Projects

Projects, the starting point for Rebates, are used to manage rebate rules.

User permission: Rebates

Projects are the starting point for the Rebates module. A project is a collection of rebate rules. You can have as many projects as required to efficiently manage your rules and meet the needs of your supply chain.

You typically use a project to organize rules, so before you start creating projects and rules, take a minute to think about how you want to structure those projects.

The rules in a project don’t have to be related to each other. However, they do need to be based on the same Phocas database and stream. You will need several projects if your rebate rules are based on more than one Phocas database or different streams within a database.

Other reasons for having separate projects...

You might also want to have separate projects for:

• All payable rebates

• Each customer or group of customers (payable rebates)

• All receivable rebates

• Each supplier or group of suppliers (receivable rebates)

• Each rebate program

• Each year, for example, you might want to keep your 2023 rebate rules in a separate project from your 2022 rebate rules

In summary, you can have multiple projects linked to one database, and separate projects for different databases.

Projects have no access restrictions because there is no such thing as project ownership. Therefore, all Rebates users can access all projects, so long as they have access to the underlying databases.

Watch this Phocas Academy video: Create a new Rebates project

Open a project

Click Rebates in the Phocas navigation menu to open the Rebates homepage.

If you are just starting with the Rebates module, you’ll have no projects, so the grid will be empty. Otherwise, the grid will display a list of all your organization’s projects. To open a project, click the its name (blue link). What happens next depends on whether the project has been set up or not:

• If the project has already been set up, you’ll land on the project page, which contains a list of its rules. You can then proceed to manage the rules as required. To open the project setup screen, click Setup in the top-right corner.

• If the project has not been set up yet (you have just created the project), you land on the Project Setup screen. You can then proceed to set up the project as required before adding rules.

To close an individual project page and return to your homepage, click the Close button in the top-right corner.

Create a project

There are two ways to create a project in Rebates: clone an existing project or create a new one from scratch.

Cloning a project is the simplest and quickest option, as you base the new project on one that you already have set up, taking advantage of existing rules, and so on. Cloning also saves time if you need to duplicate several rules, which is useful in the following situations:

• To create a backup project before making changes to rules.

• To create a draft project to experiment with different scenarios, such as calculating different commissions.

• To roll all the rules within a project over to the next financial year, without having to recreate them all.

Clone a project

1. On your Rebates homepage, select the project you want to clone by clicking the number to the left of its name, then click Clone.

   
2. Enter a name for the new project.

3. (Optional) Change the validation period that applies to the rules within the project: Select the Alter Validation Period checkbox, then use one of these methods to set the period:

   • Select Increment and enter the number of months by which you want to change the period. For example, if the validation period for your project started on 1 July 2023, entering 12 would move the start date by 12 months to 1 July 2024.

   • Select Fixed Dates and select the period start date (mandatory) and end date (optional).

4. Click Clone.

   

Create a new project from scratch

1. On your Rebates homepage, click New Project.

2. Enter a name (required) and description (optional) for the project.

3. Select a database to use for your rule calculations.

   • The dropdown list displays all Phocas databases to which you have access. If you cannot see the required database in the list, contact your administrator and request access to that database.

   • As the project holds a collection of rebate rules, the type of rule you want to create in this project helps you select the correct database. Typically, payable rebates are based on a Sales database and receivable rebates are based on a Purchases database. If you plan on having both types of rebate rules in the project, you’ll need to select a database that contains both sales and purchases data.

4. Click Save.

   

Set up a project

After you create a project using either of the methods above, you’ll see the name of the new project in the grid along with the name of the underlying database. If you cloned another project, you’ll see the new project has the same description as the original one.

Your new project is not yet ready for use; you need to set up the project before you can add any rules.

Click the project name. If you are setting up the project for the first time, the Project Setup window opens automatically. If not, the project page opens, in which case, click Setup in the top-right corner.

The project setup is organized into several sections, as outlined below.

General

In the General section, you can:

• Edit the project’s name and description. You enter the name during the project creation process, but you can change it here at any time.

• See who last modified the project and when that was. If you've just created the project, you’ll see your name, today’s date, and recent time stamp.

• Control whether the project is active. By default, projects are active, as indicated by the selected Active checkbox. To deactivate the project, clear the checkbox.

Database

In the Database section you can see information about the source database. This information is for reference purposes only, so you cannot edit it.

Receivable and Payable

The Receivable and Payable sections determine the type of rebate rules that the project contains. Given that a project is associated with a single database, it is unusual for payable and receivable rules to be in the same project, so typically, you select either receivable or payable. However, if the underlying database contains the required data, it is possible for a project to contain both types of rules. You must select at least one type.

• If you’re going to receive (claim) rebates, select the Receivable checkbox to enable receivable rebate rules.

• If you’re going to pay rebates, select the Payable checkbox to enable payable rebate rules.

• If you’re going to receive and pay rebates, select both checkboxes to enable both types of rebate rules.

NOTE: After you create rebates for this project, if you come back here and change any of these settings (clear the Enabled checkbox), the affected rules will be set as inactive. You will get a warning before confirming your changes.

After you select the appliable checkbox(es), additional settings become available:

• Select the Stream to be used in this project.

• Select which measures from the database to use to calculate the quantity and value rebates for all the rules in the project. This is separate from the bracket basis for an individual rule, which might use one of those same measures, or a different measure altogether. For example, a project’s rules might pay fixed amounts per quantity measure Pallets and/or a percentage of the value measure Value (USD).

Miscellaneous

• Calculation Precision: The number of decimal points used in calculations. The number of decimal points can significantly affect the results in complex rebate calculations or calculations involving very large numbers. The default setting is six, so you don’t have to do anything here if you are happy with that level of detail.

• Display Precision: The number of decimal points displayed in the calculation results. The default setting is two, which is generally sufficient, but you can go up to six. Alternatively, you might want to change this to zero, if you want to round the results up.

Groups

Rebates within a project can be assigned to groups, which is useful for ease of management. It also provides options for filtering the data in both the Rebates and Analytics modules.

Grouping doesn't affect the setup or calculation of a rebate; it is just a way of categorizing. You might want separate groups for marketing campaigns, product launches, and so on. For example, if you’re in a buying group that represents a group of suppliers, all those suppliers have their own rebate rules. But you, as the customer, might want to analyze all the activity of that buying group in one section of your rebate analysis rather than go through each rule. You can group those suppliers to get a different way of analyzing your information.

Any groups you create here will be available for selection when you are creating a rule.

You can delete a group or edit its description.

When you have set up the project as required, click Save. You land on the project’s page, where you can proceed to create rules or edit the project setup (click Setup) if required.

Delete a project

You can only delete one project at a time. When you delete a project, you also delete all the rules it contains. This action cannot be reversed.

On your Rebates homepage, select the project and click Delete, then click Yes to confirm.

Deactivate a project

Rather than delete a project, you can deactivate it. You can then reactivate it later. When you deactivate a project, you also deactivate the project's rules.

By default, projects are active, as indicated by the selected Active checkbox in the Project Setup. To deactivate a project, clear (deselect) the Active checkbox.