Overview

Over the past years there has been a trend by CWMS vendors to develop additional functionality (in addition to the core work order, inventory and purchasing modules) to meet the needs of clients for a stopgap solution. It is therefore not uncommon to find CWMS solutions offering modules in the areas of accounts payables, accounts receivables, document management, permitting, fleet management, reliability engineering, performance management and report writing (Figure 5.1).

Figure 5.1: CWMS Support Modules.

Usually these modules are included in the price of the software whether you need them or not. They are usually switched off if not needed (e.g., you may have another accounts payables or document management solution) or they are used in a manner transparent to the user to support interfaces to existing systems. This concept is discussed in more detail in Chapter 6. The following discussions review the key features of these modules necessary to support the work management process.

Budgeting And General Ledger

Everything comes down to dollars at least from the accounting perspective. Generally, the budget and expenditure process has to be tracked against the work management process to ensure that funds are used as planned, during the timeframe projected, and are charged to the right buckets for tracking. It is therefore important that the CWMS carry a complete set of general ledger (GL) account codes necessary to support the work and capital project processes. There should be functionality that allows budgeting at various performance center levels (with an associated GL code)...