JobRunner Project Controls

Updated September 25, 2026 12:44

JobRunner Project Controls

Personnel Access Controls for Project Changes

This feature is released in the v23b8.x update

If you had the previous JobRunner Controls lifted, this update sets them back in place so that you can control and set user permissions yourself.

Overview

The JobRunner control enhancements offer a spectrum of control options, spanning from complete restriction to unrestricted access for project changes. At Pacific Solutions, our recommended best practice for managing project changes is to utilize the budget adjustment tool for modifying project budgets and the contract adjustment tool for altering the overall contract total. In order to safeguard the integrity of your financial Work-in-Progress (WIP) report and facilitate thorough financial job audits, we advise against granting project control activities to your users. The more individuals involved in pivotal project alterations, the greater the challenge in utilizing financial tools to arrive at sound business decisions.

Modifying job information has the potential to retroactively impact previously processed Work-in-Progress (WIP) reports from prior months. The monthly adjustment of WIP has significant implications for the company's financial statements. Allowing changes to projects with dates falling within those processed months would result in alterations to the WIP reports that have already been utilized to formulate financial statements and make critical financial decisions for the business.

Personnel Access

The JobRunner Project Controls enhancement is designed to establish a structured framework where the accounting controller assumes sole control. The accounting controller will have the authority to determine the level of access granted to users for performing specific changes on unlocked projects. This ensures a centralized and accountable approach to project controls, empowering the accounting controller to manage and regulate the extent of user involvement in project modifications that affect the WIP report.

All jobs in JobRunner will automatically lock when they are transferred from a proposal to an order. Legacy jobs that were never locked will auto lock when users navigate to them. This is to ensure changes are made intentionally and not accidentally. The auto lock options in defaults and personnel access are now deprecated in JobRunner. There are specific options for unlocking jobs available. Listed below is each option with its definition of access.

Locking / Unlocking Job Options:

Allow Unlocking Sales: the user may unlock any job that is not closed.
Allow Unlocking Closed Sales: the user may unlock any job including those that have been closed.
Restrict Unlocking Access (SP): users may only unlock their own jobs and only within the parameters from the above 2 options.

Understanding these concepts will help you in your access decisions:

The term Rev Rec refers to a project that is marked as percentage of completion. These controls do not affect completed contract jobs (in case you live in a hybrid environment in your JobRunner system).

Any activity performed adheres to the record's date and not the date the activity was executed. For example, a job created on May 20, 2023, has this date at the top of the record. If someone adds a new line to that job on July 5, 2023, that line now lives on May 20, 2023.

Red Flag icons on lines in the project will display the last change made on the line. It does not, as of this writing, show a log of all changes. The activity log in the admin area can display limited information about who did certain actions and when.

Green Flags only indicate a line was added after the job was transferred from a proposal.

Budget Change History is an area through the profits tab that shows the audit trail of each budget adjustment entry made with the Adjust Budget tool.

The following table displays the allowable activity, its definition, its repercussions, and whether it has an audit trail.

Pacific Solutions recommends full project control restrictions (no allowances to changes) on JobRunner Project Controls. That being said, we have made some recommended setting suggestions should you need to relax these controls for specific situations by the controller.

Enable Unlocked RR Job Modifications:

Activity	Definition	Repercussions	Audit Trail
*These are the recommended adjustment tools for projects in JobRunner*
Allow Budget Adjustments	Allows user to use the Adjust Budget Tool at the profits tab to modify the budget on the project in the proper way.	This action increases or decreases the total budget in a project by creating a budget adjustment line in the project.	Full audit trail.
Allow Contract Adjustments	Allows users to use the Adjust Contract Tool at the profits tab to modify the contract on the project in the proper way.	This action increases or decreases the total contract in a project by creating a contract adjustment line in the project.	Full audit trail.
*These are not recommended adjustment tools for projects in JobRunner*
Allow Rev Rec Job Line Add/Delete	Allows users to add new lines and delete existing lines from a project at any time.	These actions will change both the budget and contract amounts in the month that the project was created. This historical change will retroactively change the WIP report.	Green flags on the job indicate new lines added after the job was created. The activity log has limited details on items deleted although it can show you who deleted an item.
Allow Rev Rec Job Line Quan Mod	Allows users to modify the sell quantity on a line at any time.	This action will change both the budget and contract amounts in the month that the project was created. This historical change will retroactively change the WIP report.	Green flags on the job can indicate that a quantity change was made as long as this action was the last change to take place on the line.
Allow Rev Rec Job Line Budget Mod	Allows users to modify the budgeted unit cost in the line on the profits tab of the job.	This action changes the anticipated cost in the line. This changes the WIP report budget totals retroactively.	No audit trail. Red flags on the job can indicate the last change on the line. IF the last change was a budget cost it will display that.
Allow Rev Rec Job Line Sell Mod	Allows users to change the sell price on the line of an existing job.	This action changes the sell price on the line in turn, changing the total contract amount. This changes the WIP report contract total retroactively.	No audit trail. Red flags on the job can indicate the last change on the line. IF the last change was a sell price it will display that.
Allow Rev Rec Job Labor Line Lookups	Allows users to change labor lines and relook up labor costs and sell prices based on the new selection of labor description.	This action will change the budget totals and the contract totals. This action changes the WIP report budgets and contract totals retroactively.	No audit trail.
Allow Job Line Date Editing	Allows users to change the date of creation on lines in the job.	This does irreparable retroactive harm to the WIP report and to downstream system activities i.e. AR and AP.	No audit trail.
Allow Rev Rec Job GT Override	Allows users to use the grand total override feature at the job.	This action changes the contract total. This action changes the WIP report contract totals retroactively.	No audit trail.
Allow Rev Rec GPM Changes	Allows Users to use the gross profit margin tab to set the margin on the existing job.	This action changes the contract total. This action changes the WIP report contract totals retroactively.	No audit trail.
Allow Rev Rec Overhead Changes	Allows users to change the overhead dollars and percentages on an existing job.	This action changes the total budgeted cost of the job.	No audit trail.

Accounting Controller Recommended Settings

These are the recommended settings for the accounting controller.

The controller manages how much access other users have at jobs directly at the job when they unlock the job.

This person can give all of their abilities to a job or this person can give specific abilities to a job depending on the nature of that particular project.

Unlocking the job will display the accounting controller's abilities on the unlock screen.

Once the job in the project is unlocked, the controller defines what can be done to that job by other users.

The controller can then modify those options in the selection window so that when other users are working on the job, they are only allowed to perform certain actions.

The controller also selects a date that job will automatically re-lock. This date is required before you can unlock the job.

When a user navigates to that job, they will only be able to perform the activities that the controller has specified.

The user can review what activities are possible by opening the settings button at the job.

The date of re-lock and the last person to unlock the job is also displayed.

In certain business scenarios, it may be deemed necessary to extend this level of access beyond a single controller. Particularly in larger organizations, there may be a need to designate location managers who can be granted specific levels of access for unlocking jobs. This approach can help distribute the workload among multiple individuals while still maintaining a reasonable level of restrictions.

However, it is crucial to emphasize that the goal is to limit the number of users with unrestricted project change capabilities. Access should be granted with utmost care and reserved exclusively for trusted business leaders. This ensures that the responsibility and decision-making authority remains in the hands of individuals who possess the necessary expertise and oversight to manage project controls effectively.

Project Changes Guidelines

Keep changes to the current open fiscal month.
Close change orders each month to align with the WIP reporting period.
Do not unlock closed jobs to make changes.
Do not make changes to projects that display a header date in processed fiscal periods.
Limit users' access to perform unnecessary changes to projects.
A controller and/or high-level managers should be the only users with any kind of direct allowances to change projects in progress.

Controlled Changes

Full Audit Best Practices

These best practices scenarios have full audit trails and are the ones that Pacific Solutions encourages you to utilize to make budget and contract adjustments to projects.

Best Practice Scenario 1: Adjusting Project Budget

The project had unsound budgets or an unrealistic GPM established during the proposed bid process. This could be due to oversight, supply chain challenges or other unforeseen exceptions as assessed by the budget review meeting team. The project's budget, once assessed, can be modified by using the Budget Adjustment Tool.

Best Practice Scenario 2: Changing Material Lines

Material that is still "to be determined (TBD)" needs to be identified during phases of the project as actual materials. These materials have been budgeted for the project however at the time of proposing the bid, the actual materials were not known. Solution: This type of change on a material line is possible even in full project control restriction. Users do not need project controls turned on to make this kind of change on a project. Selecting a product ID number or manually defining a product on the line is allowable. The line will bring in the new product while keeping the budget cost and sell price established at the proposal in tact.

Best Practices Scenario 3: Adjusting Contract Totals

The contract needs overall contract adjustments due to a variance between the proposal and the exact dollar amount in the awarded contract value. These are typically small variances. - use the contract adjustment tool.

Open Season Practices

These suggestions have limited audit trails. We make these suggestions to assist with real-world scenarios where you would need to un-restrict project controls. We call it "open season" so that it is clear that the project is unbound for changes that will be difficult to audit although might be necessary.

*Use at your own risk. You're taking on the full responsibility for repercussions and loss of WIP report integrity.*

Time and Material Jobs:

Jobs that work around repairs and warranties are often called Time and Material Jobs. These jobs are awarded without much assessment initially. Typically, the proposal begins with some standard labor that needs to be done and at least a couple lines of standard materials. The extent of the repair is not quantified at the time of the request. The work is then completed, and the amount of material and labor is trued up towards the end of the job. You could allow the following: allow adding lines, modifying quantities, modifying costs/sell, GT override, GPM, and changing labor lines.

Ongoing Floor Prep Work:

Some businesses practice creating change orders that stay open for the current month and will charge the client for these change orders each monthly period. These change orders have additional chargeable materials and labor added to them throughout the month as the project supervisors approve additional work. A good example of this is ongoing floor prep work that continues to be over and above the amounts provided in the base contract. This takes a particular kind of relationship with the client and this process is not recommended by Pacific Solutions as a general practice. The method loses the audit trail of when why and by whom changes were requested for the project. You could allow the following: allow adding lines, modifying quantities, modifying costs/sell, GT override, GPM, and changing labor lines.

Cage Materials (blades, trowels, etc.):

Small job items that are in the warehouse such as blades, trowels, and tape may not be itemized initially in the proposal. These types of materials still need to be tracked in the warehouse inventory. These types of materials could be tracked manually in the warehouse to projects and assessed weekly to properly cost them to their corresponding projects. These could be tracked on no-charge change orders each month and closed out each month. You could allow the following: allow adding lines, modifying quantities, modifying costs, and changing labor lines.

Unit of Measure Change on Material:

Occasionally, a project has a material specified and later it is discovered that the specified material is not available. A new product must be selected and the new product is a different unit of measure than the original. For example, the original product was Mapei Prism Grout and now that it is not available, a comparable manufacturer's grout is chosen but it comes in a different unit of measure. If you want to modify the budget to match this change, you could allow only to modify the budget in the line.

FAQ

Why is the WIP report changing?

Check to see which JR Project Controls are open for your users. These are the leaks in the WIP report integrity.

If I use the full JR lockdown method, can I still make changes to the project while it is in the process?

Yes. You can still change a product on the line. This will maintain your established budget and contract pricing while allowing you to modify product information. You can also change the anticipated cost of material and labor on the job in progress. This change will transfer to the purchase orders and work orders while it maintains the budgeted cost established in the proposal.

If I decide to unlock a job in progress, how do I make sure it gets locked back up again?

Enter a lock date on the unlock screen. Be sure to enter a lock date on the permissions screen when unlocking, this will ensure that the job re-locks on that date. Once you enter a date, you can also use the lock button at the job to lock the project immediately.

If I decide to go open season on my permissions, can Pacific Solutions help me figure out what went wrong on a project?

Not very easily. We recommend only using the audit-traceable methods mentioned above. If we need to research for you, there are fees attached to the lengthy process.

How do I keep the staff from changing projects all over the place?

Keep the system on full lockdown. However, if you must give allowances be sure to limit the number of staff you give allowances to so that you can control the number of changes to your projects and your WIP report.

Training-v23b8.x-20230802BG-KB