Plant Attribution (docket → registered plant)
Plant Attribution binds a docket to a specific asset in the Plant Register. Once a docket is attributed, everything it costs counts toward that machine’s reported spend — so “what has the 20-tonne excavator cost us this month?” becomes a number the system can answer instead of a number someone reconstructs from equipment lines by hand.
What it is
Every docket can carry one registered plant. The binding is a header field on the docket, not a property of its equipment lines — a docket is attributed to an asset as a whole.
Two things follow from that:
- Plant-cost reporting has a defined population. Reports that say “plant and equipment cost” mean cost on dockets attributed to a registered plant, not “every dollar on the project that touched a machine”.
- Attribution is deliberate. Nothing is inferred at read time. A docket counts toward an asset because someone (or the auto-docket scheduler) said so.
Which dockets can be attributed
Only plant-capable docket types carry the control:
| Docket type | Plant Attribution |
|---|---|
plant | Yes |
labour-plant | Yes |
combined | Yes |
standard | No — labour only |
materials | No |
subcontractor | No |
Attributing a docket
- Open the docket. On the Meta pane, find the Plant Attribution section.
- Pick the asset from Registered Plant. The list shows only plants belonging to this docket’s supplier (see the rule below).
- The change saves with the rest of the docket header.
To detach a docket, pick No plant.
Timing. Attribution is editable while the docket is draft, field-submitted or submitted — the same window as every other header field. Once a docket is reviewed it is frozen, attribution included. Attribute a plant docket while it is still being worked on, not after it is approved.
Archived plants. An archived plant cannot be newly picked. A docket that was already attributed to it keeps the binding: saving the docket with the plant it already has is never refused and changes nothing. Only a different plant is checked.
The same-supplier rule
A docket can only be attributed to a plant belonging to its own supplier. The picker lists only that supplier’s assets, and the server rejects any other binding outright — attributing one supplier’s docket to another supplier’s machine would corrupt both parties’ cost figures, and there is no legitimate reason to do it.
If an attribution is rejected you will see one of:
| Message | Meaning |
|---|---|
| That plant is not on this project. | The asset does not exist on this project (or is deleted). |
| That plant belongs to a different supplier… | The asset is real but is registered against another supplier. |
Where attribution comes from
| Source | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| Auto-generated dockets | Always attributed. The scheduler creates the docket from a plant, so the binding is set at creation. |
| Manual dockets | Attributed when someone picks the plant — at create time or later from the docket sheet. |
| Duplicated dockets | Inherit the source docket’s attribution. A duplicate lands under the same project and supplier, so the binding stays valid. |
Historical dockets
Dockets created before Plant Attribution existed were not able to carry a plant. A one-off backfill recovered the portion of that history that could be identified beyond doubt: a docket whose equipment lines resolve to exactly one registered plant, within the same project, supplier and contract.
Everything else was deliberately left unattributed rather than guessed:
- dockets whose equipment rate is shared by two or more plants (the fleet case) — there is no way to tell which machine did the work;
- dockets for plants that carry no equipment rate at all — no shared key exists to match on;
- dockets with no equipment lines, or with no contract.
Those dockets are attributed the same way as any new one: open them and pick the plant. Expect plant-cost figures for older periods to under-read until that catch-up is done.