Annika ChristensenProject Manager/Estimator| Sandau ConstructionMn, United States
I am using an Excel spreadsheet to track my cost to date. There has to be a better way!!!! What are you using? I am currently using Microsoft PM for resource/time management but haven't found a way to track financials in it. Thank you in advance. Saving Changes...
I only learned about it recently. The project I was going to use it on is on hold, for now, so I've got a little time to figure out when to set up a Budget resource as Type work, material, or cost. There's a youtube video from 'Simon Sez IT' on 'How to setup budget costs in Microsoft Project 2016' that shows a helpful tip:
- put budget resources and related task resources in the same group on the resource sheet
- in the resource usage view, group resources by group
This will give you a subtotal of the budgeted costs and actuals for each group.
I'll figure out how to report from this later.
Is the tutorial you're reviewing any good? Saving Changes...
Annika ChristensenProject Manager/Estimator| Sandau ConstructionMn, United States
I've watched several now. I was able to enter all my costs, however I am not able to enter actual costs. I have to assign them to a field and I'm not sure if the value of this will be worth the time in the construction field. Time will tell! Saving Changes...
If I understand you correctly, that is by design. Budget resources are assigned to the project summary task, and non-budget resources are assigned to regular tasks. As progress is updated in the schedule, Actual and Remining Costs are calculated automatically.
I apologize if I'm just repeating something you already know - I'm thinking this through as I type.
My company doesn't track the cost of employee hours on projects, but I can see using this with vendor hours and hardware/software costs on implementations. I'll have to think through travel expenses.
On a side note, if you create a custom field (budget cost - cost for the Balance) and apply the formula to summary tasks in the resource usage view, you can display the budget cost, cost, and balance when you group the resources by group.
I'm seeing potential, but I don't think I'll need this for all of my projects. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
In my case the problem is not the tool. In fact, I use an excell spreadsheet too. The problem is to get all the related costs. Several different sources, in different moments, including it internal costs and cross-charges. When I consolidated all the information I have an excell spreadsheet to calculate earned value just to get some indicator about to predict the future state from the actual state. Saving Changes...
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