Create and confirm Entry journals
Applies To: Project Operations for resource/non-stocked based scenarios, Lite deployment - deal to proforma invoicing
You use Entry journals to record actuals directly in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations. When you use Entry journals, you don't have to enter Time, Expense, and Material usage logs in Project Operations.
A single Entry journal lets you create multiple journal lines. When the journal is confirmed, an Entry journal line records the actual for the following details:
- The cost or revenue, depending on the transaction type that was selected.
- The selected class of transaction. The available classes are Time, Expense, Material, Retainer, Milestone, and Tax.
- The project and/or a task that is selected on the journal line.
Follow these steps to create an Entry journal in Project Operations.
Go to Sales > Transactions > Journals.
On the Entry journals list page, on the Action Pane, select New to create a journal.
On the New journal page, in the Description field, enter a description of the journal.
Make sure that the Journal type field is set to Entry, and then select Save. After the new Entry journal is saved, a Journal lines tab should appear on the journal page.
On the Journal lines tab, on the toolbar above the grid, select New to create an Entry journal line.
In the Quick create dialog box for creating an Entry journal line, set the fields as described in the following table.
Field Description Functional impact Transaction Class The journal line can be classified into one of the six transaction classes: Time, Expense, Material, Retainer, Milestone, or Tax. The Tax transaction class has been deprecated in Project Operations.
If you create a Tax transaction class, it won't be processed by invoicing or in cost or revenue calculations. Milestone is a revenue-only transaction class.
The Retainer transaction class represents an advance that was received from a customer. It should always be created as a pair of billed sales and unbilled sales journal lines.
Transaction Type The Cost, Interorg Sales, and Resourcing unit cost transaction types should be used to record cost.
The Unbilled Sales and Billed Sales transaction types should be used to record revenue.
The Retainer transaction class works only with the Unbilled Sales and Billed Sales transaction types.
The Milestone transaction class works only with the Billed Sales transaction type.
The Interorg Sales and Resourcing unit cost transaction types are applicable only to the Time transaction class. In addition, they are available on Entry journals only in the Lite deployment scenario. They aren't available when Project Operations is deployed in the Resource/Nonstocked scenarios.
Select Product When the Material transaction class is selected, this field lets you specify whether the material transaction that you're creating the journal line for is an existing product or a write-in product. If you select Write-in product, you can enter a name for the product. Product A reference to the product from the catalog. Description A description of the journal line to help make it easy to identify. For unbilled sales journal lines, the value is used as the description when the invoice line details are created. External description A description of the journal line that can be used for sharing with external stakeholders. For unbilled sales journal lines, the value is used as the external description when the invoice line details are created. It can also appear on the invoice that is sent to the customer. Billing Type A value that indicates whether the journal line is counted as a chargeable, complimentary, or nonchargeable component on the project. In a typical flow, the billing type is derived from the agreed-on terms that are set up on the contract. However, when you record a journal line, you can enter a value in this field. Document date Use a date when the transaction occurred. Start Date Use the date when the transaction occurred. This field is used for comparison with the date of invoice creation for transactions of the Unbilled Sales type. This comparison helps you decide whether the transaction is future-dated or past-dated. Only past-dated transactions are added to the invoice. End Date Use the date when the transaction occurred. Accounting Date Use the date when the accounting impact will be recorded. Contract line customer By default, if the contract line has only one customer, this field is set to the customer on the contract line when the journal line is saved. If the contract line has multiple customers, select the correct customer on the contract line. If the system can't determine the contract line customer on the journal line, and if it's blank on the actual of the Unbilled Sales type that is created from the journal line, the actual won't be invoiced. Project Select the project to record the actual on. Based on the selected project, transaction class, and task, the system tries to determine the contract, contract line, and contract line customer. Task Select the task to record the actual on. If you associated tasks with contract lines during contract setup, the system uses the selected task, together with a project and transaction class, to determine the contract, contract line, and contract line customer. Transaction Category Select the transaction category to record the actual on. For expenses, the selected transaction category determines the default price that is entered on the journal line when it's saved. Role This field is relevant to Time journal lines. Select the role of the resource who spent time on the project and/or task. For Time journal lines, if you use the out-of-box configuration for the entry of default resource costs and bill rates, the selected role is used together with the resourcing unit to determine the default price that is entered on the journal line when it's saved. If you use a custom configuration for the entry of default prices, you should review that configuration to determine whether the Role field is used to enter default price values. Subcontract If the journal line represents subcontracted capacity, or subcontracted expenses or materials, select the relevant subcontract. When Cost journal lines are recorded, the selected subcontract determines the price list that is used to enter the default unit cost. Subcontract line If the journal line represents subcontracted capacity, or subcontracted expenses or materials, select the relevant subcontract line. When Cost journal lines are recorded, the selected subcontract line ensures that the available capacity calculations on the subcontract line are done correctly. Amount Method By default, this field is set to Multiply Quantity By Price. When this method is used, the amount is calculated as Quantity × Price. The other supported method is Fixed Price. When this method is used, the price is set to the amount, and the quantity isn't used in the calculation. Unit Schedule and Unit Together, the unit schedule and unit identify the unit of the quantity. The combination of the unit and the transaction category is used to enter default prices for expenses. In the default configuration of Project Operations, the combination of the unit, role, and resourcing unit is used to enter default prices for time. If you have a custom configuration for the entry of default prices, it's used together with the unit. The combination of the product and the unit is used to enter default prices for materials. Quantity Enter the quantity. Price If the price is left blank when the journal line is created, the relevant values are used to enter the default prices, depending on the transaction class. If a price is entered when the journal line is created, that price is used. Tax Enter any tax amount. Depending on the tax amount that is entered, the extended amount is calculated as Amount + Tax.
Confirm an Entry journal
After you enter all the journal lines in an Entry journal, you can confirm the journal. This process records each journal line as actuals on the appropriate projects.
After a journal is confirmed, you can no longer edit it or any of its lines.
Actuals created by Entry journal confirmation
There are a few key differences between actuals that are created by Entry journal confirmation and actuals that are created during approval of Time, Expense, and Material usage logs and invoice confirmation in Project Operations:
- Entry journals don't use transaction connections to link the cost actual to the unbilled sales actual. The actuals that are created when Time, Expense, and Material usage logs are approved always use transaction connections to link the cost and unbilled sales actuals.
- Entry journals don't use transaction origins to link the cost actual and the unbilled sales actuals to any originating record. The actuals that are created when Time, Expense, and Material usage logs are approved always use transaction origins to link the cost and unbilled sales actuals to the originating time entry.
- When unbilled sales actuals that are created by Entry journal confirmation are invoiced, the billed sales actuals that are created during invoice confirmation are linked to the unbilled sales actuals, in a similar manner to the unbilled sales actuals that are created when Time, Expense, and Material usage logs are approved.
- Entry journal lines that are created for time that is entered by inter-organizational resources don't cause actuals of the Resourcing unit cost and Interorg Sales types to be automatically created. These actuals must be manually created. This behavior differs from the behavior for time entries that are recorded by inter-organizational resources. In that case, when time is approved, the application automatically creates actuals of the Cost type on the project and actuals of the Resourcing unit cost and Interorg Sales types on the employee's owning division. It then uses transaction connections to link those actuals together and transaction origins to link them to the originating time entry.
- When Entry journals are confirmed, they create actuals. However, Correction journals can't be used to correct those actuals. This behavior differs from the behavior for actuals that are created when Time, Expense, and Material usage logs are approved. In that case, the application lets you use Correction journals to correct the actuals to fix any errors, provided that those actuals haven't yet been invoiced. If they have already been invoiced, you can still correct an actual if you process a full credit of that actual to the customer.
Note
By default, Entry journals don't enforce strict defaulting rules. Therefore, use them as little as possible, and exercise caution and care to ensure that you don't create corrupted financial data in your system. Whenever you can, use Time, Expense, and Material usage logs, the milestone and retainer setup on project contracts, and the project invoice confirmation process instead of Entry journals to create actuals.
To enforce rules for the journal lines, you should enable the Journal line improvements feature. Learn more in Journal line improvements.