Larger incidents are using a Finance/Administration Section tasked with tracking incident related costs, personnel records, requisitions, and administering procurement contracts required by Logistics. Switch-on the [D4H] Costings Module and every person, role undertaken, vehicle, kind of equipment, item of equipment, consumable, and ancillary items can have an optional cost of use associated with them.
We've spent years perfecting our modules so they can be configured to record data in a compatible format to the Incident Command System. This week, we're announcing the final building block, 'Costing' tools for the 'Finance / Admin Section' of an incident. Once switched-on, every person, role undertaken, vehicle, kind of equipment, item of equipment, consumable, and ancillary items have an optional cost of use associated with them.
More and more larger incidents are using a Finance/Administration Section tasked with tracking incident related costs, personnel records, requisitions, and administering procurement contracts required by Logistics. They're usually broken up to include...
- 'Procurement Unit' – handles financial matters related to vendor contracts.
- 'Time Unit' – records time for incident personnel and hired equipment.
- 'Cost Unit' – tracks costs, analyzes cost data, makes cost estimates, and recommends cost-saving measures.
- 'Compensation/Claims Unit' – handles claims for property damage, injuries, or fatalities at the incident.
These sections may also procure special equipment, contract with a vendor, or develop cost estimates for the activity. But as we all know, these things don't only happen on large scale incidents - daily activities, training exercises, and regular routine incidents have costs - and that's what we're here for.
You can decide depending on your organization to use the module for either "Cost Recovery" or "Mission Cost". If used for cost recovery, you would enter the amounts for which you will 'Bill' your customers or the public for each item for the activity or response. For example, you might have a set charge for each type of vehicle that attends.
If you decide to use it to work out the cost of the activity, you would enter the cost prices in the fields. This could be to pass on to your parent organization, county, state, or other financial body.
Once the module has been switched on, you'll find a new [Costings] module in the activity editor. This is the final step of adding an activity, and uses all your data from the previous tabs to build a report.
We'll list all members who attended, supplies consumed, equipment used, vehicles taken. All the items will list as unticked and will not be included in the costings until you select them. For example, you may want to only list certain staff rather than all staff, or you don't want to list all items of equipment, only vehicles or supplies. This gives you the flexibility to choose or you can click [Select All] on the top left of each section. Items can be costed at an hourly rate or once per activity. A combination of both allows you to be very flexible.
Supplies can be costed individually. We'll automatically pull in their cost per item, and multiply it by the number you used from your equipment cache while adding the activity. You may or may-not charge for some items, so we'll let you select those too or select all if appropriate.
Of course, there's often other costs to a response or training exercise such as hiring equipment, rentals, food, water, and fuel. You're able to add all these items on to the end of the costing report to be included in your export.
We'll show you an overview on your activity report, in the currency configured for your account. This data is only visible to Member+ and above and can only be edited by an Editor. To view specific costs, download the PDF Report.
The PDF download gives you a document to submit or file with your report. The report is broken into the sub-sections Vehicles, Equipment, Supplies, Personnel, and Other costings. We've automatically calculated section subtotals and totals. You're able to edit this report at any draft stage until you publish the activity report which locks it with the rest of the activity.
Personnel Costs Billed By Hour or Per Activity
In Planning -> Members -> Bulk Member Costing, you can configure the cost of attendance of all members by both hourly and once-off rates. The default rate will be used where no other rate is available. An individual rate will override both cost by role and default cost. You can also go directly to a members profile and update their cost on an individual basis.
Personnel Costs Billed By Role Undertaken By Hour or Per Activity
Taking a look in Intelligence -> Roles -> Update Details you'll find the ability to update the cost incurred when that role is undertaken by a member of your organization in attendance. For example, if a Forensics Officer, Chief, or Team Leader attend, you might bill a specific rate for that role. These roles can be billed Per Activity or Per Hour at your discretion. The cost per roles is overridden by an individual cost against a members name.
Equipment Cost By Kind or Individual Item
You can go into Logistics -> Equipment -> [Select Category] -> Bulk Costings and update the cost of each kind of equipment. For example, you might decide to bill per truck that attends regardless of the number of members in attendance. To do this, you'd go into your 'Vehicles' category and [Edit Kind Costs] which will list all your vehicles and the associated rates.
Third-Party Billing / Cost Recovery
If your organization uses a third party billing company or department, you can email your PDF of itemized costs for each activity to them. If you need a custom integration to automate the process you should contact customer success with your enquiry.
To Enable This Module
As an account owner, visit [Team Settings] -> [Modules] [Costings] and switch it on. Special thanks to John & David in our engineering crew for making this a really slick site-wide experience for everyone - your accounts have all been upgraded with this included for free.
Interested In [D4H] For Your Organization?
Why not, download an information pack or call Toll Free USA & Canada 1.800.480.5103.