ShowMgr distinguishes planned activity from recorded activity. Bookings contain planned quantities, dates and financial values. Actuals contain recorded work or usage and their own cost and revenue values. Purchase orders and invoices connect that activity to commercial documents.
| Record | How it connects |
|---|---|
| Booking | Actuals, purchase-order lines and invoice lines can reference a booking. |
| Purchase-order line | Belongs to a purchase order. |
| Actual | Can be referenced by an invoice line. |
| Invoice line | Belongs to an invoice. |
These relationships let financial records be traced back to operational work. Bookings, actuals, purchase orders and invoices are created and updated through their respective workflows.
Each record answers a different question
| Record | Main question | Data used for reconciliation |
|---|---|---|
| Budget or bid | What work and value are being estimated? | Bid identity, versions and booking associations |
| Booking | What is planned? | Element, quantity, planned dates, cost and revenue units, rates and totals |
| Actual | What work or usage was recorded? | Booking reference, actual dates and units, financial totals and approval information |
| Purchase order | What is being ordered from a vendor? | Vendor, PO status, line items and related work |
| Invoice | What is being billed? | Customer, invoice status, line items and related bookings or actuals |
Commercial lines connect to work
Purchase-order lines can reference bookings, and purchase orders also have order associations. Invoice lines can reference bookings and actuals. These relationships allow a reviewer to trace a commercial line back to the work it concerns.
Keep header and line relationships separate. The order associated with a purchase order provides overall context; a line's booking reference identifies the planned item. An invoice line's actual reference identifies recorded work included in that line.
Planned and actual amounts are separate
Booking and actual records have separate cost and revenue fields, units, rate information, currencies and fees. Actuals also carry approval and billing information. Differences between plan and actual can reflect changes in the work, recorded units or financial treatment.
ShowMgr provides operations for entering actuals and copying plan data to actuals. Copying planned information is an operation on the selected work; plan and actual records retain separate values afterward.
Status belongs to its record
Order status, booking status, actual approval status, purchase-order status and invoice status describe different stages of work. A completed booking does not establish that its actuals are approved, that a PO is approved or that an invoice has been posted to an accounting system.
Use the status on the relevant record when deciding whether work is ready for the next financial operation.
Reconcile the same records and measures
Start with the order and booking identities. Follow them to the actual rows and PO or invoice lines. Then compare dates, included statuses, units, currency, and whether the values represent cost or revenue.
Parent/child rollups and package contents can also affect how totals are presented. Match the level of detail before comparing a worksheet with a report.
Rates, units, multipliers, fees, markups and discounts can contribute to financial values. Use the applicable financial fields and calculation settings when explaining a total; hours multiplied by a base rate does not describe every scenario.