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The concept of Labor Categories can be used in Unanet in a number of ways. The basic concept is to provide a means to classify certain types of work effort, however, the system has several additional labor category related configuration options. For example, labor categories may be defined with attributes such as an account number and bill and cost rates. Each labor category can have zero to many rates established, each having an effective date. Projects can be configured to have a user's time entry associated with a labor category, labor category derived rates or a person's default rate. These rates will also appear in various reports such as forecast, assignment and plan reports.
This screen is available to users having any of the following roles: Administrator, HR Administrator, and P&R Administrator.
This screen is available with the Project Time, Project Tracking and Project Portfolio family of Unanet licenses.
Topics covered on this help page include:
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Project Labor Categories (labor category options can be overridden on a project basis)
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The Labor Category >> Accounts screen is available to associate labor category specific Accounts to a number of Account Categories, to be used during a variety of posting activities. Whether the Account values you specify on this screen are utilized during the posting procedures will depend on which Posting Group the project being processed is associated with, assuming the activity is project related. Project Posting Groups are designated on the Project Profile >> Accounting tab. Should the associated Posting Group be configured to consider the labor category level accounts, these values may be used. If no specific custom Posting Group governs the project related transactions, then the account defaulting rules specified in the System Default Posting Group will apply.
The list of available Account Categories that can have labor category specific Accounts specified is pre-defined in your system. For more information about Account Categories, see the Account Category Descriptions topic.
When clicking on the 
or 
icons in the Labor Category List, you will be presented with a screen resembling the following. Using the pencil icon, you can edit account category entries and associate or remove an existing account.
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Here are a few considerations as you setup labor categories:
Master Labor Category List -- Administrators can use this Labor Categories setup screen to create and maintain the master set of Labor Categories that will be available in your system.
Project Level Labor Category List -- Project Managers can define (on a project by project basis) a sub-set of these labor categories that will be available for specific projects. Project level labor categories can optionally have custom rates defined as well.
Labor Categories on the Timesheet -- The Hide Labor Category on Timesheet Edit (unatime.timesheet.hide.labor_category) property can be used to display a Labor Category column on the timesheet, to allow users to specify a labor category during timesheet entry.
Labor Categories and Assignments -- Project Managers can explicitly specify a labor category for a specific user's assignment or planned work entry.
User's Default Labor Categories -- Administrators can specify a default labor category for each user on the administrators people maintenance screen (or via the person import).
Depending on your companies business practices, you may use a combination of these options. In addition to the ability to classify work by labor category, Unanet also has a number of options when it comes to person and labor category rates.
Users in Unanet can be defined with a default bill and cost rate.
The master list of Labor Categories can also contain zero to many bill and cost rates with effective dates.
Project Managers can configure each labor category to utilize the master labor category rate or a project level custom set of rates.
Project Managers can limit which Labor Categories are available on a project by project basis.
Projects can be defined to use either a person's or a labor category's rates.
Multiple rates can be establish per labor category (at both the master and project level) along with an associated effective date.
Project Managers can explicitly specify a labor category for a specific user's assignment, but then choose to use either the person's rate or the labor category rate.
Labor Categories can also be used within the Planning module to assist with providing bill and cost information for planning and forecasting purposes.
There are a number of options to consider, and of course, the use of labor categories in Unanet is completely optional all together.
Depending on whether your system is configured with labor categories hidden on the timesheet and whether your projects are defined as requiring labor categories or not, the mechanism to determine a labor category is defined below:
1) Labor Category Hidden on Timesheet and Labor Category is Required on the Project -- The system will first check for the existence of an explicit labor category defined on a governing assignment. If no assignment exists (or the assignment does not have a labor category specified), the system will then lookup the user's default person labor category. If this person default labor category is available on this project's list of valid labor categories it will be used, otherwise, the first labor category on the list will be selected.
2) Labor Category Hidden on Timesheet and Labor Category is Optional on the Project -- The system will first check for the existence of an explicit labor category defined on a governing assignment. If no assignment exists (or the assignment does not have a labor category specified), the system will then lookup the user's default person labor category. If this person default labor category is available on this project's list of valid labor categories, it will be used, otherwise, no labor category will be stamped on the time entry. This last step is the only difference between the first two scenarios.
3) Labor Category Displayed on Timesheet -- If the user has an explicit labor category defined in an assignment, that labor category will be enforced for time charged during the assignment date range. If no assignments exist with a labor category specified, the user will be able to select any option from the project's list of valid labor categories.
Unless the labor categories were explicitly specified on individual user assignments, the user may be able to select (or have defaulted for them) a value from the list of valid labor categories for a project. The list of labor categories valid for a project will include all labor categories that were assigned to the project by the Project Manager. If no project specific labor category list has been defined, then any active labor category defined in the system will be considered as valid for the project.
Changes to the labor categories in either the project-specific or the master lists may result in changes to non-LOCKED / non-EXTRACTED timesheet entries. For example, changing labor category rates will result in a re-rate of all non LOCKED or EXTRACTED time reported against the affected labor category.
If your Unanet system is configured to hide labor categories on the timesheet and the system default logic is being allowed to derive the labor category for a time entry, changes to the labor category list may affect the defaulted entries. Since some of the time entries may have been defaulted to the first labor category in the project's list of valid labor categories, anything that causes that labor category to move to a different position in the list (e.g. name change, addition of a new labor category before it in the list) will cause all non LOCKED or EXTRACTED time stamped with that labor category to be updated with the new first labor category in the list. Time that was previously locked or extracted will not be updated as that time is 'frozen' from further changes.
This note does not apply to Historical Time Entries as they do not participate in any re-rating activities.
