Phased Timescales

Phasing within Prodev is the means to provide individual sets of timescales for different parts of the project.  If for instance you have a development consisting of shops and offices you will probably wish to use a different construction and sale programme for each type.  Phasing allows you to provide different sets of timescales that you can respectively apply to different parts of your project.

Phased timescales were first introduced into the earlier Prodev 4003/6 versions and have now largely speaking been superseded by the newer Detailed Timing feature (described later in this manual) which provides the functionality of phasing with a much clearer and easier-to-use interface.  The phasing facility has been retained for backward compatibility purposes and for those users familiar with older versions of Prodev.

If you wish to use phasing then you will need to familiarise yourself with the previous section (Overall Timescales) which describes how each timescale heading works.

There are three main elements to phasing

Setting up the number of phases required

First you must decide how many phases you require for your development, in other words how many sets of individual timescales.  How many phases are needed?  Consider the following:

Scenario 1 – You have a retail and office development.  The office timescale applies to most of the development but the retail element finishes and lets sooner.  Set up 1 phase, treat the main office timescale as Phase 0 and use Phase 1 for just the retail related items.

Scenario 2 – You are building an office campus development in 3 distinct phases. - Set up 3 phases - use Phases 1 to 3 to deal with the respective build costs and sales.  Phase 0 becomes the area for overall costs (e.g. planning fees and demolition) that do not belong to a particular phase.

Click the 'Set Phases' button to provide the number of phases you need, this will display an entry box for this purpose.  Type in the number of phases required then press the Enter key.  Once entered you can see that further timescale columns are provided for each phase of the project. The limit as to total number of phases is 99.

Notice that the original single timescale column is now designated as a phase zero.  Quite often with phased projects there are items of sale or cost which cannot directly be attributed to a single phase (e.g. demolition or planning fees) and the phase zero column serves as an overall phase in which timescales for these miscellaneous items can be provided.  The timescale for the site value is entered in the overall phase.  If you do not need this extra overall phase then you can treat it as one of the main phases in your project.  For instance in the example of a retail and office development you could attribute all of the office element to the overall phase and put the retail component in phase 1.

Entering Phased Timescales

To enter values for phased timescales use the cursor up, down, left and right keys to select the required item in the required phase then type in the timescale followed by the Enter key.  You can of course use the mouse to select items.  The '<- Phase' and 'Phase ->' buttons work in the same way as the cursor left and right keys.

You can tell which item you are entering information for as you will see both the column (phase) and row (timescale item) are highlighted in a different colour.

It is easier to enter timescales one phase at a time.  This is because the Timescale Summary box immediately underneath the timescale entry area interprets each phase’s timescales as you enter them.  This is helpful when entering phase sales information as it shows the construction timescale for that phase.

Note: The timescale settings for Site, VAT, Start Date and Cashflow-Edit can only be entered when the overall phase is highlighted.

Applying Phased Timescales to Data List items

Once you have set up phases and entered relevant information for each phase you need to browse through the Data List and decide which cost and sales headings belong to which phase.  To do this you must return to the Data List.  Before leaving the Time/Finance section you may wish to provide Interest Rates and other options.

You now need to apply the appropriate phase to each relevant cost and sales heading in the Data List.  This is done using the ‘Phase’ button to allocate the relevant phase number to each heading.

By default all Data List headings are set to Phase 0 (the overall phase) until altered.  In the Data List you will notice that there is a grey column to the right of the numeric entries predominantly displaying ‘0a’.  The ‘0’ indicates the phase number and the ‘a’ indicates the cashflow setting.  Note: Ensure that the cashflow setting displays as ‘a’ (for Automatic) otherwise the amended timescales (Re-Timed or Manual, set in the Detailed Timing or Cashflow-Edit sections) will override the phased timescales you have provided.

Highlight the item you wish to edit (e.g. Offices build), click the ‘Phase’ button then double-click on the chosen phase.  Repeat this process for other items that need to be phased.  It is recommended that you review all of the Data List sections to ensure that this has been done for all relevant items.

Note: There is a shortcut key for applying phase numbers. Instead of using the ‘Phase’ button you can press the Ctrl key and whilst still holding it down, press the number 1 to 9 on your keyboard (use the numbers located above the letters and not the number pad).  E.g. Ctrl+3 applies phase number 3 to the selected item.

Not all of Prodev’s costs and sales need to be phased.  The following is a ‘walk through’ of Prodev’s sections describing where phasing is applicable:

Site Value and Fees can only belong to Phase 0 (You can use Cashflow-Edit to deal with Site Deposits and other forms of site related stage payment).

Initial Payments can be phased.

Unit Build Costs can be phased.  Set up separate construction costs for each phase.

Fixed Build Costs can be phased.

Contingency/Professional Fees cannot and do not need to be phased.  They will follow the profile of the construction costs and time themselves accordingly.

Letting and Sale Fees cannot and do not need to be phased.  They will follow the profile of the relevant revenues as and when they occur and time themselves accordingly.

End Payments can be phased.

Project income items can be phased.

Yields and deductions can be phased.  They also take in the rents as well.  Set up separate Yields for each phase.

Rental areas and rates are controlled by their related Yields and Deductions phase settings and so they do not need to be phased.

Direct Sales can be phased.