Current State:
At present, the “Other” (Category/Sub-category) records in PPO are manually calculated after the CAPEX expenditure and salary cost entries are loaded. This manual process introduces a risk of human error and can lead to confusion, particularly as the budget calculation follows the formula:
Budget = Actual + Forecast + Commitments + Other
The “Other” component is manually adjusted to account for any surplus or shortfall.
Proposed Improvement:
It is recommended that the “Other” value be automatically calculated and updated whenever the approved project budget is loaded, increased, or decreased. This could be achieved by subtracting the recorded CAPEX and salary costs from the approved budget, thereby dynamically determining the remaining balance.
Automating this calculation would reduce the risk of manual error and remove the burden on Project Managers to calculate variances themselves. This approach can align with current PPO permissions, with only PPO Administrators being authorised to capture the Approved Project Budget and associated “Other” cost entries.