Exclude Internal Labor Time Cards from Expense Lines + Cleanup of Historical Data

[dennisreuko]

Hi everyone,

I’m working on a requirement specifically for pm_project records, where internal labor time cards should not appear in expense lines or affect project financials.

Acceptance criteria:

No internal labor time card entries should impact:

• Actual Cost

• Estimate at Completion (EAC)

• Estimate to Completion (ETC)

What I’ve done so far (for new records):

Implemented a solution to prevent new expense lines from being created from time cards.

Business Rule:

• Table: Expense Line [fm_expense_line]

• When: before insert

• Order: 1

• No OOB records modified (upgrade safe)

Logic:

• If time_card is populated, OR

• If short_description contains " Time Card ("

  → abort insert (gs.setAbortAction(true))

This is working as expected - no new time card expense lines are being created for pm_project records.

Where I’m stuck (historical data):

There are many existing expense lines already created from time cards, and I need to clean those up for pm_project financials.

Issues:

• Many records don’t have the time_card reference populated

• Sometimes the only indicator is the description (e.g., “Time Card (…)”)

• Some descriptions are truncated (e.g., "Time Car", "Time C", "Time", "Tim")

• category = Labor is not reliable since it includes valid external labor

So it’s hard to safely identify only time card–generated expense lines without risking valid data.

What I’m trying to solve:

• Remove or exclude only internal labor time card expense lines tied to pm_project

• Keep the solution safe and reversible

• Stay as close to OOB behavior as possible

Questions:

1. Has anyone handled cleanup of legacy time card expense lines specifically for pm_project financials?

2. Is there a reliable way to trace these back to time cards when the time_card field is empty?

3. Would you recommend?

Appreciate any suggestions, thanks!

[Namita Mishra]

Hi @dennisreuko ,

Thanks for connecting with the community.

I have experienced this kind of requirement when customers would love to track the effort but not the cost of internal employees. This is because they are salaried resources and their cost is not considered in the project actual cost.

Am i correct in guessing the business reason behind your ask?

If this is correct then I would rather mention the cost of all the internal resources as zero in the rate model.

This would ensure:

1. No customization - Let the expense line flow into the project. Since the cost is zero it won't impact the project actual cost.

2. Planned vs actual effort - Timesheets can be used as out of the box just for tracking planned vs actual cost.

Hope this works for you and if it does please mark the response as correct to help me and the community.

Have a Great SPM Journey !!

Thank You!

Namita Mishra