This article covers:
The Costs entity allows users to capture expected costs and actual costs applicable to their project. The Costs entity can be renamed, depending on the requirement. For more details on re-naming entities, access the following knowledge base article.
Watch this video that covers Cost Management in PPO:
Accessing the Costs entity
The Costs entity can be accessed when you hover over the Projects Menu or from the Project View page. If you do not see the Costs entity, make sure that your user group has been granted access.
For more information about setting up user group access rights, read the following knowledge base article.
Standard Configuration
The screenshot below shows the standard configuration of the Costs entity.
The entity allows users to classify costs in terms of a category, sub-category, year and month. Users can also add an additional description for the cost.
For each cost record a budget, actual / spent, committed and an estimated amount to complete (amount still required to finish the task / project) can be added. These four fields are then used to calculate the total at completion and variance.
Calculations
The costs entity in PPO calculates the below fields by default (the field names have also been provided in the explanation below as different clients may use different field captions. For more information on field names, access the following knowledge base article.
Total at Completion:
Total at Completion is calculated as Actual / Spend + Committed + Estimate to Complete. This will show the user what their expected actual cost will be at the completion of the project, based on the amount already spent (Actual / Spent), committed to spending (Committed) and the amount expected to still be spent (Estimate to Complete).
The calculation for this field is thus: Total at Completion = Actual / Spent + Committed + Estimate to Complete as shown below.
Variance:
This field shows the difference between the Total at Completion and the Budget. This will show the user whether their expected cost at completion is in line with their budget.
The calculation for this field is thus: Variance = Budget - Total at Completion.
Currency
The currency used on PPO is by default US Dollars. However, the default can be changed by hovering over the Administration Menu and selecting System Configuration. The currency symbol setting is found under the "Other Settings" category and can be changed to any currency symbol. The currency symbol is then displayed on the cost pages as well as the cost reports and dashboards.
Cost Reporting
The cost reports available in PPO will assist the executives and project managers to track and monitor costs. They are:
- Finance Data Report - the report shows the summed costs per project, as well as a grand total for the entire portfolio of projects.
- Cost Detail Report – the report shows a data dump of all the data fields available on the costs entity. It is only available in a datasheet view.
For more information on the report explanations access the following knowledge base article.