How PC-Plod Works

Includes integration with MYOB & QuickBooks General Ledger

Plod-Pay is a specialised, online, realtime program that provides a multi-user interface to a centralised database

1. Specialised - It is specifically designed by drilling industry professionals for the drilling industry using drilling industry conventions.
2. Online – It works in a network environment and can electronically transfer data to external entities such as your bank, ATO, and your customers.
3. Realtime – PC-Plod can cope with events “as they happen”. As data is entered it is stored in the Database, making it immediately available to all parts of the system (subject to security constraints).
4. Multi-user – More than one operator can be using [the same parts of] the system at the same time.
5. Centralised – a single database somewhere on your network serves all users for your company.
6. Living – PC-Plod is enhanced and extended on a regular basis to meet changing statutory, industry and user requirements.

Primary input comes from Plod Sheets and PayTrans:

1. Plod Sheets (or Daily Activity sheets from Rigs) include chargeable detail (metres drilled, consumables, etc) and hours worked by each employee.
2. PayTrans include Timesheets for mechanics and the like, plus Leave and other exception relating to individual pays.
3. Primary Input.  Typically Plod Sheets account for 80% of input to the system and PayTrans 10%.  The other 10% is Secondary Input including administrative, control and operational detail.

From the Primary Input PC-Plod is able to perform all of the invoicing and payroll functions, and much of the management reporting, required by a drilling company.  The “single entry” nature of PC-Plod yields three particular advantages:

1. It is very efficient in terms of input effort required
2. It is very strong in its ability to calculate, pay and account for Bonuses.
3. What you pay as wages/bonuses, and what you invoice are based on the same input.

PC-Plod integrates with MYOB & QuickBooks General Ledger.

The main components of PC-Plod are Invoicing, very much specialised for the drilling industry; and Payroll, also very much specialised for the drilling industry.

From an accounting point of view, PC-Plod replaces the Invoicing and Payroll “ledgers” in your overall General Ledger framework, passing the necessary accounting detail to your General Ledger as fully populated general journals.  This is done via PC-Plod’s special SalesFile and CostFile.

PC-Plod includes special MYOB and QuickBooks interfaces to generate the general journals from the SalesFile and CostFile in the appropriate format for import into the General Ledger.
This means that:

• PC-Plod creates your invoices, but MYOB/QuickBooks is used for debtors control (handling customer payments and issuing statements).
• PC-Plod handles payroll, but MYOB/QuickBooks is used for P&L etc.

If necessary PlodCo could develop the interfaces necessary to export SalesFile and CostFile details in a format suitable for other General Ledger systems.
Link to CostFile (http://www.plod.com.au/drilling/payroll-costing.php)

 

PC-Plod uses a Firedbird Database

1. Firebird is the database of choice for system developers world-wide
   
2. It is an industrial-quality, relational, SQL database, fully documented and supported as the open-source version of Borland's Interbase product.
   
3. We have found it to be very rugged and reliable.
   
4. There are no fees involved in deploying Firebird.
   
5. Where appropriate you may choose to use third-party tools to provide access to your Database.
6. There are no licence fees applicable to Firebird.

Sneaky tricks

PC-Plod includes a number of unique design elements to ensure efficient operation:

1. The "single-entry" nature of input from Plod Sheets feeds both the Invoicing and Payroll functions:
   • This makes for very efficient data entry
   • And avoids the risk of paying wages for work that is not charged
2. Input behaves as if it were priced as it was entered
• It is immediately available for Invoicing or analysis
3. The Chart of Products works so that:
   • The same Product can be charged at different rates on different Jobs where applicable
   • Charge structures can be replicated from one Job to another
   • The input routines can detect price changes at, say, different depths of drilling; and price the input accordingly, even when the change applies partway through an entry.
4. At a key point in the PayCalc, the system knows exactly who was working, on which Rigs, who they were working with, their Classifications, and what they did production-wise - for each individual Shift:
   • This is one key to PC-Plod's strength in calculating Bonuses
   • PC-Plod can issue warnings to management of exceptional conditions.
5. Reports always appear in the first instance as a preview on the screen. The operator can then discard the report, print it, or in many cases save it as a PDF, .txt, or Excel file:
   • Keeps the Greenies happy. Quite often the operator didn't really need to print the report, they just wanted to see part of it to answer some question that had arisen at the time.
   • Results can be checked before commiting them to paper.
   • At times you may want to email a report as a PDF, or import the data to another program such as Excel, Word, or WordPad.
6. "Code Helpers" are available to speed up input
• eg: Enter the first one or two characters of an employees name and the system will show a list of possible matches to choose from.
• When entering a Plod, a view of the previous Plod from that Rig is available to enhance checking of stop/start depths, consumables, etc.
7. Payroll input is very efficient in that:
• Field staff input comes from the same Plod input that feeds the Invoicing
• Salaried staff only require "exception" input
• PC-Plod remembers when staff are due back from Leave. Generally only one transaction is required irrespective of the number of Periods (or part-Periods) that leave spans.
8. Most parts of PC-Plod use a "suck-it-and-see" approach:
• You can print an Invoice or Payslip and if you don't like the answers you can revise your input and do it again.
• Generally you are not commited until entries are Posted at Period End.
• In worst-case scenarios you can UnPost entries, even from several Periods ago.