Checklist: Monthly Processing Cycle

Most firms follow the same general steps during the monthly processing cycle.

Timing of Steps

You can complete many processing cycle tasks, (such as entering new employees or entering timesheets) at any time during the month and in any order. There are, however, several tasks that you must perform at a certain point in the processing cycle:

• Open a New Period — This is the first action that you need to perform in the monthly cycle.
• Back Up Your Database — Deltek strongly recommends that you back up your database before posting transaction files and processing key conversions.
• Process Payroll — You must post timesheets before you process payroll.
• Run Overhead Allocation — You must post all transaction files for the month before allocating overhead.
• Close the Period — This is the last action you need to perform in the monthly cycle.

Typical Monthly Processing Steps

Step	Action	Description
1	Open a new period.	Use the Open New Period utility to open a new accounting period. This utility also allows you to modify both accounting and fiscal periods.
2	Enter new employees.	Use the Employee Info Center to maintain all employee information, including personal and accounting data, general descriptions of employee skills and experience, details about the customers and contacts with whom they are working, the opportunities and projects they are working on, and related activities.
3	Enter new clients.	Use the Client Info Center to maintain all client information, including addresses, phone numbers, contact names, related activities, clients, and files, associations with employees, links to ongoing and completed projects, and details about future opportunities.
4	Enter new projects.	Use the Project Info Center to maintain all project information, including project names and locations, project costs, estimated and actual completion dates, associated clients, contacts, and consultants, accounting information, details about the team members working on a project, project activity details, and related files and graphics.
5	Maintain unit information, if applicable.	Use the Unit Info Center to maintain all unit information, such as mileage, survey crew, and lab tests. Units are used to reclassify overhead expenses, reimburse expenses to bill items without a cost value, or to present information directly on an invoice.
6	Enter project budgets.	You can set up budgets for individual labor codes and expense accounts, at both cost and billing rates. We further recommend that you periodically enter percent completes to reflect each project's current level of completion. That way you can monitor each project's cost in relation to its overall progress.
7	Enter/update percent completes.	Update percent completes to ensure that they are accurate for revenue calculations.
8	Enter project billing terms, if applicable.	If you have created and entered new projects, you need to enter the billing terms for those projects.
9	Enter timesheets.	Usually, timesheets are entered at the same frequency as payroll (weekly, biweekly, semi-monthly, or monthly). However, to receive accurate and up-to-date costing reports, you may want to enter timesheets more often, especially if employees are paid monthly. If your company uses Vision Time & Expense, employees should be encouraged to update and save timesheet data on a daily basis.
10	Run the Unposted Labor report.	Use the Unposted Labor report to review: All timesheet data in unposted transaction entry files. Vision displays the code DE beside this data on the report. All Time & Expense timesheets that are in progress or submitted, but not posted. Vision displays the code TK beside this data on the report.
11	Post timesheets.	Once you verify that your timesheet transaction file is in balance, you can post the file.
12	Process payroll.	Use Payroll to process and post employee payroll. Or, export employee payroll data to external payroll processing software for processing.
13	Enter other costs.	Use the Transaction Center to enter and maintain data on various types of transactions, including disbursements, expenses, invoices, and vouchers.
14	Run Transaction List reports.	Transaction reports summarize information about the transaction files you create through data entry. Transaction reports enable you to check the validity of the data you entered.
15	Post other costs.	When you post transaction files in Vision, you are making the data a permanent part of your database. Posting updates your general ledger, subsidiary ledgers, and project files, and allows you to generate up-to-date reports. You can post costs individually or all at one time.
16	Run Overhead Allocation.	Run Overhead Allocation to disperse year-to-date indirect expenses evenly to all regular revenue-producing projects, based on direct labor or revenue.
17	Review/generate reports for project managers.	The appropriate employees should review and print Project Summary reports, Project Progress reports, draft invoices, and so on.
18	Run Revenue Generation.	Revenue Generation lets you use Accounting on an accrual basis, recognizing project revenue as it is earned and matching revenue with expenses incurred to date. Without Revenue Generation, Vision recognizes revenue as it is billed.
19	Print preview the Posting Log Review report.	The Posting Log Review Report lists all of the posting logs generated during the current period, regardless of the transaction type.
20	Review/generate month-end reports.	The appropriate employees should review the following reports online, ensure that the information is correct, and then print them out as necessary. AR Aging Report Balance Sheet Income Statement Report Invoice Register Report Office Earnings Report Project Progress Report Vendor Schedule Report
21	Close the period.	By closing a period when you have finished processing all transactions for the period, you ensure that new charges are not posted to that period by mistake.