Bridging the Gap Between the Project Status Report and Revenue Worksheet in Costpoint

If you’ve ever found yourself scratching your head over why the Project Status Report (PSR) doesn’t match the Revenue Worksheet (Rev WS), you are not alone. These two reports serve different purposes and speak two distinct languages. But to truly understand the differences, you must start with what is happening behind the scenes in the Costpoint Project Ledger.

In this article, we’ll break down what the PSR and Revenue Worksheet are each meant to do, why they often don’t “match,” and how to ensure they are each telling you the whole story they were designed to tell. We’ll also provide critical processing steps that keep these reports aligned. If you’ve ever wondered which report to trust, when to run it, and how to interpret the numbers, this article will help you understand how to get the most accurate and meaningful data from both reports.

What Is the Project Ledger?

In Costpoint, the Project Ledger is a record of all project-related costs and associated revenue. It is separate from the General Ledger, which is the ultimate record of all transactions throughout the system. Like other subledgers in Costpoint, the Project Ledger tracks important information and facilitates calculations that are then “fed” into the General Ledger. A critical difference, however, is that the General Ledger will also feed data into the Project Ledger as required.

The relationship between the Project Ledger and General Ledger can be explained using the analogy of a wall. The Project Ledger resides on one side of the wall, while the General Ledger is on the other. When costs are incurred in Costpoint (typically through timesheets for labor and through vouchers for non-labor), those costs are posted to the General Ledger as transactions. The General Ledger summarizes any costs that are associated with a project and pitches them over the wall to the Project Ledger. The Project Ledger takes those costs and applies burden and fee to them, and then calculates the revenue for the project. Finally, the Project Ledger pitches the revenue amounts over the wall to the General Ledger, which posts the revenue.

At no point can the General Ledger “see” what is in the Project Ledger; it only knows about the revenue that the Project Ledger pitches to it over the wall. Likewise, the Project Ledger can never see actual transactions in the General Ledger; it only accepts the summarized costs that the General Ledger sends over. Because of this separation, it is possible (and indeed very likely) that the Project Ledger and the General Ledger will not always agree on the revenue for a given project within a single period or subperiod. For example, the revenue on the Project Status Report for period 3 might differ from the revenue shown for that project on the Revenue Journal report during the revenue posting process. This is by design, as the General Ledger will always try to ensure that the total revenue year-to-date matches the year-to-date calculated revenue in the Project Ledger. If there are retroactive changes that would affect year-to-date revenue, the General Ledger may post more or less revenue as appropriate to compensate for the change.

The Project Status Report and the Revenue Worksheet are both reports that feed directly off data in the Project Ledger, not the General Ledger. That does not make them “less truthful” than reports based on General Ledger data; instead, these reports can show the user HOW and WHY the revenue is the amount that it is before it is sent to the General Ledger.

What Purpose Does Each Report Fulfill?

It is important to understand the purpose of both the Project Status Report (PSR) and the Revenue Worksheet, and who benefits from each report. While both reports do report revenue, they serve different audiences and different financial needs. Both reports are crucial, but for very different reasons. For more detailed information on each report, read our articles, How Costpoint’s Revenue Worksheets Support Accurate Billing and Project Success and Project Status Reports Explained and Why They Are Critical for Project Success.

1. The Project Status Report (PSR)
   1. Audience: Program managers
   2. Focus: Cost and revenue totals
   3. Includes: Costs incurred to date and revenue calculated to date
   4. Used for: Internal reporting, forecasting, and budget management
   5. Does NOT: Show how Costpoint calculated the revenue, just the final calculation
   6. The PSR is primarily a COST It shows the total calculated revenue for P&L purposes, but does not explain how Costpoint calculated that revenue amount.
   7. Use the PSR when you want to understand the “financial big picture” of your project.

2. The Revenue Worksheet
   1. Audience: Accounting and billing departments
   2. Focus: Revenue calculation details
   3. Includes: Revenue formulas, bill rates, hours, and amounts
   4. Used for: Identifying missing setup, incorrect allowable hours and/or bill rates
   5. Does NOT: Include any cost or billing data
   6. The Revenue Worksheet explains the source of revenue and highlights potential issues. While the Revenue Worksheet shows the calculated revenue and how that amount was calculated, it does not include any cost or billing information. The Revenue Worksheet is a great tool for troubleshooting revenue issues and discrepancies.
   7. Use the Revenue Worksheet when you want to take a deep dive into how revenue was derived.

How Do I Ensure Both Reports are Properly Updated?

In Deltek Costpoint, timing is everything! If you are running reports without first ensuring all project data is up to date, you are likely missing critical costs, hours, and/or revenue. Think about that “wall” we mentioned earlier. We want to make sure we throw everything we need from the General Ledger over the wall to the Project Ledger. Let’s take a closer look into how to make sure your data and reports are always accurate and complete:

Always perform the following steps BEFORE running your project reports. Not running these steps or skipping these steps can result in incomplete or outdated data.

1. Compute Burden Costs
   1. This step pulls newly posted costs from your General Ledger to your Project Ledger, applies your burden rates, and ensures your costs are fully burdened.

2. Load Labor Rates
   1. This step is required for any projects where the billing/revenue formulas are ‘loaded labor rate’ formulas.
   2. This step applies the bill rates to the labor hours.
   3. If you run this step but skip the next step, ‘Compute Revenue,’ your reports may show a mismatch between cost and revenue.

3. Compute Revenue
   1. When you compute revenue, the system computes this at BOTH actual and target rates.
   2. You do NOT have to post revenue to the General Ledger to see the computation on your project reports.
   3. Regardless of which rate type you post to the General Ledger, the Project Ledger tracks BOTH rate types on the project reports.

4. Compute/Print Purchasing Commitments
   1. PO commitments DO show up on PSRs!
   2. Running reports before commitments or updates are processed can create confusion and inaccuracies in your reporting.

5. Update Project Status Report Tables
   1. This step prepares data specifically for the Project Status Report (PSR).
   2. This ONLY updates the PSR – this does not affect other reports.

6. Create Project Report Tables
   1. This step updates the Revenue Worksheet and ALL other project-related reports, excluding the PSR.

Best practice is to ALWAYS run both steps 5 and 6, never just one!

Keeping your project data current in Deltek Costpoint is not just a technical step; it is critical to ensure complete report data. By following this process consistently, you can guarantee your reports reflect the most recent and complete picture of your data.

Where Does the Report Data Come From?

Both the Project Status Report and the Revenue Worksheet feed off Project Ledger data, but they pull some data from slightly different sources. Most of the time, this won’t impact the content of either report, but on rare occasions, discrepancies may seem to exist between the two. Knowing where the data in each report comes from can help identify such discrepancies and determine if a processing step has been missed.

The Project Status Report primarily uses the Project Ledger itself for most of its data:

• Revenue, direct cost, indirect cost, and profit/loss are extracted directly from View Project Ledger Activity, which is a read-only window into the raw Project Ledger itself.
• Prior year revenue and costs come from Manage Prior Year Cost and Revenue, with contract-to-date amounts being a combination of current and prior year amounts.
• Budget columns are sourced from one of the budgeting modules (Planning, Advanced Project Budgeting, or Budgeting, etc.).
• Total hours and units at the bottom of the report come from Manage Project Labor History.
• Contract and funded values (both ITD and Total amounts) are derived from Manage Modifications.
• The billed amounts come from Manage Project Bill Summary, while the open receivables amount comes from Manage Accounts Receivable History.

The Revenue Worksheet uses many of the same sources, but it does add and/or substitute a few for certain sections:

• Labor costs come primarily from the Manager Project Labor History, since it has labor broken out by project labor category.
• All revenue amounts, such as revenue adjustments and amounts in excess, come directly from View Project Ledger Activity.
• Contract and funded values (both ITD and Total amounts) are derived from Manage Modifications.

Effects Of Reporting at Different Project Levels

Both the Project Status Report and the Revenue Worksheet are great tools to help you analyze and troubleshoot apparent revenue issues when used and interpreted correctly. Since these reports draw from the Project Ledger, users will often see unusual and seemingly inconsistent revenue amounts when running the reports at different levels of the same project. This is normal and can be easily resolved by ensuring that you run the report at or above the project’s revenue level. The results when looking at project levels beneath the revenue level are just as accurate. Still, they may include or exclude elements of the total revenue picture due to the way the Project Ledger works.

When revenue is calculated (via the Compute Revenue application), Costpoint will assign a base revenue amount based on the cost amount at the level at which the cost was incurred. For example, if the 4^th level of the project is the charging level, the Project Ledger will show a revenue amount at the 4^th level even if the revenue formula for the project is at the 2^nd level. The revenue amount that appears here will vary depending on the revenue formula. When Costpoint prepares to pitch the revenue amount over the “wall” to the General Ledger, it rolls all the revenue amounts in the Project Ledger up to the revenue level, applying ceilings and other modifications at each appropriate level along the way, so that the General Ledger receives a single revenue amount at the revenue level that it can process and post.

Using that same example project, if there is a ceiling applied at the 3^rd level, then you will only see the results of that ceiling being applied IF you run the report at the 3^rd level or higher. If you run the report at the 4^th level, you will see the entire baseline revenue amount, even if that amount exceeds the 3^rd level ceiling.

Additionally, components of the revenue calculations that are not directly derived from cost are only recorded at the revenue level in the Project Ledger. This includes revenue adjustments that are entered in the Manage Revenue Information application, as well as true-up revenue entries that modify the rolled-up revenue amount, to align with the results of a fixed-amount or estimate-to-complete calculation. Suppose either the Project Status Report or the Revenue Worksheet is run at a project level beneath the project’s revenue level. In that case, these adjustments and modifications will be excluded from the revenue totals on the report.

Putting Your Reports to Work

Understanding the PSR and Revenue Worksheet in Deltek’s Costpoint is not just about knowing which numbers go where, it is about recognizing how data flows through the system and why those flows are intentionally separated. The PSR gives program managers a clear view of cost and calculated revenue for P&L purposes, while the Revenue Worksheet equips accounting and billing analysts with the visibility they need into how that revenue was derived. With the right understanding of what each report is doing and why, you will be able to interpret both confidently.

The Redstone GCI team works with government contractors to troubleshoot Costpoint reporting issues, improve system configuration, and refine processes for cleaner, more reliable data. Our experts can assist with aligning your PSR and Revenue Worksheet outputs, optimizing your revenue formulas, and ensuring your project ledger setup supports both operational and compliance requirements. Whether you need targeted problem-solving or a broader review of your reporting workflows, we provide the expertise to help you get accurate, meaningful insights from your Costpoint reports.