Buildlogic Pty Ltd

BUILDLOGIC CASH FLOW

Do you need to use Cash flow?

If yes, please decide how many users are required to use the Cash flow module and contact Buildlogic at sales@buildlogic.com.au with the number of users who require this access.   This is an add-on to the main Buildlogic application and the monthly fee will be added to your monthly subscription.   

The Cash flow can be displayed in 2 ways.  They are:

• Single Income line and expenses by Trade & Reference Code (default); or
• Income lines by Trade or Claim Stages.

A decision needs to be made by your company as to which is the best way to display the Cash flow plus how many months after the end date of the job and cash flow payment delay days for purchase are required.   These settings apply to all jobs in Buildlogic.   

As the Buildlogic Client Administrator, you will be notified when the license count has been added for cash flow you will need to go to System/ Settings – Other tab, to set the following.

• Delay days – Cash flow payment delay days for purchases – What are delay days?   With a Cash flow, although your job may start on a specific date and you issue orders, you may not actually pay any of the expenses for the job until you are maybe 14 days (more or less) into the job.   For example, you may have raised orders but are not required to pay the invoices in say 10, 15, or even 30 days depending on the payment terms with your suppliers.
• Show Cash flow – Show cash flow forecast income by trade or claim Stages – determine how the cash flow is displayed when using this module - If you do not tick the Show cash flow forecast income by trade or claim stage, the default for the Cash flow is Single income line and expenses by Trade & Reference Code.; and
• Months after end of job – Number of months to show in cash flow post job end date – you can set the number of months you want the cash flow to display past the end date of the job.  For example, you may want to keep it open for 12 months if you have retentions.

Once these settings are in place, please go to System/User and License and highlight the user and select Edit to add the module.   When the module list is displayed, highlight the module called Cash flow and tick the box and Save Changes.

Buildlogic Web User – Once you have been given access to Cash flow the next time you sign into Buildlogic a new Icon will be displayed which allows you to prepare Cash flows.

For the Cash flow to work correctly, you must have the job dates set for your job on the Job dates tab.  Select your job either from the Dashboard or the job list and check the Job dates tab for the correct start and completion dates.

Select the Cash flow icon.  The Cash flow will be displayed as per the way selected by the Buildlogic Client Administrator.

The default display looks like the following.

If the box has been ticked by your Client Administrator, and depending on whether you are preparing progress claims by the trades or using claim stages, it may look similar to the following.

In this case the main difference is that the income has been broken out by Trade as this job is set up to prepare progress claims by Trade.

Note:  In this job, the start and completion dates are December 2021 to Jul May 2022   This is where the job dates become critical as the Cash flow adds the additional months after the completion date that have been selected for your company. 

To keep the Cash flow simple, income and/or expenses are automatically allocated into the first month.

Note:  At the bottom right of the screenshots is a Reset Cash flow button, which allows you to reset your Cash flow and start again.   For example, if for some reason your job is delayed and your start and completion dates change, you may want to redo your Cash flow from scratch.

2.1         Preparing Cash flow Manually

You can start to allocate your Cash flow across the months based on your job schedule.

In the example below, we have started to allocate the Project Manager costs in Preliminaries across each of the months.

On selecting the save changes button, the Allocation Balance column shows a figure highlighted in red with a yellow background which at this point has not been allocated.

If you over allocate what is in your budget, then the Allocation Balance column turns red and shows the over allocation as shown below.

The same rules apply when allocating Income – highlighted in yellow if not all allocated and red if there is an over allocation.

Once you have completed the Cash flow for your job, you can go to the Export to: dropdown and select Export to XLSX.

A quick way of allocating a percentage across each item for the month is to type 25% against the first row in the month, tab re-highlight the figure once it has calculated and select the copy % down icon.

2.2         Preparing Cash flow from Excel

To speed up entry of the Cash flow you can also Export the Cash flow to Excel and build the Cash flow in Excel and import.  The Export button is at the bottom of your Cash flow on the left of the screen.

The Excel output you can enter in your Cash flow breakup.    In this example, we have started to enter the Income Cash flow.

Once you have completed your Cash flow in Excel, highlight all the figures in your Excel for the months you want to import back into your Cash flow and select copy.   In this case we highlighted the figures as shown in the above.   In Buildlogic go to the first month, select the cell and the go to the little icon at the top of the income grid.  

Select this icon and the figures will be copied into your Cash flow.

Income and Expenditure need to be done separately.

Once you have completed the Cash flow for your job, you can go to the Export to: dropdown and select Export to XLSX.

2.2         Balancing Row

The grid at the bottom of the screen shows the balance between forecasted income and forecasted expenses per month.

2.3 Cash flow over Multiple Jobs

Please be aware that you can select to do a Cash flow over multiple job by selecting the jobs from the Select Job dropdown and selecting the green Refresh button.

One you have completed your Cash flow, you can export it to Excel either by the Export to dropdown or the Export button bottom left of screen.

You may want to view your expenses in the Cash flow in a different way.    Select the View report option button.

Your Cash flow will be shown in a pivot table view.

In this screen, you will first see a column called Prior months.   This will show any actuals, Invoice received and orders that may have been put into the job either in Buildlogic or in the Accounting System prior to the actual start date of the job.  The other columns are by month and show the following.

• The Budget (shown in Blue) is what you have forecast in your Cash flow view.   
• Actual (shown in Red) are invoices received, processed and paid;
• Invoice Received (shown in pale blue) are invoices received but not paid; and
• Order (shown in green) are any order still outstanding.

What this view shows you is whether your Cash flow expenses forecast is in line with your actual expenses.

Once you start to have more data in these grids such as orders, invoices received and actuals, you can hover your mouse over a figure in any of the columns and a grid will appear with the transactions that make up the figure.

You might want to cut and dice this information.   For example, I may want to know what my Cash flow forecast is for all my site labour in one job or across many jobs.   Use the filters at the top of the Job number, Trade or Reference Code columns as shown below

For example, you may just want to see Site Labour across the selected jobs.   

This Pivot view can be Exported to Excel by selecting the green Export to XLSX at the bottom of the screen.

From the Pivot Table View, you can now select to go to a Chart view of the data.  

Select this View Chart button and something similar to the following will be displayed.

Different colour bars will appear on this chart as it accrues Actuals, Invoice received and orders plus income budgeted and actual.   As shown in the graph below, orders have been raised and they re showing in Green.    

By hovering over any bar in this chart you can see a summary of the income or costs per month.

This chart can be exported to Excel or to a PDF by selecting one of the green buttons at the bottom of the graph.   

If you use the Excel export, the graph once exported can be resized.