Budget Tracking

[gja]

My projects follow a similar structure.
Example project Clear Lake Restoration
Example summary tasks (Dredging, Spillway renovation, etc.) These task may
have multiple funding sources, then upon completion or at certain phases of
the task the funding sources payout. Is there a way to start wilth an overall
project budget then track balance as the project moves along?

 

[John]

My projects follow a similar structure.
Example project Clear Lake Restoration
Example summary tasks (Dredging, Spillway renovation, etc.) These task may
have multiple funding sources, then upon completion or at certain phases of
the task the funding sources payout. Is there a way to start wilth an overall
project budget then track balance as the project moves along?

gja,
What you really need is an accounting application and Project isn't
designed for that. If you want to get a first order approximation, you
can load the plan with resources to get the estimated total cost. Then
set a baseline so the baseline cost becomes your budget. From that point
you could use spare cost fields to track various funding sources and
customize one field with a formula to track the balance.

John
Project MVP

 

[gja]

Hello John,

Thank you for your comments. I do need MS project for its primary purpose
(as a scheduling tool). Each of the major projects have a variety of summary
tasks that I need to keep track of for completion. If a resource is applied
it ends up being more of an identification of who is responsible for the
given task (pay rate and time do not come into play). The question I know I
will get is "we had budgeted this amount for task A, how much have we spent
and how much is left". From what I understand it may be best to track this
seperately with excel. I thought there may be a way to enter in a fixed cost
for a task and then update what has been spent. If you have any other
thoughts please let me know. Thanks.

 

[John]

Hello John,

Thank you for your comments. I do need MS project for its primary purpose
(as a scheduling tool). Each of the major projects have a variety of summary
tasks that I need to keep track of for completion. If a resource is applied
it ends up being more of an identification of who is responsible for the
given task (pay rate and time do not come into play). The question I know I
will get is "we had budgeted this amount for task A, how much have we spent
and how much is left". From what I understand it may be best to track this
seperately with excel. I thought there may be a way to enter in a fixed cost
for a task and then update what has been spent. If you have any other
thoughts please let me know. Thanks.

gja,
You're welcome and thanks for the feedback. A similar question was asked
in this newsgroup on Dec 23 ("construction project planning"). Take a
look at that thread of responses - maybe it will help.

John
Project MVP

 

[Paul Conroy]

Budget Resources new to Project 2007 may help your scenario. I've just
written an article about them on my blog.

Paul