Concepts

Tasks

Settings

On-site Contractors

Contents

Procurement Process for On-site Contractors

Creating a Requisition for an On-site Contractor

Creating a Supplier Resource for an On-site Contractor

Creating a Purchase Order for an On-site Contractor

Adding an On-site Contract Employee

Selecting Contractors for a Supplier Resource Price

Creating an Invoice for an On-site Contractor

This section provides an overview of setting up and working with on-site contractors.

An on-site contractor is a worker who is employed by a supplier and is on-site at your organization for the length of the contract. The on-site contractor works full-time at your site for an extended period of time (for example, six months, a year, or longer). On-site contractors are planned using trade resources. An APM employee is created for each on-site contractor.

Setting up On-site Contractors

Work can be planned for on-site contractors using the same trades as are used for regular employees. However, you may want to set up purchasing rules on trades used for contractors. Trades that are available for purchasing can be:

•	linked to suppliers

•	used to create supplier resources and prices

•	included on an RFQ

•	included on purchase order lines

You will need to create an APM employee record for each on-site contractor. Creating an employee record for an on-site contractor is similar to creating a record for an internal employee, except that you will identify the employee as a contractor, and enter the supplier that employs the contractor on the employee record.

 

Resource Categories for Contractor Trades

When creating trades for use with contractors, you will need to select a resource category that can be used with trades, and that includes appropriate default cost types for both expensed and capital costs for job and on-site contractors.

See **Setting up Resource Categories.

Procurement Process

Purchasing an on-site contractor's services follows the normal procurement cycle:

•	A manual requisition is created requesting the on-site contractor (optional)

•	An RFQ is created and issued to solicit bids from possible suppliers (optional)

•	The supplier's bids are analyzed and the winning bid is selected (optional)

•	A contract and set of supplier-resource prices are created (optional)

•	The requisition is approved (optional)

•	A purchase order is created and sent to the supplier. The purchase order is kept open until the contract is over. The contractor’s timecards will be recorded against the purchase order.

•	Once you have created an employee record for the contractor, you will be able to plan, assign, and schedule work

Supplier Resources

Supplier resource prices are used to identify the supplier’s price for each supplied trade. This is the price at which the on-site contractor’s work is charged; it is used as the rate on the timecards created to record the contractor’s work.

The on-site contractors (employees) who are eligible to use the price must be identified on the supplier resource price. Only on-site contractor employees who are employed by the supplier are available for selection.

Requisitions

Use a manual requisition to request a new on-site contractor. This begins the process of approving and procuring the on-site contractor. This purpose of this requisition is not to request the contractor to work on a specific job; that comes later when the contractor has been approved and is on site.

RFQs

The RFQ process for an on-site contractor is basically the same as for other manual requisitions:

•	The request for an RFQ may be created automatically (depending on your site’s settings) or can be manually requested

•	The RFQ process must be completed before the requisition is approved or planned complete

The difference between a RFQ for an on-site contractor and for other manual requisitions is that the on-site contractor option must be selected on the RFQ. An on-site contractor RFQ can only contain demands with a purchase type of on-site contractor. RFQs that do not have this option selected cannot contain demands for on-site contractors.

Contracts

Multiple on-site contractor contracts may be created for a supplier. For example, you may want to issue a new annual contract may be issued at the start of each year. Contract pricing agreements may also be used.

The contract's on-site contractor information consists of:

•	The Contract is used for contractor time reporting option.

•	Two options to identify how the supplier's invoices are processed:

•	Invoice lines are matched to individual time cards.

•	Invoice lines are not matched to individual time cards.

For more information, see Invoicing.

Purchase Orders

Creating a purchase order for an on-site contractor provides a record of the procurement process, and the agreed on pricing and terms. Purchase orders for on-site contractors are similar to regular purchase orders, except that the on-site contractor settings must be entered. This makes the PO available for selection on timecards. If you create the purchase order from a contract, the same settings will be used.

Add a purchase order line for each trade that will be reporting time against the purchase order, using the on-site contractor purchase type. If timecards will be entered at different rates, enter a separate line for each rate. For example if the contractor will be reporting time at both regular and overtime rates, add two lines to the purchase order.

Blanket Orders and Releases

The on-site contractor time reporting options are available for use on both blanket orders and blanket releases. When a blanket release is created from a blanket order, the blanket order's values are defaulted to the release. The values can be changed on the release, if appropriate.

Work Planning, Scheduling, and Reporting

Once the procurement process is complete and the contractor is on site, work is planned, scheduled and reported in the same way as for regular employees. Trade requirements are added to work order tasks, with the fulfillment method of “maintenance”, and can be added to availability schedules along with internal employees.

On-site contractors record their time using timecards. Timecards for on-site contractors must reference the contractor’s purchase order, and the appropriate purchase order line. The supplier resource price on the purchase order line is used to calculate the value of the transaction.

Invoicing

On-site contractors are paid out of accounts payable, not payroll. The supplier's invoice is entered, and the invoice lines may be matched to the timecards entered by the on-site contractor. The liabilities created by the timecards are collected on the contractor’s purchase order.

The reconciliation of the supplier's invoice for the work performed by the on-site contractors may either be performed with APM's invoicing function, or manually outside of invoicing.

If the invoice is reconciled within APM invoicing, a purchase liability is created for each of the on-site contractor timecards. In this case, APM invoicing works the same way as it does with other purchase order invoices:

•	Invoice lines are created for each timecard

•	The time (quantity) invoiced can be adjusted down if the full time is not being invoiced. The time invoiced cannot be increased to a value greater than what was reported on the timecard

•	The value of the invoice line may be changed to the price on the invoice. The change is subject to the standard invoice price change tolerance checks.

•	Once the invoice is balanced and any price changes have been approved, the invoice is posted. Maintenance costs are updated with the difference between the value of the time cards and the invoice lines

However, matching invoice lines to individual timecards may be too rigid of a process for a contractor's invoice: the number of on-site contractors and resulting timecards may be too large; the information entered on the timecards may not be 100% accurate; or the supplier's invoice may simply not contain enough information for the invoicing clerk to do the reconciliation. In this case, you may want to perform the reconciliation outside of APM invoicing. The reconciliation and invoice entry process is then:

•

The supplier's invoice is sent to maintenance to reconcile or approve. The maintenance supervisor or another designated individual compares the invoice information and amounts to the work performed by the on-site contractors. This can be done by reviewing the timecards for the period of time being invoiced.

•	Once the invoice is reconciled, the invoice is returned to accounting where the invoice and lines are entered from scratch. The invoice lines are not being matched to an originating set of purchase liabilities.

•	In order for your maintenance costs to accurately reflect the costs of the work performed by the on-site contractors, any differences between the value charged on the time cards and the invoice must be manually distributed to the appropriate work orders, assets and maintenance accounts.

If you are not using APM invoicing, you may adapt either of these approaches to your invoicing processes and interfaces.