The "Aggregate By" setting in the Associated Costs section of a Budget Payment Application is inconsistent and doesn't always apply the desired aggregation method. Often, Expenses default to aggregating by Qty (Work Completed), even if Amount option was selected on a previous Pay App. This can result in major problems, such as a value increasing from $1,800 to $45,000. On large projects, errors like this can easily go unnoticed and, without detailed line-by-line verification, may lead to significant billing issues.
Even when a discrepancy is identified, it's often difficult to trace the issue back to its source without running multiple reports or manually reconstructing the data in Excel.
Additionally, when the Aggregate By field is set to Qty, the Amount value should reflect the actual value being pulled into the Pay App. For example, if the total Expense is $1,800, then:
- Aggregate by: Amount (Work Completed) should reflect that $1,800
- Aggregate by: Qty (Work Completed) should reflect the calculated value based on quantity and rate
Currently, the Amount column doesn’t change accordingly, even though the Pay App value does, which makes it difficult to validate data against Expense reports by billing period.
Some potential adjustments that could make this feature more transparent:
- Set a default Aggregate By setting at the project level for both Payment Applications and Expenses
- Receive clearer visibility or warnings about which aggregation method is being used and how it impacts the Work Completed value
