Definitions and calculations for financials
This topic provides definitions for selected terms used on the Executive Dashboard, the Financials View, and the Profit (Organization, Contract, Project) LiveReports family. It also lists the revenue and cost items that are included in those calculations.
Definitions
Month to Date (MTD)
- Filtered on Posted Date: all revenue and cost items that were posted (or counted as posted) between the first day of the current calendar month and today (for example, if today is 11/26/2022, all items that were posted between 11/1/2022 and 11/26/2022)
- Filtered on Item Date: all revenue and cost items where the item date is between the first day of the current calendar month and today (for example, if today is 11/26/2022, all items where the item date is between 11/1/2022 and 11/26/2022)
Last Year MTD
- Filtered on Posted Date: all revenue and cost items that were posted (or counted as posted) between the first day of the current calendar month and today, of last year (for example, if today is 11/26/2022, all items that were posted between 11/1/2021 and 11/26/2021)
- Filtered on Item Date: all revenue and cost items where the item date is between the first day of the current calendar month and today, of last year (for example, if today is 11/26/2022, all items where the item date is between 11/1/2021 and 11/26/2021)
Year to Date (YTD)
- Filtered on Posted Date: all revenue and cost items that were posted (or counted as posted) between the first day of the current calendar year and today (for example, if today is 11/26/2022, all items that were posted in between 1/1/2022 and 11/26/2022)
- Filtered on Item Date: all revenue and cost items where the item date is between the first day of the current calendar year and today (for example, if today is 11/26/2022, all items whose item date is between 1/1/2021 and 11/26/2021)
Last Year YTD
- Filtered on Posted Date: all revenue and cost items that were posted (or counted as posted) between the first day of the previous calendar year and today, of last year (for example, if today is 11/26/2022, all items that were posted in between 1/1/2021 and 11/26/2021)
- Filtered on Item Date: all revenue and cost items where the item date is between the first day of the previous calendar year and today, of last year (for example, if today is 11/26/2022, all items whose item date is between 1/1/2021 and 11/26/2021)
The tables on the Financials summary page allow you to filter posted cost and revenue items by either the Posted Date or the Item Date. The following dates are considered the Item Dates for the different item types:
- Labor: Date Worked
- Project Charge: Date Purchased
- Ticket Charge: Date Purchased
- Recurring Contract Setup Fee: Start Date of the contract
- Recurring Contract Service: contract period Start Date
- Recurring Contract Service Bundle: contract period Start Date
- Block Hour Purchase: Date Purchased
- Retainer Purchase: Date Purchased
- Subscription: subscription period Start Date
- Subscription Total Cost: Effective Date of Subscription
- Milestone: milestone due date
- Expense: Expense Date
Pending items are those that have not been approved and posted, with the following exceptions:
- Services, Service Bundles and Subscriptions are counted as Pending if they have not been approved and posted AND their item date is in the current calendar month or earlier (for example, if today is 11/26/07, all items whose item date is 11/30/07 or earlier will be counted in the Pending calculations).
- Block hour purchases and retainer purchases are counted as Pending until they have been marked as Paid
- Subscription Costs are counted as Pending prior to the subscription's Effective Date.
Posted items are those that have been approved and posted.
Some items do not go through Approve and Post and therefore are counted as Posted based on other logic. This includes:
- Block Hour, Retainer and Ticket Purchases: these purchases are counted as Posted revenue once they are marked as Paid, using Date Purchased as the posted date.
- Subscription Costs: subscription costs are counted as Posted costs on and after the subscription's Effective Date.
- Profit = Revenue minus Cost.
- Profitability = [(Profit / Revenue) x 100]. This is always expressed as a percentage.
Expenses (items from resource Expense Reports) that are not linked to an organization are not counted as a Revenue or a Cost item when we calculate Organization or Project profitability. Expenses are never counted as revenue/costs towards contracts, even if the expense is tied to a project that is associated with a contract.
- Revenue = Billable amount of expenses that are marked as Billable to Organization. The Billable Amount is determined during the Approve and Post process. It is typically the same as the Receipt Amount, but can be modified during Approve and Post.
- Costs = Receipt amount for expenses that are marked as Billable to Organization
- For Pending expenses that are marked as Billable to Organization, Revenue = Cost. However, because you can adjust the Billable Amount in Contracts > Approve and Post > Expenses, the Billable Amount and therefore the Revenue could change once the expense is posted. In cases where the Receipt Amount differs from the Billable Amount, the Receipt Amount will be used as the Cost item and the Billable Amount will be used as the Revenue item.
Subscriptions are not associated with contracts or projects, and do not factor in the profit and profitability tables for contracts and projects, but they do count for overall organization profitability calculations.
- Subscription revenue is the billable amount of subscriptions.
- Subscription Cost is the amount entered into the Subscription Total Cost field. Subscription Total Cost counts as a Posted Cost item on the subscription's Effective Date.
Revenue and cost items included at the organization, contract, and project level
What counts as revenue?
Autotask is not accounting software and does not track the actual receipt of cash or cash equivalents.
- Revenue includes any and all billable amounts (listed in the table below) that have been posted.
Some items are treated as posted, even though they do not go through the Approve & Post process. These are:- Block and retainer purchases once they are marked as paid, using the Date Purchased as the posted date
- The Fixed Price Contract Amount Already Received (entered when contract is created. Thereafter, it displays as a milestone called Initial Contract Payment).
- Block and retainer purchases once they are marked as paid, using the Date Purchased as the posted date
- Pending Revenue includes all billable amounts that have not been posted yet.
- Labor, charges, and expenses associated with Proposals, and labor associated with Internal Projects are not counted as revenue.
What counts as cost?
Autotask is not accounting software and does not track actual expenditures.
- For items that can be posted, we are counting the charge as pending charge on the Item Date and posted charge on the Posted Date. The exception are subscription charges, which are all counted as pending charges prior to the Effective Date of the subscription, and posted charges on and after the subscription's Effective Date.
- Items associated with proposals are not counted as charges at all.
In Financials, the following revenue and cost items are tracked at the organization level, and are included in the Organization Profitability and Profitability by Month tables, the Revenue to Post table on the Executive Dashboard, the Profit Detail by Organization and the Profit Summary by Organization in the LiveReports Profit (Organization, Contract, Project) family:
Billing Item Type | Cost | Revenue |
---|---|---|
Labor on Tasks and Tickets: | Internal cost of labor (billable and non-billable) | Extended Price of directly billable labor |
Ticket Charges | Extended Cost of ticket charges (billable and non-billable) | Billable Amount of ticket charges that are marked as Billable to Organization |
Project Charges | Extended Cost of project charges (billable and non-billable) | Actual Billable Amount of project charges that are marked as Billable |
Contract Charges | Extended Cost of contract charges (billable and non-billable) | Actual Billable Amount of contract charges that are marked as Billable |
Fixed Price Contract Milestones | Internal cost of labor (billable and non-billable) | Amount of milestones |
Fixed Price Contract Amount Already Received | Internal cost of labor (billable and non-billable) | Fixed Price Contract Amount Already Received (this field is available during the contract creation through the Fixed Price Contract Wizard, and creates a pre-posted milestone called Initial Contract Payment) |
Recurring Service Contract | Service/Service Bundle Costs | Billable amount of services, service bundles and contract Setup Fee |
Block Hour Contract | Internal cost of labor (billable and non-billable) | Total Block Price of Block Hour Purchases that have been marked as Paid |
Block Hour Contract | Internal cost of labor (billable and non-billable) | Extended Price of billable overage labor |
Retainer Contract | Internal cost of labor (billable and non-billable) | Amount of Retainer Purchases that have been marked as Paid |
Retainer Contract | Internal cost of labor (billable and non-billable) | Extended Price of billable labor not covered by a retainer purchase, due to insufficient retainer balance |
Retainer Contract | Extended Cost of project charges (billable and non-billable) | Actual Billable Amount of project charges that are marked as Billable, that are not covered by a retainer purchase |
Retainer Contract | Extended Cost of ticket charges (billable and non-billable) | Billable Amount of ticket charges that are marked as Billable to Organization, that are not covered by a retainer purchase |
Subscriptions | Total Cost | Billable Amount of subscriptions |
Expenses | Receipt Amount for expenses that are marked as Billable to Organization | Billable Amount of expenses that are marked as Billable to Organization |
The following table compares the organization level financial reports (Organization Profitability and Profitability by Month) to the Pre- and Post Billing Detail standard reports. It lists the revenue and cost items that are included in Financials, as compared to the standard reports.
Contracts are billing vehicles that determine how a customer is billed for labor and materials, but they do not cover all billable items. Subscriptions (billing items for Devices) and Expenses are never tracked as revenue under a contract.
The following revenue and cost items are included in the Profit by Contract and Profitability by Contract tables, the Revenue by Contract Type table on the Executive Dashboard, the Profit Detail by Contract and the Profit Summary by Contract in the LiveReports Profit (Organization, Contract, Project) family:
Because you can apply one billing contract to multiple projects and/or tickets, only revenue that can be attributed to the specific project is counted as project revenue. This project revenue includes billable and overage labor, and milestones tied to a project phase. Revenue that cannot be attributed to a specific project is reported at the contract level.
For example: A Block Hour Contract is applied to two different projects, and labor tracked on tasks from both projects is consuming block hours. The revenue item, in this case the block purchase, cannot be attributed to either project. It is associated with the contract only.
For more information, refer to the Profit by contract and Profitability by contract tables.
In Financials, the following revenue and cost items are tracked at the Project level, and are included in the Profit by Project and Profitability by Project tables, and the Profit Detail by Project and the Profit Summary by Project in the LiveReports Profit (Organization, Contract, Project) family:
The Project Financials Report treats Internal Projects and Proposal Projects exactly like Client Projects, even though they will not generate any revenue.
The Project Financials report excludes data from projects that are tied to a recurring service contract. The Financials tables, on the other hand, do include data from projects that are tied to a recurring service contract.