Contractors

Overview

Contractors can be used on Work Order Plans and Work Orders. This functionality is currently not available on Rounds.

Working on Work Orders often involve internal maintenance workers from your own maintenance department who carry out the maintenance jobs described in the Work Orders. However, external work from Contractors may also be required to do maintenance work on your machinery. Examples of Contractors are service technicians from your supplier, or external service companies, which specialize in maintenance of the production equipment, or other types of equipment, used in your company.

If you want to use Contractors on your Work Orders, you set up Vendors for that purpose, and you register expenses regarding Contractors' work hours by using a specific expense category for consumption registration on the Work Orders.

The setup and use of Contractors on Work Orders include

1. Set up Vendors to be used as Contractors on Work Orders.
2. Set up Expense Categories for registering costs related to Contractors' work hours.
3. Create a Work Order Plan (with the Contractor added as Vendor on the Plan), and calculate a Work Order for the Plan. The Contractor starts work on the maintenance job, as described in the Work Order.
4. When the maintenance work is completed, register hours regarding Contractor work as expense registration lines on the Work Order.

Set Up Vendors

You must set up the Vendors you want to use as Contractors as Maintenance Vendors.

1. On your role center, search for and select Vendors.
2. In the Vendors list, select a link in the No. column for the Vendor you want to use as a Contractor.
3. On the Vendor Card > Maintenance FastTab, activate the Maintenance Vendor toggle button (shown in green color).
4. The Work Order Plans, Work Orders, and Posted Work Orders fields contain links to the Plans, Work Orders, or Posted Work Orders that contain expense registration lines related to the Vendor/Contractor.

The general setup of Vendors is part of standard D365BC functionality. Refer to Microsoft documentation to learn more: Setting Up Purchasing.

Set Up Expense Category

You use Expense Categories when you create consumption registration lines for Expenses on a Work Order.

In order to register expenses (hours) for the work done by Contractors, you must set up at least one Expense Category. If you use several Contractors, you may want to set up an Expense Category for each Contractor to for cost tracking purposes. An Expense Category used for a Contractor must be related to a Resource.

Refer to the article Expense Categories to learn how to set up Expense Categories.

The screenshot below shows an example with three Expense Categories set up for Contractors. Each Expense Category relates to a specific Resource (shown in the Type No. and Type Description fields).

Expense Categories for Contractors

Contractor Work on a Work Order

When a Work Order for a Contract job is planned, and the details of the maintenance job are agreed with the Contractor, the Contractor can start working on the job.

When the Contractor has completed a maintentenance job on a Work Order, you may want to upload documents or add remarks to the Work Order. Refer to the article Work on a Work Order for information on how to add those data to the Work Order.

When all maintenance tasks are completed on the Work Order, next step is to register consumption, which includes adding expense registration lines for Contractor work on the Work Order.

Scheduling Board Integration

If you use the Scheduling Board for scheduling and rescheduling work order jobs, you can get an overview of jobs scheduled for Contractors as well as internal resources. Work order jobs for Contractors are shown on the Scheduling Board if expense registration lines regarding the Contractor have been added to the Work Order.

If a work order job includes both internal resource lines and Contractor resource lines, the work order job is shown as scheduled for both resources in the calendar area on the Scheduling Board.

The screenshot below shows an example of a work order job scheduled for a Contractor.

Work order job scheduled for a Contractor

Register Consumption

When the Contractor has completed work on the Work Order, next step is to create and post consumption registration for Contractor work hours.

Refer to the article Register Expenses in Consumption Registrations to learn how to register expenses.

When the Work Order is completed, and all consumption registrations lines have been created (and maybe also posted), refer to the article Post Consumption Registrations and Close a Work Order to learn how to finalize the Work Order by posting and closing it.

The screenshot below shows a Work Order for contractor work with an expense line registration. Note that the expense line is created for "Contractor 30", which is one of the expense categories shown in the screenshot in the Set Up Expense Category article above.

Work Order with expense registration for Contractor work

Contractor Services

Contractor Services are services offered by a Contractor (Vendor).

Contractor Services are shown on the Scheduling Board.

When you are scheduling Work Orders, you can specify that it will be done by a Contractor who offer 'Electrical Work' (Contractor Service).

Later in the planning process, you can pick the actual Contractor: 'The Electrical Company' (Vendor).

The Vendor must exist and be marked as a Maintenance Vendor by marking the "Maintenance Vendor" checkbox on the Vendor Card.