An important concept of the Job Cost module, and one that affects other modules as well, is your JC Phases and validation of phases at posting time. The Phase Master is a database that defines all phase codes your business will use on jobs.

All estimated and actual costs for your jobs will be processed and tracked by these phase codes.

However, you do not have to set up every phase code you will use in its entirety.  For example, if you use an 11-character multi-part phase code in which the first 8 characters represent common work activities, followed by a dash and 2 characters  that are reserved for change orders, you only have to define the 8-character phases in the Phase Master. You set this up by entering 8 in the ”Number of Valid Characters in Phase Code” field in the JC Company Parameters program.

If you want phase validation to be less “restrictive”, then specify a lesser number of characters to validate. You can validate as little as the first two characters of a phase. As long as at least one phase exists in the phase master containing the two characters being validated, you will be able to add almost any phase to the job “on the fly”.

For example, in the Phase Master you have the following phases set up:

01–001

01–002

You now are posting to a job and need to add phase ‘01-100’. Since the validation process will confirm the existence of at least one phase in the phase master containing the characters “01”, the entry will be allowed.

Validation when Phases are not Locked

Validation for Locked-Phase Jobs