Project Management

5 Types of Project Cost [Infographic]

From the The Money Files Blog
by
A blog that looks at all aspects of project and program finances from budgets, estimating and accounting to getting a pay rise and managing contracts. Written by Elizabeth Harrin from RebelsGuideToPM.com.

About this Blog

RSS

Recent Posts

How to learn AI the sensible way

Making sense of project cost reports

How real PM mentoring actually works

The Accidental Product Manager: What project managers need to know

How healthy are your project finances?

Categories

accounting, agile, ai, appraisals, Artificial Intelligence, audit, Backlog, Benchmarking, benefits, Benefits Management, Benefits Realization, Bias, books, budget, Business Case, business case, business case, Career Development, Career Development, carnival, case study, Change Management, checklist, collaboration tools, communication, Communications Management, competition, complex projects, Conferences, config management, consultancy, contingency, contracts, corporate finance, corporate finance, cost, Cost Management, cost management, credit crunch, CRM, data, data security, debate, Decision Making, delegating, digite, earned value, Education, Energy and Utilities, Estimating, events, FAQ, financial management, financial management, forecasting, future, GDPR, general, Goals, Governance, green, Information Technology, Innovation, insurance, interviews, it, Knowledge Management, Leadership, Lessons Learned, measuring performance, Mentoring, merger, methods, metrics, multiple projects, negotiating, Networking, news, Olympics, organization, Organizational Culture, outsourcing, personal finance, Planning, pmi, PMO, PMO, Portfolio Management, portfolio management, presentations, privacy policy, process, procurement, product management, productivity, Program Management, project closure, project data, project delivery, Project Success, project testing, prototyping, qualifications, Quality, quality, Quarterly Review, records, recruitment, reports, requirements, research, resilience, Resource Management, resources, risk, Risk Management, ROI, salaries, Schedule Management, Scheduling, scope, Scope Management, security, small projects, Social Impact, social impact, social media, software, software, software, Stakeholder Management, stakeholders, Strategy, success factors, supplier management, team, Teams, testing, testing, timesheets, tips, training, transparency, trends, value management, vendors, video, virtual teams, workflow

Date

linkedin twitter facebook Request to reuse this  

Categories: cost


There are different types of project cost – your budget isn’t made up of one big lump of cash. Although it can sometimes feel like that!

Understanding the different types of project cost is helpful because they help you review the different categories of spend. You can use mindmapping to check that you haven’t left out any budget items.

The infographic below shares the 5 different types of project costs that you should consider for your budget. However, what it doesn’t make clear is that the project cost categories overlap. You can have fixed direct costs and variable indirect costs, for example. Sunk costs remain sunk!

Within the different categories you can break down your budget even further. For example, cost of quality might be something you consider for your budget formulation, but it could be a fixed, variable, direct or indirect cost, depending on how you are going to build quality into your project.


Posted on: October 22, 2018 08:59 AM | Permalink

Comments (8)

Please login or join to subscribe to this item
avatar
Eduin Fernando Valdes Alvarado Project Manager| F y F Fabricamos Futuro Villavicencio, Meta, Colombia
Very interesting, thanks for sharing

avatar
Lenka Pincot Chief of Staff to the CEO| Project Management Institute Paris, France
Very nice graphic, thanks for sharing!

avatar
Rami Kaibni
Community Champion
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten Associates New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Hi Elizabeth, thanks for sharing this. We normally call the Indirect Cost as Overhead Cost.

In Construction, we do normally have two main types of Cost: Direct & Indirect. The rest goes under those two main categories (ie. Variable, Sunk and Fixed Costs). For example, variable cost of staff could be direct or indirect cost and the same goes for equipment and other things so I am not sure I fully agree that the budget consists of 5 categories of costs. In my humble opinion, it consists of two main Cost categories and then subcategories under those two main categories.

avatar
Pench Batta Enterprise Lean Agile DevOps Coach /SAFe Program Consultant (SPC6)| Capgemini, Inc. Bentonville, Ar, United States
Elizabeth, thanks for sharing excellent information on different costs.

avatar
Tamer Zeyad Sadiq Assistant Cost Manager| Turner & Townsend Riyadh, Ar Riyad, Saudi Arabia
Good graphic!!!

avatar
Drake Settsu Project Manager / Blogger Hi, United States
Excellent infographic to use as a reference for the project cost.

avatar
Mayte Mata Sivera PMO Leader | Speaker | Author Ut, United States
Thank you for sharing! I worked in some organizations that called Indirect Cost as Overhead as Rami noted before

Hi Elizabeth, this is an excellent infographic. Thank you.

Please Login/Register to leave a comment.

ADVERTISEMENTS

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."

- Groucho Marx

ADVERTISEMENT

Sponsors