Matt “Almost Resident” Johnson is definitely into PSA these days, learning and sharing what he learned.

Here’s a quick reference for anyone interested in when the Actuals are created during a Project in PSA. Maybe this will save someone a bit of investigation time or make things clearer in their mind.

Time and Materials Project

Steps	Actuals Created
Resource adds time/expense
Resource submits time/expense
Time/expense approved by PM	Actual created – Cost Actual created – Unbilled Sales
Invoice created for all unbilled sales
Invoice confirmed (sent to customer)	Actual created – Unbilled Sales (reversal of the previously created unbilled sale) Actual created – Billed Sales
Invoice marked as Paid

Notes:

• Actuals can be seen against either the Project, the Contract or the Invoice
• Actuals will not be created if the contract is not associated with the project even if time is submitted and approved.

Fixed Price Project

Steps	Actuals Created
Resource adds time/expense
Resource submits time/expense
Time/expense approved by PM	Actual created – Cost
Milestone marked as ready for invoicing
Invoice created for Milestone Amount(s)
Invoice confirmed (sent to customer)	Actual created – Billed Sales (Transaction class == Milestone)
Invoice marked as Paid

Notes:

• Actuals can be seen against either the Project or the Contract. Only the Billed Sales (Milestone) Actual will be associated with the Invoice.
• Out of the box Milestones must be marked as Ready for Invoicing manually.
• Although a milestone can be associated with a single Task, once this task is completed 100% it doesn’t automagically mark the Milestone as Ready for Invoicing.
• A Task can actually be associated with multiple Milestones but a Milestone can only have one Task associated with it.