Set up Firms / Contacts

You must set up firms and contacts in Project Management to enable associating documents and records with project contacts (such as vendors, subcontractors, architects, and suppliers).

The steps below outline setting up firms and contacts in the PM module. Press F1 in any field for detailed information about that field.

First, set up the firm, identifying its firm type (defined in PM Firm Types). Then create the contact. Firms may be copied from the lists of AP Vendors and AR Customers, and in particular having the Firm linked to the AP Vendor can save data entry time during buyout/procurement. Contacts may be copied from the PR Employee list.

  1. Optional: Create firm types using the PM Firm Types form - for example architects, subcontracts, engineers, etc. Firms types allow you to categorize firms and they can be used in reporting.
  2. Use the PM Firms form to create and maintain firms.
    1. Set up your own company as firm number "1", and then enter this firm in the Our Firm field on the Info tab of the PM Company Parameters form.
    2. Set up the firms you will be doing buisiness with. You can do this manually or by initializing firms from AR Customers or by initializing firms from AP Vendors.
  3. Use the PM Firm Contacts for to set up the contacts for each firm you set up in PM Firms.
    When creating contacts for the firm that is set up as "our firm", you can import a range of employees from the PR Employees form.
  4. Use the PM Project Firms form to associate firms and contacts with specific projects, for example associate the subcontractors, architects, and engineers with the projects that they are working on. When generating PM documents like drawing logs, RFIs, and change orders, you can use the Create and Send feature to generate and email/fax the documents to these contacts.
    Note: You can also use the PM Project Firms Copy form (PM Project Firms > File > Project Firms Copy) to copy firm contacts from one project to another. This can save you some time if you have projects that use some of the same subcontractors, vendors, and architects.