Analytics: T&M Margin Analysis

The Time and Materials Margin Analytics report measures both the actual and projected margins, including the margin rate, for time tracked in Kantata OX projects.

 
 
Default Account Permissions: Account Administrator, Report Viewer with Cost, or Report Viewer

Overview

The T&M Margin Analysis report provides a real-time comparison of time and material margins in Kantata OX by measuring both the actual (i.e., time entries) and projected (i.e., scheduled) margins, including the margin rate, for time tracked in projects. This gives you the ability to see how much time is being spent on projects, how much each project is costing you, how much money a project is bringing in, and how much margin remains to reinvest into your business.

If your margins are not where you expected, you can look at the members associated with each project to see where money is coming and going. Examining the report can help you determine if you’re losing margin because you’re spending too much non-billable time or someone has a low bill rate, but a high cost rate.

The T&M Margin Analysis report is really only intended for time and materials margin (i.e., billing clients for actual work based on an hourly rate). So, if you’re using the fixed fee model for your revenue (i.e., a contract where the service provider is accountable for completing a project for an agreed-upon single-sum), this report won't necessarily provide you with an accurate margin.

Kantata OX calculates the margin report by multiplying billable hours by their billing rate and then subtracting that from the labor cost component, which is all hours multiplied by the cost rate (both billable and non-billable). Note: This calculation does not include non-billable expenses.

Because margins are defined differently from company to company, Kantata OX's T&M Margin Analytics report may be too limited for some organizations.

To access this Analytics report, hover over Analytics from the left navigation and then select Margin from the Finances section.

How to Configure the Report

You can filter the T&M Analytics report in the following ways:

• Date Range—Use the from and to fields to specify a start and end date between which data is retrieved for the report. Most Analytics reports require that you specify a date range in order to generate a viable report.
• Organizations—When enabled, Organizations can limit visibility or categorize project data in standard Analytics reports, so you can see how specific departments or regions are performing. Simply choose an available Department and/or Geography to include them in the report. For more information, see our Organizations in Analytics Reports article.
• Group—Only projects belonging to groups you specify are included in the report. As you start typing the project group's name, the drop-down will populate with a list of relevant selections.
• Project—Leave this field blank to view multiple projects using alternative filter criteria (e.g., Project Status). To view a single project, specify the name of the project. As you begin typing, a drop-down appears below the field, populated with a list of relevant selections. Choose the project to use for the report.
• Project Status—If you select All, the report includes all projects that match the selected filter criteria, regardless of status. Otherwise, you can specify that the report include only projects with statuses in the hue of Grey , Light Green , Green , Yellow , Red , or Blue .
• Include Personnel in Export—When checked, the export file will include a Participant column that contains project participants (one per row, per project). Note that including participants can significantly increase the size of the CSV or XLS export file.
• Include Fixed Fees—By default, the T&M Margin Analysis report ignores any time tracked on fixed fee tasks (billable or non-billable). However, you can override this behavior by checking the Include Fixed Fees box; this will perform the time and materials calculation on fixed fees projects and tasks and include them in the report.
  

  

  Note that there are project and task-level settings that determine whether tasks are time and materials or fixed fee by default. Here's where you can find these settings:

  • The Financials section of Project Settings has a Task Billing Mode where you can set the default for all tasks, deliverables, and milestones in a project to be Time & Materials or Fixed Fee.
    
  • In the Time & Fees section of the Task side panel is a drop-down menu where you can choose if the task is to be billed as Time & Materials or Fixed Fee.

How to Generate the Report

It is recommended that you double-check the selected report filters (above) before generating or exporting the report.

• Generate Report—Click this button to generate the report using the selected criteria. After a few seconds, the report results will appear below the filters in the Kantata OX interface. You can then "save" the report by exporting it as an XLS or CSV file.
  
• Reset Report—Clears the selected filter criteria and resets the report to its empty, default state.
• Export Report—Report data (filtered by your selection criteria) is automatically exported to an XLS (Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet) or CSV (Comma Separated Values) file and saved to the default folder for downloaded files on your computer.
  

How to Read this Report

A generated analytics report is typically divided into sections containing charts and tables; often, a report header containing summary information, followed by details that make up the body of the report. Depending on the combination of selected filters and attributes, each report can be broken down (i.e., sliced and diced) to surface specific trends or interesting patterns.

Here's how to read what appears in a generated T&M Margin Analysis report: 

Report Header

The report header summarizes the differences between Actual (Time Entries) vs Projected (Scheduled Hours) for the following metrics:

• Hours—Shows the total billable and non-billable hours logged vs scheduled for all projects included in the report.
• Margin Rate—The margin rate percentage for all projects included in the report is calculated by dividing the margin by fees (shown as Billable in the report header).
• Margin—The overall margin for all projects included in the report is determined by subtracting fees (billable) from cost (non-billable).
• Billable (Fees)—This is calculated by multiplying billable hours by the bill rate as determined by the project rate card and the member's role; if rate cards are not enabled, the member's default bill rate is used.
• Cost (All Hours)—This calculated by multiplying all hours (billable and non-billable) by the member's cost rate.

Report Table

• Project / Personnel—This column shows all project(s) included in the report by name. If available, click the arrow (“   ”) to the left of the project name to expand the table and show all the personnel (team members) assigned to the project. 
• Status—Shows the project status according to its color.
• Budget—This is the project budget and total sum of all task budgets in the project. Clicking on a project budget opens a details modal that breaks down the budget by Task Budget Total and Initial Budget Set.
   
• Hours—Total hours per project, broken down by projected (scheduled) and actual (time entries).
• Cost—The projected and actual total cost of the project so far. The cost is determined by multiplying all hours (billable and non-billable) by a member's cost rate (per person, per currency).
• Billable—The projected and actual billable hours for the project so far, determined by multiplying the billable hours by the bill rate.
• Margin—The projected and actual margin for the project, calculated by subtracting the fees (billable) from the cost.
• Margin Rate—The projected and actual margin rate are calculated by dividing the margin by billable revenue.

Note: Any negative margin or revenues will display in red.