Overview
This guide will walk you through the process of entering your first main contract in Ingenious. The main contract represents the formal agreement between your company and your client (e.g., the general contractor and the client). Follow these steps to ensure your contract is properly set up, linked to your budget, and ready for change orders and invoices.
Prerequisites
Before you can enter your main contract, make sure the following are in place:
Create a Budget ACR (Anticipated Cost Report)
Ensure that your budget has been created and at least one cost code is loaded into Ingenious.Optional: Template your WBS (Work Breakdown Structure)
If you'd like, you can set up your WBS in the List & Templates section. This will make it easier to load into your main contract, instead of manually creating each item.
Process
1. Navigate to the Main Contract Section
In Ingenious, go to the Main Contract section to begin. This represents the contract between your company and your client (e.g., you General Contractor (GC) contract with the client).
2. Enter Contract Details
Fill out the necessary fields with information about your contract, such as:
Contract Name
Client Name
Other contract-specific details (e.g., start and end dates)
3. Skip Internal Financial Approval (Optional)
If you prefer to skip the internal financial approval workflow (e.g., approvals from your project team), select the first option. This allows you to proceed directly to uploading your executed contract PDF.
4. Upload Insurance Template (Optional)
If required, you can upload your Insurance Template for the contract. This step is optional but may be needed depending on your project’s requirements.
5. Set Retention Percentage
Enter the Retention percentage for your contract. This percentage will automatically apply to each line item in your Schedule of Values (SOV). Retention helps ensure that a portion of the contract value is held back until agreed-upon milestones or completion percentages are met.
Note: You can update the retention percentage for specific line items later. However, this initial entry will set the default retention for the entire contract, including any change orders or amendments.
6. Add the Schedule of Values (SOV)
Click on Add a Schedule of Values to enter the SOV for your contract. The Schedule of Values outlines the breakdown of costs associated with the project.
Tip: If your contract budget mirrors your SOV, you can easily copy and paste your existing cost codes into the SOV fields.
Example:
You might see something like this for your SOV breakdown:CSI Division
General Conditions
Contingency
Overhead & Profit
Note: If you want to break down your CSI Division SOV into second tier or third tier to show material + labor, add WBS2/WBS3.
The system will allow you to link these SOV line items to corresponding cost codes from your budget.
7. Link SOV to Budget Cost Codes
Once your SOV is entered, link each SOV line item to the relevant cost code in your project’s budget.
Example:
If you’re adding a line item for electrical work, simply select the corresponding electrical cost code from your budget to ensure the SOV and budget are aligned.
This linkage ensures that future changes (e.g., change orders) will automatically reflect in the budget, and values will sync between the two.
For instance, if I were to create a change order against our electrical SOV line in the budget, it would populate that budget column in the approved contract changes, right? because the budget side is your dollars, and the anticipated side is subcontractor commitments and anticipated costs.
8. Save and Finalize the Main Contract
After entering all necessary details and linking your SOV to the budget, click Save as Executed to finalize your main contract. This action will officially link the contract to your budget.
9. Create Change Orders & Invoices
Now that your main contract is set up and linked to your budget, you can begin creating change orders and invoices against the contract as needed.