Best practices for implementing unit pricing in Cost

Before you enable unit pricing

Review your API integrations

If you have custom API integrations with external systems, you'll need to test and update them.

• Unit pricing introduces structural changes to the Cost module. Existing APIs have been updated to support quantities and unit pricing.
• Review the updated API documentation, including required fields, payload structures, and endpoints.
• Update and test all custom integrations before enabling unit pricing.

Coordinate shared contracts

• Unit pricing changes the underlying Cost data model. This means all organizations participating in shared contracts must use the same configuration.
• You must coordinate with partner organizations to enable unit pricing simultaneously. This ensures uninterrupted collaboration and data consistency.

Decide how you'll manage amounts in Cost

You can choose to either use unit pricing for new projects, or use lump sum amounts for all projects. These two options are explained below.

​Option 1: Use unit pricing for new projects and manage existing projects as lump sum

Units of measure

• Review the default units of measure and remove any that aren't required.
• Rename existing units where appropriate.
• Add any additional units needed for future projects.

Control element categories

• Control element categories are now assigned a unit of measure rather than a type.
• Existing cost categories are automatically assigned Lump Sum.
• Existing hours categories are assigned Hour.
• Existing quantity categories retain their current unit of measure.

To support both project types:

• New projects: Configure organization-level control element categories.
  • In Cost Administration > Organization Data > Control Element Categories, update the unit of measure for each control element category to the value that will be used for new projects (for example, Cubic Yard, Square Yard, Each). These assignments become the default for all new projects.
• Existing projects: Override the unit of measure.
  • For each existing project that will continue to be managed using lump sum amounts, navigate to Cost Administration > Project Data > Project Control Element Categories and change the unit of measure to Lump Sum.

  • When a control element category is assigned Lump Sum:

    • The quantity is fixed at 1.00 and is read-only.
    • The cost is entered as a single unit price representing the total cost.
    • Quantities cannot be edited or accumulated.

Note: At the project level, the unit of measure for an organization-level control element category can only be set to either Lump Sum or the unit of measure defined at the organization level. Assigning any other unit of measure at the project level is not supported.

Example:

Option 2: Use a lump sum system without variable accumulating quantities

New customers

Configure all control element categories with the unit of measure set to Lump Sum. This ensures that quantities remain fixed at 1.00 and are read-only. Users enter a single unit price to represent the total cost. Since quantities can't be edited or accumulated, the system behaves as a true lump sum solution.

Existing customers

Existing control element categories and data will be automatically migrated to Lump Sum. We recommend leaving these assignments unchanged, so that both existing and new records continue to use lump sum behavior. Quantities remain fixed at 1.00 and read-only, while costs continue to be entered as a single value.