Charges Report by Department

[bigtoneloc]

Hi Support,

I have a client who needs a further breakdown charges by department.
e.g. if the client name is BigHospital, subgroups might be Admin, ClinicalTrials, DrSmithClinic, DrJonesClinic and so on...

Then when I send a breakdown of how we used our time the client can see which areas we worked on and pass on some of our costs to those units.

I was looking at using either Field1 in the charges to define a few catagories, or the Department section of the account field.

If I use the Department field how do I report charges by department? Is the only way to dump it excel using custom export? I tried creating a custom report which was a copy of 'Charges by Contract' but I couldn't see the field Charges Account: Department as a pop up field.

If I use Field1 and add it in a ticket and then change the name of Field1 in my definitions then it doesn't update the old tickets, i.e. it's only a text field not a database field.

Any suggestions on how to deal with these sub accounts effectively?

Regards,
Tony

P.S We are happy with the software!

[Support Team]

Re: Charges Report by Department

Using Field1 is indeed an option for this. Another option that may be better in some cases would be to manage departments/subgroups as Secondary Contacts for the main Account.

You can then select an appropriate contact when adding a Ticket for ab Account. Then. when charging the Ticket contact is automatically filled for the new Charge, so you shouldn't select it again (unlike with Field1).

Exporting to Excel is indeed an option. When using the advanced Export feature you can also select to export the "Contact First and Last Name" (that holds the department name).

Customizing a report for this specific requirement is not very easy though (but doable):

You can add Contact field to your custom Charge reports. The exact data field name is:
"Charges - Contact: Contact: First & Last Name".

It is also possible to sort and group the Charge records included in some Charge reports by Contact. For example, you can sort by this field in the "List of Charges" report.

When customizing the report you should add a Report group while in the Report Designer (learn here about adding groups).

You should also allow sorting reports by the Charge Contact field.
Open a new Charge window -> right click above the 'Contact' field label ->select 'Field settings'-> Advanced Tab-> check "Enable report sort by this field".

When generating "List of Charges" report you should click to Sort by Contact field. Also, filter the Charge report for this specific 'special' Account so only Charge records related to it will be included and printed.

I hope this helps.
Dina

[bigtoneloc]

Re: Charges Report by Department

Thanks Dina, yes it does help.
In the end I did it with Field one, that seems to be the easiest one for the techs to use to code the charges.