General Work Order Process

Step 1: A department requests a work order. This request for work may be for anything from fixing a light switch to remodeling a room. Large projects, such as constructing a building, are usually handled through the Job Ledger with smaller work orders attached.

Step 2: The department enters the work order. Some organizations may not want to allow department-issued work orders, and security can be set up to restrict such access. However, security can also be set up to restrict a department to only entering basic information (WOUPWR). The details of the work request can then be entered on the Work Order Data Entry (WOUPWO) screen (e.g., description, categorization, requesting department, location, etc.).

Step 3: A report can be set up to display the newly created work orders that are waiting for an estimate. An estimator, in some cases, will then fill in more detail (WOUPWO) concerning the work order (such as materials, labor, etc.). The Status field is used to enter the information on the tracking of the Work Order through the system. The manual entry of IN for Initiated will allow the report to pull all new IN items for a particular date. The Supervisor would then put a new entry in the Status field (SU, for example) for the Finance person to pull the report to move forward for Account entry. The Status would change with each new person making an entry into the Work Order subsystem. These changes are done manually, not electronically.

Step 4: At this point, the work order will enter the approval stage. Security codes and associated approval codes are predefined by the client to allow users with the proper authority to approve work orders. A work order can go through multiple levels of approval before becoming a true work order. (The former state of the work order can be referred to as a work request, although the work request number is considered the work order number).

Step 5: When the work order completes its last approval stage, the status of the work order is changed to active, and an encumbrance is created if needed. There must be a posting preference in place for this to happen automatically. In addition, the Encumber checkbox on WOUPWO, Misc. Information tab, needs to be checked.

Step 6: Now that the work order is defined and approved, activity relating to the work order may be collected. A lead worker enters the activity on an entry screen, and the system stores the activity as work order processing details.

Step 7: If needed, interfaces can be implemented to collect work order detail as it is posted to other subsystems. For instance, Accounts Payable, Stores Inventory, and Payroll may all post work order-related transactions to the work order subsystem as detail. The primary advantage to this is reconciliation issues that may arise between WO and the other subsystems.

Step 8: The next step is to post the work orders to GL/JL. There are many cases where work order detail does not need to post to the general ledger, but there are just as many cases where it is necessary. The reason for posting work order information is to verify specific expenses to a particular project, program or maintenance activity and location. Also, there may be a need to reimburse a department for their costs or charge it to the specific department(s) that the work was done for. This can be done at any time during the life of the work order, but most likely will be left until the work order is complete.

Step 9: During the GL/JL posting process, an encumbrance reversal will be made against the original work order encumbrance, if such an encumbrance was requested upon creating the work order.

Step 10: Flagging the work order as complete will indicate to the encumbrance payment process that a final payment must be issued against the original work order encumbrance (if the work order was defined to encumber).

Step 11: At any point during the accumulation of work order activity, though commonly upon work order completion, an AR bill may be generated if the work is billable to an external source.