This article describes how to import a budget from Wikells to Next Project, including necessary preparations and configurations. The article walks through how the budget is imported to work orders and budgets, as well as how to map accounts and professional roles between the two systems.

Preparations

Before you can import a budget from Wikells to Next Project, you need to complete some preparations:

1. Go to Administration – Groups/Permissions in Next Project and select the group that should have the right to import budgets. Check "Full Permission" for "Manage Budget Import Settings".
2. Export the budget from Wikells in .txt format. You do this under File – Export in Wikells.
3. Configure the budget import and map the budget to Next. You do this under Administration – Integrations – Budget Import – Mapping Between Budget Systems and Next.

Import to Work Orders

The Wikells budget is divided into chapters that consist of budget items at different levels. Each chapter in the budget creates a work order in Next Project.

Each work order receives two order lines – one for materials and labor, and one for labor. You specify the accounts for these order lines under Administration – Integrations – Budget Import – Mapping Between Budget Systems and Next. Select Wikells and fill in the information under Special Accounts.

The Budget Import tab shows the sections Mapping, Accounts, Professional Roles, and Special Accounts.

Under each work order, two order lines are displayed – one for labor and one for materials. Costs that do not relate to materials, labor, or work appear as a separate order line under an additional work order called SHARED OVERHEAD.

The Order Lines tab — note the Budget Quantity and Completed Quantity columns.

Import to Budget

To import the Wikells budget to the budget in Next, the budget items must have an account. Materials and labor are summed for all budget items per account. Labor costs are summed to the same account used when importing to work orders.

Budget items without an account are summed separately, so you can see that there are values in the budget that cannot be imported. You need to add these values manually to the budget. The same applies to overhead charges on the budget items – they lack an account, and you need to decide how they should be added to the budget. The sum of these overhead costs is displayed together with any unaccounted sum.

It is common for accounts in the Wikells budget to not match the chart of accounts in Next Project. You can either adjust the accounts directly in Wikells, or map them so that they are translated to the accounting accounts in Next Project – then you don't need to sync the charts of accounts. You make this mapping under Administration – Integrations – Budget Import – Mapping Between Budget Systems and Next. Select Wikells and then go to Accounts. The account in the "Account in Next" column is the one used in the budget and on which costs are posted.

The Budget Import tab shows mapping of accounts, professional roles, and special accounts.

Calculating Hourly Rates

In Wikells, each role has an hourly rate that corresponds to hourly rates in Next Project and serves as the basis for calculating labor costs. Which hourly rate is used is specified when you perform the calculation in Wikells.

There is an option to map professional roles in Section Data to hourly rates in Next Project. This way, you can use the current hourly rate from Next instead of the hourly rate in the budget. You make this mapping under Administration – Integrations – Budget Import – Mapping Between Budget Systems and Next. Select Wikells and then go to Professional Roles to map the professional roles in Wikells to hourly rates in Next Project. Then Next's hourly rate is used to calculate the labor costs.

The Budget Import tab shows mapping, accounts, professional roles, and special accounts.

Import Data

7. Go to the Budget tab in Next Project and click Create Budget From – Budget.

The Budget module shows options for creating a budget from Excel/Data or Budget.

8. Select Wikells under Account Mapping and specify the correct account for labor costs. Click Upload File and locate the file to be imported. Choose whether it should be imported to Budget and/or Work Order by checking the boxes. Then click Save.

Budget Import dialog — specify account mapping and upload file before proceeding.

9. Overhead costs without an account that come with the budget are not added as a line in the Budget tab – they need to be added manually. You can find the corresponding amount under the Work Order tab on the work order called SHARED OVERHEAD. The same applies to items without an account in Wikells – these also cannot be imported to the budget tab and must be added manually. There is no function that shows the difference between what comes in with the Wikells budget and what is displayed in Next Project. To avoid missing anything, the tip is to make sure that all budget items in Wikells are linked to an account, or that you note down the amount shown if you still want to add it manually in Next Project.