Managing phases

A phase is a delivery grouping within a project — the release, stage of works or block of units that a cost belongs to. Phases let you classify and report cost by phase across one project without having to create a separate project for each phase.

Phases are organised into phase sets, exactly the way cost categories are organised into cost centres. A phase set is a named list of phases; a project nominates one set, and only the phases in that set are available on that project. That means a community needing bespoke phase names — Phase 3 Building 25, say — can have them without those names appearing on every other project in the business.

Where to find it: FullClarity → Project Financials → Manage Phases

Phase, Stage and Billing Stage are three different things

A phase is a delivery grouping of work or units. A stage is the billing-or-project stage used by stage billing and stage-grouped estimating. A billing stage is a milestone on a stage-billing contract, with a percentage of the contract value against it. A project will routinely use more than one of them at once, they hold completely different values, and nothing about phases is derived from stages.

When to use this

Use this when you are setting phases up for the first time, adding a phase set for a new community or development, or maintaining an existing set — adding phases, changing the order they appear in, or retiring a phase that is no longer used.

Prerequisites

  • NetSuite administrator access
  • A clear picture of the phases you need, and the order you want them shown in

Create your phase sets before you turn phases on

A project that uses phases must nominate a phase set, and Project Financials ships with no phase sets and no phases — you create your own. The Enable Phases general preference ticks Use Phases on every newly created project, so if you turn that preference on before any phase set exists, no new project can be saved at all.

The order is: create at least one phase set and its phases here, then turn on the preference. See Using phases on a project.

The Manage Phases page

The page has three areas:

  • Phase Set dropdown — selects which set to view or edit. Changing the selection reloads the page with that set's phases.
  • Phase grid — the phases in the selected set, each with a Name and a Sort Order. Both are editable.
  • Toolbar — save, add and other actions, at the bottom of the grid.

Below the grid is a Show Inactive checkbox. Tick it to add an Inactive column and reveal any phases that have been retired.

Phases are a flat list within a set. Unlike cost categories, they have no hierarchy — there are no parent and child phases, and no indenting.

Creating a phase set

  1. Hover over the Phase Set dropdown. Two icons appear to the right.
  2. Click the + icon. A popup form opens.
  3. Enter a Name for the set.
  4. Click Save.

The popup closes and the page reloads with your new, empty set selected, ready for you to add phases.

Tips

The other icon opens the existing phase set record, where you can rename it or make it inactive.

A phase set carries nothing but its name. Everything a phase needs — its name, its order, the set it belongs to — lives on the phase itself.

Adding phases

From the column header: right-click the column header row and select Add New Line.

From an existing row: right-click any phase row and select Add New Line. The new row is inserted above the row you clicked.

From the toolbar: select a row first, then click Add. The new row is inserted above the selected row. The button has no effect if no row is selected.

After adding a row:

  1. Type the phase Name.
  2. Press Tab to move to Sort Order, or click elsewhere on the grid to confirm the value.
  3. Enter the Sort Order — see below.
  4. Save.

Don't press Escape while editing a cell: it cancels your entry. Use Tab, or click elsewhere, to confirm.

Sort order

Sort Order is what controls the order phases appear in — everywhere. On the Manage Phases grid, in the Phase column on an estimating worksheet, and in every Phase dropdown. Phases are never sorted alphabetically.

That is deliberate, because phase names don't sort usefully. Phase 10 would come before Phase 2, and a name like Phase 3 Building 25 has no natural order at all.

Give each phase a number and leave gaps — 10, 20, 30 rather than 1, 2, 3 — so you can insert a phase between two existing ones later without renumbering the whole set.

A phase left without a Sort Order sorts as though it were 0, which puts it first. Set the number rather than leaving it blank.

Reordering

Sort Order is a number you type, not something the grid infers. Clicking a column header re-sorts the view you're looking at but doesn't change any stored value, and there is no drag-to-reorder — change the order by editing the numbers and saving.

Editing a phase

Click the cell you want to change, type the new value, and press Tab or click elsewhere to confirm. Then save.

Renaming a phase is safe. Estimate lines and transaction lines point at the phase record, so a rename flows through everywhere it appears.

Retiring a phase

Phases cannot be deleted, by design. A phase is stamped onto estimate lines and onto purchase order, sales order, bill, expense and journal lines, so deleting one would orphan every line that referenced it. There is no Delete Line option on this page, and the keyboard shortcut is refused too.

Retire a phase by making it inactive instead. Inactivation is done on the phase record, not on this grid:

  1. Open the phase record — the quickest route is NetSuite's global search on the phase name.
  2. Tick Inactive and save.
  3. Back on the Manage Phases page, tick Show Inactive to confirm: the phase reappears with the Inactive column ticked.

An inactive phase can no longer be selected on new estimate lines or transactions, and it disappears from the Phase column's dropdowns. Lines that already carry it keep it. Reactivate the phase at any time to bring it back.

Inactivating a phase does not clear it from lines that use it

Estimate lines and transaction lines that already carry a retired phase keep it, which is what you want — historical cost stays attributed. But because a retired phase is no longer selectable, the Phase column on those worksheets treats those lines as having no phase for grouping purposes. Retire a phase once its work is complete, not part way through.

Saving changes

Changes on this page are not saved automatically:

  1. Click Save in the toolbar at the bottom of the page.
  2. A confirmation message appears. Click OK.
  3. The grid reloads with your saved data, and any new phases show their assigned ID numbers.

Save often when making several changes, rather than making them all and saving once.

What success looks like

  • The Phase Set dropdown lists a set for each group of phases you need.
  • Selecting a set shows its phases in Sort Order sequence, not alphabetical order.
  • Every phase has a name and a sort order.
  • The set is immediately available to nominate on a project or a development.

Gotchas

  • Nothing ships. There are no phase sets and no phases out of the box — you create the ones your business uses.
  • Create the sets before ticking Enable Phases, or new projects can't be saved. See the callout above.
  • There is no delete. Retire a phase by making it inactive on the phase record. Deletion isn't offered because a phase in use is stamped on lines that would be orphaned by it.
  • Sort Order, not the name, decides the order. A phase with no sort order sorts first.
  • Don't press Escape while editing a cell — it cancels your entry.
  • Phases have no hierarchy. The toolbar's Add Child, Indent and Outdent buttons are shared with the cost centre grid and do nothing useful here.
  • A phase belongs to exactly one set. To use the same phase name on two communities with different vocabularies, create the phase in each set.
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