Labor Codes Settings
Use labor codes to classify the types of work that your staff performs. Labor codes are a key element in project control operations.
In Vantagepoint, all labor costing and budgets are based on labor codes. You also have the option to plan projects at the labor code level. Labor codes classify work for a project in categories or levels that you define. Examples of levels are department and phase (level of progress, service, or staff level). Labor codes are then entered on timesheets to classify each hour of labor.
If you enter project budgets or do project planning at the labor code level, you can use the Budget Validation options on the Accounting tab of the Projects form to implement automatic validation of time records against the budget or plan based on the labor codes that the employee enters for the time records. For more information, see Accounting Tab of the Projects Form and Budget Validation for Timesheets.
Labor Code Structure
Before you can add individual labor codes, you must set up the labor code structure for your enterprise on the Labor Code Number Format form (). On that form, you specify the number of labor code levels, the name of each level, the delimiters between levels, and the number of characters in the codes for each level.
If you have not defined your labor code structure, the Labor Codes option is not available under in the Navigation pane.
Labor Code Rate Tables
Use the Billing Labor Code Tables form in to assign billing rates based on the labor code to which employees post time. Billing labor code rate tables are the only billing tables that let you capture multiple billing rates for the same person on the same job.
Use the Cost/Pay Labor Code Tables form to set up one or more tables that specify labor cost or pay rates for labor codes used by your enterprise.
Labor Codes Examples
Labor codes are structured by levels. You can set up a labor code structure of up to five levels. Most enterprises need only one, two, or three levels.
Some typical labor code levels:
| Level | Examples | Typical codes |
|---|---|---|
| Department | Architectural
Environmental |
1-character codes |
| Phase | Pre-Design
Survey |
1-character codes |
| Services | Marketing Studies
Field Surveys |
2-character codes |
| Staff Level | Principal
Senior Engineer Engineer |
1-character codes |
| Non-billable labor code | Some enterprises designate a level to distinguish billable from non-billable labor. This is necessary only if you bill for time and materials contracts and typically do not bill for most of your labor. You can always choose not to bill labor during the interactive billing cycle. | 1-character codes |
A labor code is an abbreviation used to refer to the labor that takes place. The code can include letters or numbers. For example, you can assign A as the labor code for Architecture and S as the labor code for Survey. If you have a long list of items to code, you can assign numbers. For example, 63 could represent Model Construction and 58 could represent Hydrogeological Survey.
The following table provides two examples of a three-level labor code structure, with a total character length of five.
| Labor Code Level | Level Name | Number of Characters in Codes | Labor Code Example 1 | Labor Code Example 2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Department | 1 | A Architectural | E Environmental |
| 2 | Staff | 2 | 01 Principal | 04 Technical |
| 3 | Service | 2 | 63 Model Construction | 58 Hydrogeologic Survey |
| Full Labor Code | 5 | A0163
Architectural/Principal/Model Construction |
E0458
Environmental/Technical/Hydrogeologic Survey |