# Costpoint Timesheet: Employee Cannot Charge to a Project

> Source: https://netray.co/erp-help/costpoint-employee-cannot-charge-project-timesheet
> Publisher: Netray (netray.co), AI and integration engineering for ERP and manufacturing systems.
> Section: ERP Help

## Short answer

When Costpoint rejects a charge line on a timesheet, one of a short list of validations has failed: the project or task is not open for charging, the account or organization on the line is not valid for that project, the employee is not set up to charge it, or the timesheet date falls outside an open period. Work through those checks in order and the cause is almost always found in minutes.

## Kind

error

## System

small-erp

## Erp

Deltek Costpoint

## Module

Timesheets / Project Setup

## Query

Costpoint timesheet cannot charge to project invalid charge

## Alternate Queries

- Deltek Costpoint timesheet project not valid for employee
- Costpoint timesheet charge not allowed
- why can't an employee charge time to a project in Costpoint
- Costpoint timesheet account organization combination invalid

## Applies To

Deltek Costpoint 7.x and Costpoint cloud, Timesheet and Project Setup applications. Exact screen names vary slightly by release and by how your administrator configured the menu.

## Steps

### How to diagnose a rejected charge line

**Items:**

Copy the exact message and note the project, task, account, organization, pay type and date on the failing line. Different messages point at different validations, so the text matters.

Open the project in Project Setup and confirm the project (and the specific level you are charging) has a status that allows charging, and that the project start and end dates cover the timesheet date.

Check the charging flags on the project level, such as whether the level is chargeable at all. A summary level in the project structure usually cannot take direct charges; only the lowest chargeable level can.

Verify the account and organization combination. The project's account group and org must allow the labor account the employee's default or the line uses; an org that is not valid for the project is a common cause.

Check the employee record in Employee Maintenance: labor category, home organization, labor group and any project or charge restrictions that apply to that person.

Confirm the timesheet period is open and the employee is not blocked by a policy such as a cutoff or an already-approved or posted timesheet for the same date.

Fix the master data, not the timesheet, if the rule is wrong. If the rule is right, have the employee charge the correct project or have a supervisor request a change through your normal approval flow.

## Sections

### Why Costpoint validates so many things on one line

**Body:**

A Costpoint charge line is not just a project number. It is a combination of project, task or level, account, organization, pay type and, where used, a labor category. The system validates each element against its own master table and then validates the combination. That is deliberate: on a government contract, a charge posted to the wrong account or organization changes how cost is allocated to indirect pools and, ultimately, what you can bill.

This is why the same project can be chargeable for one employee and not another. The project may be open, but the other person's home organization or labor group may not be permitted on it. When you troubleshoot, always test with the employee's actual record rather than your own administrator login.

### Project status and level structure

**Body:**

Projects in Costpoint have a hierarchical structure, for example a top level, a work breakdown level and a lowest chargeable level. Users can only charge the lowest chargeable level, and each level has its own status. A parent that is open does not guarantee a child that is open, so check the level the employee actually typed.

Dates matter as much as status. A project whose end date was set to the end of the base period will reject charges for option-period work until it is extended. Likewise, a new project with a future start date will reject early time. Many 'cannot charge' tickets are simply an end date that nobody extended after a contract modification.

**Code:**

-- Read-only sanity check against your reporting database or a Costpoint view.
-- Table and column names can differ by release; confirm in your data dictionary first.
SELECT proj_id, proj_name, active_fl, proj_start_dt, proj_end_dt
FROM proj
WHERE proj_id LIKE 'ABC-1234%'
ORDER BY proj_id;

### Account, organization and labor setup

**Body:**

The account on a labor line generally comes from the employee's labor setup and the pay type, not from something the user types. If the employee's default labor account is not valid for the project's account group, every line fails even though the project looks fine. Compare the account on the line to the project's allowed accounts.

Organization works the same way. If a project is only valid for certain organizations and the employee's home org is outside that list, charging fails or the line posts to a different org than expected. Check whether your company uses an organization override on the timesheet, and who is allowed to use it.

Finally, review labor category and labor group if you use them. Contracts with labor category rates require that the employee map to a billable category on that project; if they do not, the charge may be blocked or may flow to an unbillable bucket.

## Pitfalls

- Fixing the symptom by widening a project's validity so everyone can charge it. That weakens the cost-allocation controls an auditor expects and is hard to unwind.
- Re-keying the line with a different project to get past the error, which mischarges time and creates a correction later.
- Testing as an administrator. Administrators often bypass restrictions that apply to normal users, so the problem seems to disappear.
- Forgetting that an approved or posted timesheet cannot be edited directly; changes must go through your correction process.
- Extending a project end date without checking the funding and ceiling limits that go with the modification.

## Ai Angle

An assistant grounded in your Costpoint data can take the failing line and run the same checks a senior administrator would: project status and dates, level chargeability, the employee's org and labor group, and the account group. It reports which check failed and which master record to change, and it never edits setup itself. ERPray is read-only by default, shows the query it ran and respects Costpoint roles, so a timekeeper sees only what they are allowed to see.

## Faq

### Why does one employee get the error and another does not on the same project?

**Answer:** Because validation includes the employee's own setup: home organization, labor group, labor category and default labor account. The project can be open for one person and not for another when those values differ. Compare the two employee records side by side before changing the project.

### Can I just change the project to allow all charges?

**Answer:** You can, but you should not do it as a shortcut. Charging controls exist so cost lands in the right pool and contract. Widening them to clear a ticket can create audit findings. Change them only when the contract or organization structure genuinely changed.

### The project end date passed. Is that the problem?

**Answer:** Very often. After a contract modification that adds an option period, the project end date must be extended or charges for the new period are rejected. Update the dates only after the modification is executed and funding is recorded.

### Does this apply to Costpoint cloud as well?

**Answer:** The validations are part of the application, so the logic is the same. What differs is who can edit setup. In a hosted environment configuration changes usually follow your change process and you may not have direct database access, so use the application screens.

## Search terms

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