to manage folder permissions for each company.

In the Documents section, you can manage folder permissions for your company by accessing the flyout panel of the contract, main contract, payment applications, and change orders. Simply click Manage Folder Permissions to open the relevant permissions for this company's folder.

You can also include or exclude an item name in the folder and file names.

Learn more about:

Work Schedule

You can set how many hours a working day should have and what days the working week consists of.

Tab Names and Order

You can customize the names of the tabs and the order they appear. For more information, see the Customize Cost Management Tables article. You can also turn off any tabs that aren't needed. See this article's Project Process section to do that.

Additional Terms

You can customize project team-related terms and cost item values, as Owner or General Contractor.

Input your preferred terms into the Customized column. These terms will be automatically integrated and will appear in relevant areas across the entire Cost Management.

More Resources

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Parent page: Manage Cost Management Settings