Annual Rental Charges

[Jerr20]

I want to include the annual rental of an item, such that the annual lump sum
rental is shown on a discrete date each year in the cost reports eg: a line
item task called, say, Rental, lasting many years, with annual payments made
on, say 1st Jan each year.

Is this possible? Assistance much appreciated.

 

[John]

I want to include the annual rental of an item, such that the annual lump sum
rental is shown on a discrete date each year in the cost reports eg: a line
item task called, say, Rental, lasting many years, with annual payments made
on, say 1st Jan each year.

Is this possible? Assistance much appreciated.

Jerr20,
There may be other ways to do it but here is what I recommend. Let's say
you are renting jackhammer at $1000/yr with the invoice due Jan 1st of
each year. (This isn't a great example because you could buy a
jackhammer for less than $1000 but it will serve to illustrate the
method).
1. Go to the Resource Sheet and set up a material resource called
"jackhammer"
2. In the Cost/Use field, enter $1000
3. On the Gantt Chart view go to: Insert/Recurring Task
4. Call the task name "Jackhammer rental cost"
5. Set the recurrence pattern for "yearly" on January 1
6. Set the range of recurrence start and end dates or start date and the
number of years
7. Hit "OK"
8. On the Summary Line for the "Jackhammer rental cost" assign the
jackhammer resource (it will automatically spread at the rate of once
per year to each of the subtasks)

The Summary Line will show the total duration of the rental period and
the total cost. Each subtask will represent on annual rental fee on Jan
1st.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[Jerr20]

John,
Thank you for this workaround. I guess there is no way of avoiding the list
of sub-tasks?
With respect to your point 8 - assigning the resource to the Summary Task:
when I tried this using (Recurring) Task Information, resource allocation is
not an option - resources can only be assigned to the individual sub-tasks
ie: each annual jackhammer task has to be assigned the rental?

It was a pleasure to get such a fast response.

Jerry

 

[Jerr20]

John,
I was being dumb - I've now spotted how to assign resources to the summary
task!
Jerry

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

Sidenote --- Be vewy vewy careful! <g> You can assign resources to the
summary task that is created when you enter a RECURRING task and have them
propogate to the individual subtasks. But that DOES NOT work for
conventional summary tasks created by indenting their child tasks.

 

[John]

John,
I was being dumb - I've now spotted how to assign resources to the summary
task!
Jerry

Jerry,
Steve made an excellent point that I failed to mention. The basic rule
is NEVER assign resources to a Summary Line. There are a few exceptions
and a recurring task is one of them. Project will allow resource
assignments on a Summary Line, but it creates more headaches than you
want to deal with.

John
Project MVP