Work packages: connecting a deliverable with its cost and revenue plan

A work package is a defined portion of work that can be planned and discussed as a coherent deliverable. It helps connect the operational scope with the resources and commercial milestones that support it. A work package is not, by itself, proof that the work has been completed or accepted.

For example, an installation project may separate equipment supply, site installation and commissioning. Those packages can have different timing, resource mixes and billing expectations even though they belong to the same customer engagement.

DNA's work-package definition

DNA's Work Package master includes a category and financial configuration, including a revenue GL account, a revenue-recognition-method setting and a suggested billing percentage. It also represents planning information such as a resource mix for labour, material and subcontracting.

The reviewed form requires a category and revenue GL account. If resource-mix percentages are entered, their positive total must equal 100%. These checks make the definition internally coherent; they do not establish that the estimates accurately describe every project using it.

An estimate is not an actual allocation

Suppose a package is initially estimated as 30% labour, 50% material and 20% subcontracting. The total is 100%, but the proportions still need a reasonable business basis. A specialist installation may have a very different mix from a standard one.

These planning percentages do not prove the final actual cost split. Purchase documents, time-related records and other actual-cost evidence explain what the work consumed. A difference can reveal a scope change or an inaccurate estimate rather than an arithmetic error.

Category defaults and deliberate choices

A category can supply financial configuration to the work-package form, including its revenue account. The resulting package needs review because a category default may not fit every deliverable. An inherited value is a starting point, not an independent approval of the accounting decision.

Similarly, a suggested billing percentage does not establish that the customer agreed to that milestone or that the work is eligible for invoicing. The commercial document and its billing plan supply that context.

Connecting to the wider ERP

DNA's revenue budgeting can use work packages, and the budget entry can import supported work-package information from a sales order's billing plan. This makes the relationship between the commercial plan and project revenue more explicit.

The useful package has a clear scope, timing, cost basis and revenue relationship. It allows teams to discuss the same deliverable without confusing budgeted work, completed work and billable work.