BlueCollar supports parent-child project structures for multi-phase or multi-scope work, and the WIP Report and Revenue Recognition automatically aggregate costs and revenue according to where the contracts sit in that hierarchy. This page explains the rollup behavior so you can structure projects to get the reporting picture you want.
The WIP Report and Revenue Recognition break out costs according to their relationship with performance obligations (contracts). A project that carries one or more contracts is treated as its own performance-obligation line. A project with no contracts has no separate revenue position of its own — its costs roll up to the nearest ancestor project that does carry a contract.
In other words: contracts define the boundaries of what reports as a line, and contract-less projects act as cost-collection containers for whichever ancestor performance obligation they support.
The parent project has all the contracts; the children are pure cost-collection sub-jobs (phases, scopes, areas) under it.
On WIP / Rev Rec: One line. The Parent appears as a single performance obligation row, and all revenue and cost from the three children are aggregated into it.
When to use this shape: a single contracted job split into phases or work areas for internal tracking, where the customer sees one contract and you want one earned-revenue position.
Some children carry their own contracts; others don't. The contract-less children belong to the parent's performance obligation.
On WIP / Rev Rec: Two lines.
When to use this shape: a master job with one primary contract, plus a contracted sub-scope (e.g. a separately negotiated subphase) that needs its own performance-obligation tracking.
The parent is a pure organizational shell; every child carries its own contract(s).
On WIP / Rev Rec: Three lines — one per child. The Parent is excluded entirely because it carries no contract and there are no contract-less descendants whose costs need to land somewhere.
When to use this shape: a program-level grouping (e.g. all of a customer's jobs in a region, all of a multi-tower development) where each job is its own contract and you want them reported individually but grouped for navigation.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What determines whether a project appears as its own line on WIP / Rev Rec? | Whether it carries one or more contracts. |
| What happens to a project with no contracts? | Its costs roll up to the nearest ancestor that has a contract. |
| What happens to a project with no contracts and no contract-carrying ancestor (the top of its chain)? | It is excluded from WIP / Rev Rec entirely. |
| Can a contract span a parent and a child? | A contract belongs to exactly one project. The "parent's contract" reports only on the parent's line — children's costs roll up to it only when the children themselves have no contracts. |
| Do change orders change the rollup? | Change orders affect the contract values on the project that carries the contract; they don't change where costs roll. |
| Can I force a project off the report? | Yes — use Exclude from WIP and Exclude from Rev Rec on the project's Preferences tab (see Project Overview). |
A quick decision guide when you're laying out a new program: