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Buyout is the procurementapplication that SageTimberline developed to
aid in the bidding process for allsubcontracted and material items.Although many companies useBuyout in different ways, the sameprinciples apply. Buyout allowsthe contractor to send out RFQs(requests for quotes), input andevaluate the bids, select and issuecommitments, and update esti-mates and database pricing—allfrom one feature.
The buyoutprocurement is createdfrom your originalestimates for allmaterial and subcon-tract line items. Allquantities and esti-mated prices appear inthe buyout worksheet,giving you a validcomparison for eachitem.
Before you beginto use Buyout, youmust decide on a file structure thatyou’ll create and keep for yourlayouts and buyout worksheet withits attached database. Buyoutcreates the same file structure asestimates with a PVData folderattached to the worksheet. Buyout,as with estimates, cannot berenamed or changed unless youuse the Timberline tools. Other-wise, your worksheet will becomecorrupt.
Great Features in Buyout Easily Sell Themselvesby: Robin Peterson • United Properties
I suggest creating a folderunder your name and calling itBuyout, with the year, or a compa-rable folder structure that fits intoyour company’s naming system.By creating this folder, you can setup default layouts for your quotesand commitments, similar to thedefaults you have in Estimating. Ifyou are a larger company, thenetwork is a convenient place toput the file, especially if you havestandard company layouts and
logos. Once you have set up adatabase for your buyout process,making some selections for yourdatabase settings are one-time set-up tasks.
Go to Edit and select Op-tions. A window will open withthree tabs that allow you to set upyour database features, filelocations, font settings, andinterfacing rules. Once you setthese features, you shouldn’t haveto change them.
You should create a copy ofyour original estimate, calling itHard Bid. Once this is done, youthen can roll the Hard Bid esti-mate into Buyout. This allows youto create a comparison report or avariance report evaluating thepreliminary and Hard Bid num-bers, after you have bid out yourmaterial and subcontracted items,then updated your estimate.
Once your estimate is rolledinto the buyout procurement,you’re ready to begin working onyour bid outline items.
You must first assign yourline items. I like to use the phasecode for assignment because it
Continued on page 8
News & Information for Users of Sage Timberline Office Software for June & July 2006
IN THIS ISSUEGreat Features in Buyout Easily Sell
Themselves .............................. 1Cut Your Mistakes on Leases
With the New Un-Terminator .... 2Using Multiple Transaction Files
in a Report ............................... 3Crystal Reports Tips .................... 3The Paperless Office is More
Than “Scan & Save” ................. 4TUG Checklist of the Month ......... 6Sage Timberline Office Desktop
& Report Reference Card ......... 7The Simple Way to Build That
Schedule .................................. 10TUG Calendar .............................. 11TUG Online Training Schedule ..... 11Three Options to Producing
Your Historical Statements....... 12
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Published by theTimberline Users Group, Inc.
and sent to all members.
Board of DirectorsTom Love, President
Mike Suhovecky,Vice PresidentCharlie Auger,
Secretary/TreasurerSharon Hessong
Lynn BitarRobin Peterson
Jeff PavlicaKate Fitch-Davis
Dianne Kaiel
Publications CommitteeTom Love
Robin PetersonTom Moore
Carolyn Boettner, EditorMaureen Connolly,
Consultant
National AdministratorBoettner Business
ProfessionalsP.O. Box 697
Sylvania, OH 43560Phone: 419.885.9004
Fax: 419.885.9007
Toll Free: 800.884.4630
Web Site
the TUG Pulse
It has happened to most of us: 15minutes after you’ve terminateda lease, you receive an e-mail or a
phone call telling you not to finalizethe termination. Perhaps the tenanthad a last-minutechange ofheart anddecided torenew. Or,perhaps youwere givenan incorrectlease ID toterminate, orthat youaccidentally terminated a lease. Onceit was gone, it was really gone. Allyou could do was scream at thecomputer and try to figure out howyou were going to get that leaseinformation back.
Finally, in Sage TimberlineOffice version 9.2, we have a solu-tion: amending a terminated lease,commonly referred to as un-terminat-ing. With this new feature, we nowhave the ability to amend a termi-nated lease back to a current status,all the while maintaining the leasehistory. The process for un-terminat-ing a lease is really no different thanfor any other amendment.
1. Select Tasks, Manage Leases,Amend Lease.
2. Click on New Amendment.3. In the Amend Lease–New
Amendment box, you’ll see anew feature. In the lower left
Cut Your Mistakes on LeasesWith the New Un-Terminator
by: Patrick HughesFlagler Development Company
corner, a box defaults to“Show: Current Leases.”Click on the drop down arrowand choose “TerminatedLeases.”
4. Choose the ID of the termi-nated lease that you want to“bring back to life.”
5. Amend the suites, terms andrates, as necessary.
6. Click on Effective Now whenready, but pay close attentionto the dates.
Depending on the situation,you may want a period of timewhen the lease is actually termi-nated and then revived, or youmay want to avoid any terminationperiod, having the new amend-ment date take over immediatelyfrom the original termination date.
Making mistakes with leasesis never a good thing, but at leastwith this fantastic new feature,you’ll save hours of work andloads of frustration.
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by: Eire StewartJP DiNapoli Companies, Inc.
Timberlineallows you toincorporate
multiple transactionfiles in most reports.Using the AP PaidInvoice Register as anexample, here is howyou would incorpo-rate the AP MasterFile and two historyfiles in a single reportprint out:
1. Click on [Re-ports], [CashManagement],[Paid InvoiceRegister].
2. Data File Selec-tion box willopen. Selectboth [AP Invoice(history)] and[AP Master].
3. Next the FileSelection boxwill open.Holding downthe “Shift” key,click on thehistory files youwant to include.This will addindividual files to yourreport. To add a series ofconsecutive files, holddown the “Ctrl” key andclick on the first and lastfile in the series. This willincorporate all the files inbetween.
Using Multiple TransactionFiles In a Report
If your report options are setto “Include File Names” (click on[Tools], [Options], [Reports]),the files used will appear in theupper right hand corner of theprint out.
After you have up-graded to 9.x Timber-
line, you have to use the Timber-line Data Source File DSN that iscreated for you. You can’t createyour own anymore. All you haveto do to get setup is go to theODBC administrator (in ControlPanel -> Administrative Tools)and make sure the TimberlineData Source File DSN is pointingto your data. Also check to makesure you are using Custom orStandard settings. If you havechanged the names of fields inTimberline (ex. Commitments ->Subcontracts), you will need touse Custom.
When inserting a logodirectly into a Crystal
report, make sure it’s in the ReportHeader (not Page Header) if youwant it to print in color.
Note the solid grayarrows in the horizontal
and vertical rulers. They are likethe Slide tool in Report Designer.You can move all fields attachedto the arrow as one. Doubleclicking in the ruler where theedge of a field is will create oneof these arrows and give you theability to slide the field.
When saving changesto an Invoice Crystal
report, make sure to use Save Asand put the name in quotes withthe extension .crs. Ex. “NL_tooriginal forms.crs”
CrystalReports
Tips
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You’ve probably seen one,or even more, of the manyarticles in trade publica-
tions, business journals, orgeneral newspapers and maga-zines touting the “paperlessoffice” as the future. It seems thateveryone wants to reduce paper,especially in the home builder andcontractor industry because of thetremendous amount of documentsthat flow during the buildingprocess.
But there’s more to thepaperless office than putting asheet through the multi-functionaloffice machine that’s $129 at thelocal office supply store. Sure, youcan easily scan a one-page docu-ment as a .pdf file and then store itwithin the Microsoft® WindowsExplorer file tree, but is that trulymanaging your documents? Ratherthan simply cutting down on paper,you should be working toward acontent management system—throughout your business—thatwill save you money and, moreimportantly, help you grow.
Beyond “Scan & Save”Scanning and saving a docu-
ment is a simple method of reduc-ing the amount of paper in theoffice. However, to truly managecontent, you need to understandthe concept of “document manage-ment” and how it applies toconstruction and home buildingorganizations.
Simply stated, documentmanagement is the capture, distri-bution, archiving, storage, andretrieval of content within anorganization. Therefore, scanning(or “capture”) is just one smallcomponent of a document man-agement system.
The Paperless Office is More Than“Scan & Save”
by: Perry Levine • Construction Imaging Services
Distribution of that content isalso known as workflow. Thisaspect of document managementmeans that whatever has beencaptured is now securely anddeliberately sent to others (insideor outside the organization).Additionally, having an audit trailof who has touched that electronicmedium allows the organization totrack all those who have seen orused the information.
An excellent example ofutilizing workflow is the ability toroute invoices for approval. In thiscase, an invoice comes into theoffice, gets scanned into thesystem, and preliminary informa-tion is attached to the invoice. Theproject manager receives notifica-tion that an invoice needs ap-proval. The project manager goesinto the system and reviews theinvoice. At that time, if there’s anyneed for additional information,say, a match between a purchaseorder and a delivery ticket, theproject manager can retrieve thosedocuments, as well. Approval (andcoding, if applicable) is accom-plished, and then the documentsare routed back to the accountingdepartment for payment of theinvoice.
Workflow can happenautomatically so that the invoicecan be routed from one individualto another until all staff membershave seen it and have approved itprior to payment. At anytime,someone can produce a reportshowing where the invoice is inthe routing process.
Storage and ArchivingStorage and archiving go
hand in hand; if you place ascanned document on your harddrive or on your server and youneed to find it, can you? How doyou manage invoices? Do you doit by year? By vendor or subcon-tractor? By subcontractor andyear? Or by job or subdivision orlot or phase?
If you use the tree/foldermethod, your ability to retrieverelated invoices is significantlyhampered. As an example, what ifyou are involved in a dispute witha subcontractor and your attorneyasks you to retrieve all informa-tion related to your work with thatsub? If the work was over multipleyears and/or multiple jobs, youcould spend hours (or days orweeks) pulling up the informationfrom each folder.
With the use of relationaldatabases, archiving based onmultiple indices allows a user toquickly pull up related informa-tion based on singular or multiplecriteria. The time savings, as wellas the reduction in staff stress, issubstantial.
All Levels of the OrganizationWhere many organizations
(and software vendors, as well)are shortsighted is in the use ofdocument management technol-ogy. In any organization, there’s
- 5 -June/July 2006
usually a cultural resistance tochange, and I’ve seen that amongmany home builders and otherconstruction companies facedwith technology change. Too oftenwhen document management isused, it’s only in the accountingdepartment. However, homebuilders and contractors need toconsider document managemententerprise-wide:
Project management/ construction document management
Service, warranty/punch list work
Fleet management
Equipment management
Business development
As an example, for a homebuilder, offering the new home-owner a CD that includes allowner-related documents, such aswarranties, instruction manuals,sales/title/escrow documents, anddesign information can be a greatmarketing tool. That CD wouldalso be a time-saving aid so thatinternal customer service repre-sentatives wouldn’t have to spendtime looking up information forcustomers who misplaced thesedocuments. The CDs can be
produced with an index so that thecustomer can search using anynumber of criteria.
Information When You Need ItWith legislation that provides
wide-sweeping protections for thehomeowner, many parties can bedrawn into litigation. One land-scape company said that it re-ceives two lawsuits per weekbecause of all of the subdivisionwork it does. While none of thelawsuits pertains to the company’sindividual work, the landscaper isstill required to respond.
But how time-consuming is itto retrieve information when it isin a box in a warehouse? Orworse, contained in a box at anoff-site storage facility?
With lawsuit discovery,insurance claims, or just thenormal fiscal audit process, thelabor savings alone can justifydocument management technol-ogy. However, making sure thatthe information has been scannedand saved does not mean that it’suseful. Quick and easy retrieval ofinformation makes the difference.Of course, it is well known that ina lawsuit or a claim with aninsurance or bonding company,whoever has the best documenta-tion tends to be the one who wins!
An important factor in thestorage of the document is thelegal ramifications of an elec-
tronic image versus an original.Federal evidentiary law states thatelectronic media can be utilized ifthe media cannot be tamperedwith. In most cases, utilizingoptical drive storage devicescomplies with this requirement.Most states mirror federal statute,so you should check with yourattorney about how it would affectyour legal standing in the stateswhere you do business.
For many companies, docu-ment management has proven toincrease profitability. It has savedcompanies thousands of dollars inhandling costs, reduced lost stafftime, increased staff morale, cutovernight delivery charges, andled to better utilization of space.
In conclusion, documentimaging is a minimalist view ofa paperless office environment.If your organization is considering“going paperless,” take the timeto review all the costs and effi-ciencies involved and to comparethem to the costs and efficienciesof a full-fledged documentmanagement system. In the longrun, purchasing a small scannerthat does one scan at a time,along with using the tree/foldersystem, will probably be moreexpensive than purchasing awell-designed system that has ahigh-speed scanner and built-inworkflow.
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TUG Checklist of the Month
- 7 -June/July 2006
Sage Timberline Office Desktop& Report Reference Card
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will appear in the worksheetin phase order. You also canuse the Sort feature, arrangingyour items by location, phase,material, or quote summary. Ifyou use locations and youneed to assign one area at atime, this sort can be veryhelpful.
Once your items havebeen assigned, you are readyto select your vendors ortrades for issuance of theRFQs. Please remember thatyour vendors are selectedfrom a list in Address Book.This becomes very importantif you are going to exportdirectly into Job Cost, since avendor must be set up as anAccounts Payable vendor forthe commitment to link withyour accounting functions.
Once you select yourtrades that you would like toreceive quotes from, you cansend out the RFQ by fax, e-mail or print it out for deliv-ery. If all of the trades requestthe RFQ via e-mail, you canselect all of the trades at once.
You have choices on whatyour RFQ will list. The lineitem will appear, but youmight not want to give ven-dors the quantity takeoff,requiring them to quotequantity as well as unit price.After setting your options,remember to click Save asdefault so that these optionswill be retained each time youissue the RFQ. When theRFQs have been sent, yourscreen will update and con-firm the transmission. In theQuote Summary properties,you’ll also see the due dateyou selected, along with ayellow flag, indicating that thebid is due now. Once the duedate has passed, the flag will
After you interface into Buyout, youritem sheet opens.
Continued from page 1
be red, indicating that thevendor has passed the duedate for the bid to be re-turned.
Standard Price Feature As you receive your bid
amounts back, you canupdate your buyout file byentering the quantities andthe price. For quick access tothe vendor quote sheet,double click on the vendorand the quote sheet will open.You are now ready to inputthe quantities and prices thatyou have received from yourvendor. This information ofcurrent pricing is very helpfulsince you can save this vendorpricing into a standard pricefeature.
Standard pricing allowsyou to save your vendorpricing for a select amount oftime. If the vendor pricing ona particular item is good forsix months, you can let thesoftware input the selecteditem pricing for the six-monthperiod. If you put a quantityand vendor into your esti-mate, when you create yourbuyout file, the price can beinput into the quote byselecting the vendor andapplying the standard pricing.
Once you have all ofyour quote sheets back fromvendors, you can determinewhich prices you’ll be using.As you enter the pricing,you’ll notice that the lowestpriced vendor will beswitched to the front position,allowing you to always seethe lowest numbers next toyour estimated amounts.
Buyout allows you toupdate your estimate andinclude items from yourestimate that you might have
- 9 -June/July 2006
added, such as alternates orplan revisions. You can alsoimport additional estimatesfor group pricing. An examplewould be homebuilders whoget better pricing for largequantity orders, such aslumber or interior furnishings.
Issuing CommitmentsYou are now ready to
make selections for theissuing of commitments onthe project. The issuing of thecommitments is similar to theissuing of the RFQ; you areallowed to fax, e-mail orprint. Select the issue and thevendors that are to receive thecommitment and issue. Youalso have the option to exportdirectly to Job Cost and thenissue the commitment from aform in Project Managementor Job Cost. As you selecteach vendor for a commit-ment, you’ll be asked to entera number, or you can set youroptions to auto-increment thenumbers. This number be-comes very important be-cause, in Accounting [capital-ized as a module?], thenumber follows through forthe entire job when invoicesare entered against the job.
Updating Job CostAfter issuing commitments,
you can then update your Job Costaccounting. If you are usingLocations or Extras, make surethat you select the correct map-ping being used on the exportfeature. Correct mapping willensure that your commitments godirectly into the extra, cost codeand budget line item. If you forgetto select the mapping selection,the item is created on a separateline in your job cost reports,
created a reject file, alwaysdouble check the reject to seewhat issues have caused thefile to reject. Most of the timethis can be as simple as amissing job number. If thishappens, it is best to add themissing information andrecreate an export/import filerather then attempting tointerface with errors.
As an added feature, youcan select which Buyoutfolders you would like yourstandard pricing to update theEstimating database. Thatensures that your estimatedatabase always has the mostcurrent pricing. With all of themarket changes and pricingchanges due to our currenteconomy, this feature can saveyou a lot of time.
After you select the itemsyou want to update, save thefile with a date, as well as aname. This will help youremember when the priceswere created. The screen willtell you how to update yourEstimating database. If youhave several people workingfrom the same database, thismight be a task for yourdatabase administrator oryour lead estimator.
As you can see, SageTimberline Office Buyout can
help your bidding process in manydifferent ways: sending out RFQs,updating your hard bid, updatingyour database pricing so that youalways have current pricing, aswell as issuing and updating yourcommitments.
without listing the extra or loca-tion.
As the screen shot aboveshows, you can map this buyout inseveral different ways, but be verycareful that it fits your hard bidestimate you may be importingdirectly from Estimating. If youhave a question on where yourbuyout is allocated to, you canopen the export file withMicrosoft® Excel to see thateverything is listed. If your file
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One often-overlookedadd-on module to theTimberline Estimating
system is the SchedulingIntegrator. Thissoftware allows youto quickly takeestimating informa-tion, summarize it,and then transfer itto MicrosoftProject®, PrimaveraP3®, Suretrack®, orany other schedul-ing software thatwill read those fileformats. Thetransfer automati-cally creates tasksor activities in thescheduling programand then assignsduration, resources,costs, notes, andmore to the activity.
The transfer issimplicity itself.After the initialsetup, it is literally aone-click process.The initial setuptakes about fiveminutes.From theDatabase menu,select EstimateSettings, Scheduletab. Select thescheduling applica-tion you are trans-ferring to (forexample, MicrosoftProject, Primavera,etc.), the task oractivity grouping,and some general scheduling andresource information. The fieldGenerate activities by determines
how the estimating informationwill be organized into tasks oractivities in the scheduling appli-cation. You can group your
The Simple Way to Build That Scheduleby: Gary Simpson • Sage Software
activities by item, any WBScode, or sort field.
When you are finishedwith the one-time setup, you
can easily generatethe informationinto your schedul-ing software. Fromthe interface menu,select Scheduling,and click theGenerate button.The integrator thensummarizes theinformation,calculates theduration*, convertsit into the schedul-ing format that youselected, andplaces it in thescheduling projectfiles folder thatyou set up.
Once theinformation istransferred toscheduling, yousimply open thescheduling appli-cation and providethe sequencinglogic
Sending theestimate informa-tion, resources,costs and notes toyour schedulingapplication withthe SchedulingIntegrator can saveyou hours of dataentry time whensetting up a
schedule.*The calculation of duration
is much more accurate if you areusing crews.
Turn your estimate into aschedule with the click of a mouse.
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June 16, 2006
Houston Local Chapater Meeting
lunch provided
June 21, 2006
Iowa Local Chapter Meeting
June 21, 2006
Tampa Bayl Chapter Meeting
July 20, 2006
Dallas Local Chapter Meeting
July 26, 2006
Central Indiana Local Chapter Meeting
August 16, 2006
Iowa Local Chapter Meeting
August 16, 2006
Tampa Bayl Chapter Meeting
September 6, 2006
Nebraska Local Chapter Meeting
October 6, 2006
Nebraska Local Chapter Meeting
October 18, 2006
Iowa Local Chapter Meeting
October 18, 2006
Tampa Bayl Chapter Meeting
October 25, 2006
Central Indiana Local Chapter Meeting
November 6, 2006
Nebraska Local Chapter Meeting
June 16 Estimating Scheduling Integrator
June 21 Beginning Financial Statements
June 23 Modifying Crystal Reports
June 28 Basic Cash Management
June 30 On-Screen Takeoff
July 7 Beginning Report Designer
July 12 Beginning ODBC
July 14 Beginning Payroll
July 19 Beginning Change Management
July 21 Beginning Takeoff
August 2 Advanced Change Management
August 9 Advanced ODBC
August 16 Address Book
We are currently working on a schedule to bring you moreopportunities. Please watch the Pulse and our website foran updated calendar.
There is no charge for online training. This is one of the manybenefits of membership in the Timberline Users Group. Webinars areheld at 12:00 noon Eastern time at TUG.webex.com.To participate,email the TUG office at [email protected]. You will receive an emailconfirming your participation and with instructions for logging on andjoining the audio portion of the session. Keep watching the Pulse foran updated calendar.
Register Early. Space is limited to 30 seats.
December 13, 2006
Iowa Local Chapter Meeting
December 13, 2006
Tampa Bayl Chapter Meeting
May 9-11, 20072006 TUG National
Workshops & ConferenceGrapevine, Texas
April 30 - May 2, 20082006 TUG National
Workshops & ConferenceNashville, Tennessee
May 13 - 15, 20092006 TUG National
Workshops & ConferenceGrapevine, Texas
May 19 - 21, 20102006 TUG National
Workshops & ConferenceOrlando, Florida
Power to the User
Online Training Opportunitiesfrom TUG
321
Three Options to Producing Your Historical Statementsby: Eire Stewart • JP DiNapoli Companies, Inc.
You may think that SageTimberline Office canonly produce historical
financial statements going back13 months, but it’s just not true!If you haven’t adoptedarchiving procedures yet, a little“out of the box” thinking,combined with creative finan-cial statement designing, getsyou three different solutions tothis common dilemma:
1. If all you need is year-endfinancial statements, Timber-line maintains five years ofhistorical year-end figures.Simply take your existingstatement design and substi-tute “Current Balance” with“End Balance X Years Ago,”selecting the year of yourchoice. Go to Timberline’sKnowledgebase for moredetailed instructions.
2. If you think you may needhistorical financial statementsfor quarterly periods orspecific months, once youhave recorded all year-endadjusting and tax returnentries, use Tools, File Tools tocopy a duplicate directoryunder another name.As an example, theT:\Timberline\Main Propertiesdirectory might be copied toT:\Timberline\Main 2005.This will preserve the detail
balances so that financialstatements can be run for anindividual period. Rememberto upgrade this directory alongwith your main directorywhen installing new versionsof Timberline Office.
3. Budgets aren’t subject to thefive-year historical limit; theylast forever and provide anideal resource for storing backdata. These fields are fullyaccessible in Financial State-ment Designer, making them agreat tool for creating histori-cal financial statements.
The process of storing themonthly activity balances to budgetfields can be done using ODBCand the Import Budget processavailable under Tools. To see thestep-by-step how-to instructions,read the January and February2005 Pulse articles “There’s aPlace to Store Your Stuff.”
