OpenAir Enhancements

July 16, 2011

Overview

Invoices
Credit and re-bill functionality for invoices
Streamline credit and re-bill process for approved invoices.

Customize list views on a per-charge stage basis
Display different fields based on the charge stage.

Details ...

Projects
Additional option for applying expense item billing rule cap
Adjust expense billing rule caps via price.

Additional options for task assignment default and list functionality
Include option to set default project job code overrides and task assignment bill rates.

Details ...

Reports
Allow for multi-currency selection for ratio type custom calculations
Ability to select different currencies when reporting on ratio type custom calculations containing money values.

Support for hierarchies in PivotTable download option Include hierarchy selection when downloading to PivotTable file.

Details ...

Account-wide
Enhancement to OpenAir Mobile for iPhone
Support for background processing and user level open periods for time and expenses.

Details ...

Timesheets
Additional option for displaying available tasks on timesheets
Ability to only display assigned tasks on timesheet when leveraging booking assignments at the task level and task assignments.

Details ...



Details

Invoices
Credit and re-bill functionality for invoices
OpenAir's invoicing functionality allows companies to group multiple charges that should be billed and sent to a customer. Invoices can be sent through an approval process, sent to a customer and subsequently exported to an external accounting system. At times it is necessary to credit and potentially re-bill an invoice that has already been approved, sent to a customer, or has been exported. Currently, if an invoice and corresponding charges have been approved or exported, a credit would need to be applied manually creating negative offsetting charges. New charges would also need to be created manually if the invoice needed to be re-billed.

With this release, OpenAir has streamlined the process of crediting an invoice and re-billing associated charges once a credit has been issued. A new Credit/Rebill link is now available within an approved timesheet that allows users to either credit, or credit and rebill an invoice. If a user chooses to credit an invoice, a new invoice will be created that contains offsetting charges of the original invoice. If the user then chooses to re-bill, the charges from the original invoice will be available to be placed on a new invoice. Both credit and re-bill invoices will go through the same approval process as the original invoice. Additionally, the History link in the original invoice will indicate whether the invoice has been credited or re-billed, with the corresponding invoice numbers.

To enable the credit and re-bill functionality, please contact OpenAir Support.

Credit:
To credit an invoice, users with the appropriate role privilege navigate to Invoices > Invoices > Approved > [select an approved invoice]. Click on the "Credit/Rebill" link. Enter any necessary notes and select the option for submission of the credit invoice to either Yes or No. Once all options have been configured, click on the "Credit" button. A new invoice will be created that will contain negative offsetting charges.

Re-bill:
An invoice cannot be re-billed unless the invoice has been credited. Once an invoice has been credited, a new re-bill option is now available. To re-bill an invoice, select the originally approved invoice that has already been credited. From the "Credit/Rebill" link, click on the "Rebill" button. Once the "Rebill" button has been selected, the charges on that invoice will appear in the "Open" charge stage. These charges will then be available to be placed on a new invoice, if desired.

Other:
Role settings:
There are two new role settings that allow specific roles to either Credit or Re-bill an invoice: "Rebill invoices" and "Credit invoices".

Charge stages:
A specific charge stage can be designated at the Administration > Application Settings > Invoices Settings > Charge stages. Within the charge stage edit form, select the option "Set this as the primary stage for 'credits'". If designated, any charge created from the credit invoice will be displayed in this charge stage.

Invoices list view:
In the Invoices list view, a new subtab for "Credit/Rebill" is available. This subtab will hold any invoice that has been credited or re-billed. In addition, three new fields can be displayed by clicking on the "Customize list view" link on the upper left corner of the top menu bar. These fields are: "Credit/Rebill - Credit invoice number", "Credit/Rebill - Original invoice number", and "Credit/Rebill - Status". To display these fields, click on them as desired and select "Add selected items." Click OK.

Invoice layout:
A distinct invoice layout can be configured and designated as the default for credit invoices. To configure the layout, navigate to Administration > Application Settings > Invoices Settings > Invoice layouts. Within the invoice layout edit form, check the option "Default credit invoice layout".

Reporting:
Time entry related fields can now be reported on in a charge detail report. These fields can be leveraged to identify the original time entries hours from the resulting charge. To run a charges detail report, navigate to Reports > Detail > Invoices > Charges.

Terminology:
The terminology for "Rebill" can be changed. To modify the terminology, navigate to Administration > Global Settings >Display > Terminology.

Customize list views on a per-charge stage basis
In OpenAir, invoice charge stages allow users to group different charges (e.g. time or expense) into different stages (e.g. Invoiced). When billing is run on a project, a specific charge stage can be designated on the billing rule. Charges generated by that rule will then be placed in that specific stage. For example, a "Non-billable" stage can be created to group charges that have been considered to be non-billable. The charge stage list view can be customized to include the appropriate fields. With this release, each individual charge stage can have a distinct list view configurations containing different fields and ordering of those fields. Previously, each charge stage contained the same list view fields and ordering.

To enable the ability to customize individual charge stage list views, please contact OpenAir Support.
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Projects
Additional option for applying expense item billing rule cap
Expense item billing rules are applied to approved expenses associated with a project. Each rule can be configured to include different criteria such as date ranges, mark up/down, filters, etc. In addition to these criteria, money caps can be applied to each billing rule as well. For example, a cap can be put in place that states expenses cannot exceed $1000 for that project. When caps are leveraged, an additional option is provided to adjust the receipts to fit under the cap. If this option is selected, and if the expenses total exceeded the cap amount, the rule will only create charges up until the cap is reached.

With this release, OpenAir has added an additional option for an alternate method in adjusting receipts that have exceeded the cap. Users can now choose to adjust the price field on the receipt. For example, if the cap was $1000 and a receipt was created for $1500, the receipt price field will be adjusted and billed at $1000. With the previous method, the receipt's quantity was adjusted to account for the expense cap.

To enable the alternate method of applying expense caps, please contact OpenAir Support.

Additional options for task assignment default and list functionality
Companies leverage the task assignment default and list functionality to set defaults for fields on new tasks at the task assignment level. For example, if a loaded cost default of 50 has been established for Mary Adams, any new task to which Mary is assigned to will automatically default her loaded cost to 100.

In this release, additional options have been added as available fields for setting defaults. Users now have the option to set defaults for the project task job code override and task assignment bill rates.
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Reports
Allow for multi-currency selection for ratio type custom calculations
OpenAir's flexible reporting engine allows users to create custom reporting values via custom calculations. Custom calculations can be created by leveraging existing built-in reporting values, details fields, or another custom calculation and are available for selection in summary reports. A ratio type custom calculation can be created by dividing one value by another. At times these ratio calculations may contain a money value as one or both parts of the formula. For accounts that are multi-currency enabled, it may be beneficial to report on these money type values in different currencies due to varying exchange rates. Previously, these types of values leveraged the account's default currency.

If a ratio custom calculation containing money has been created, users will now see that reporting value in summary reports with the different reporting currencies appended next to the report value name (e.g. Projects - Project margin ($) (EUR)).

To select which currencies are available in reporting, users with the appropriate role privileges navigate to Reports > Options. Under the "Multiple currencies" section, select the appropriate currencies in the picker and click Save.

To enable the option to always use the account's default currency for these custom calculations, please contact OpenAir Support.

How to quickly identify a custom calculation based on money:

  1. Users with the appropriate role privileges navigate to Administration > Global Settings > Reports> Custom calculations.
  2. Click on the "Customize list view" link on the upper left corner of the top menu bar. Click "Based on money", select "Add selected items." Click OK.
In addition to viewing this field in the Custom calculation list view, users can view this as a detail field in the Custom calculations detail report. To run this report, navigate to Reports > Detail > Account-wide > Custom calculations.

Support for hierarchies in PivotTable download option
OpenAir's summary reporting allows users to view totals for reporting values over specific time periods. In addition to being able to select which data and time period to report on, OpenAir further allows users to analyze their report data by providing a PivotTable file download option. If selected, users can click on a link that will provide the report results in PivotTable format. With this format, the report can be further analyzed or manipulated in Excel.

In this release, OpenAir has further enhanced the PivotTable download functionality by adding the option to include hierarchy data in the pivot file. If a summary report has a hierarchy selected in the report builder, users can choose to include this hierarchy information in PivotTable file format.

How to include hierarchy data in PivotTable file:
  1. Users with the appropriate role privileges navigate to the edit form of a summary report. Under the "Hierarchy" dropdown, select the appropriate hierarchy option.
  2. Select the option "Include hierarchy data in PivotTable files" and run the report.
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Account-wide
Enhancement to OpenAir Mobile for iPhone
In the May 2009 product release, OpenAir introduced the OpenAir Mobile for iPhone, allowing users to enter time and expenses in a timely manner while on the go. OpenAir has enhanced the latest version to include support for background processing. For devices that support background processing, users can now click on the "Home" button after starting the export. The update will continue in the background. If there are any errors or applicable messages, a notification will be sent to the device screen. Additionally, the latest version now support user level open periods for both timesheets and expenses.

To download the free application:
  • Open the iTunes App Store on your iPhone or in iTunes and search for OpenAir.
  • Or, find a link to this iPhone app directly from within the OpenAir application (Administration > Global Settings > Account > Integration: Add-on services).
To enable or disable access to this app for a user, please navigate to Administration > Users and select a User ID. Click Access control > Exchange Access. Select "OpenAir Mobile (iPhone)," click "Add selected items" and Save.
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Timesheets
Additional option for displaying available tasks on timesheets
At times, companies will leverage both booking assignments at the task level and project task assignments. Booking at the task level is beneficial for forecasting a resource's utilization at a more granular level. In addition to forecasting purposes, booking at the task level allows users to see those task to which they are booked to on their timesheet. For accounts that leverage both bookings at the task level and project task assignments, tasks from both actions will display on the user's timesheet. With this release, OpenAir has introduced the option to only display the tasks on the timesheet that resulted from a project task assignment and not from a booking. To enable this option, please contact OpenAir Support.
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Suggestions, problems, or questions?
To contact our support team, please create a support ticket. We take pride in the outstanding care we give our customers. Please let us know how can we improve your experience with OpenAir.