Calculation Priorities

To illustrate Maconomy’s price calculation method in the Job Cost module, the priorities are shown in the tables below.

Cost prices, intercompany prices, and billing prices are represented in separate tables. The following terms must be defined first:

• Job specific price list: The price list specified for the current job in the table part of the Job Price Information window. For this job price list to be used in a job entry, the entry’s current combination of activity, employee, and dimensions must exist in the price list. If this is not the case, Maconomy proceeds in the order of priority.
• General job price list: General job price lists are created in the Job Price Lists window and specified for cost prices, intercompany prices, billing prices, and standard billing prices for each job in the Job Price Information window. To use a general job price list, the current combination of activity, employee and dimensions must exist in the price list. If this is not the case, Maconomy proceeds in the order of priority.
• Item price system: This concept covers the fact that a job can be assigned to an item price list from the Inventory module and that an item number can be assigned to an activity and an employee. For example, if a price for an employee is to be found via the item price system, Maconomy looks in the item price list specified for the job and derives the price specified for the current employee’s item number. Note that it is recommended to use job price lists and job price groups instead of the item price system as the item price system will be deprecated in future versions of Maconomy. The item price system does not support standard billing prices at all.
• Sales price system: An item in the item price system can be included in the sales price system. This concept covers the way in which an item’s cost price is found and the system is selected on the information card of the item group to which the current item belongs. If the Sales Price Costing field in the Item Group Information Card has been marked, the item’s cost price is calculated based on the sales price by means of a profit margin percentage specified on each item’s information card.
• Base price and regulation: The base price only concerns the billing price. When Maconomy has found a billing price, it is saved as the base price of the registration. This price can be regulated afterwards. If a specific price list has been assigned to the current job, and if this list is used for the current combination of activity, employee, and dimensions, Maconomy uses the contents of the field for the current line in the price list. If this field contains a value (positive or negative), the base price is regulated according to this value. However, this is not the case regarding billing prices entered directly on the line. The base price is saved in a field usable for Maconomy reports.

  Note that when Maconomy has found a price different from zero, the search for a price stops and the price found is used (for billing prices after a potential regulation). However, an exception is made when Maconomy finds a price of zero after using a markup percentage different from zero; that is, that a markup of -100 will result in a billing price of 0.

  If Maconomy finds both a price derived from a markup percentage and a price entered directly, Maconomy will choose the price entered directly. If, for example, a price list line states that the price for a given combination of activity, employee, and dimensions is the cost price + 40% (that is, the billing price is found using a markup percentage), and a billing price is entered directly on the information card for the activity in question, Maconomy will choose the billing price from the information card even though a job price list line usually has the highest priority. Note that this applies to markup percentages only.

  However, in two cases this order of priority is turned around. If a billing price is the result of a markup percentage on a job-specific price list, then that price will be used instead of a price entered directly in an information card. The same is the case for general job price lists, if the Prioritize Markup Percentage from Job Price Lists system parameter is selected.

  When you change a dimension value on an existing line in the Job Budgets, Job Planning, and Job Journal windows, Maconomy can, depending on the setup, recalculate the prices on the line. In this case, the term “dimension value” refers to the Activity, Employee No., Task, Location, Entity, Project, Purpose, Spec. 1-3, and Local Spec. 1-3 fields. The Update prices upon dimension change system parameter determines whether Maconomy is to recalculate cost and billing prices and markup from the relevant job price lists, and so on (as described in the following) if the value in one of these fields is changed in the windows mentioned above. If this system parameter has been selected, Maconomy will recalculate the prices on a given line when dimension values are changed.

  First, the cost price, billing price, and markup percentage are recalculated through the process described in the remainder of this section. If the cost price found was different from 0, the cost price on the line is changed. If a cost price of 0 was found, the existing cost price is maintained. Next, the same analysis is carried out for the billing price found.

  If a cost and/or billing price was found, the markup percentage on the line is adjusted accordingly. If no new prices were found, the cost price is kept, and Maconomy calculates a new billing price from the cost price and the markup percentage if a markup percentage was found.

  If the Update prices upon dimension change system parameter has not been selected, Maconomy will not recalculate the line price as a result of changes to the dimension values.