Can cost/use be used differently

[Steve NCC]

Most of my work is on the capital costs of projects rather than people costs.
If I use cost/use for a resource I obviously get the cost applied at the
start of the task which is fine for short duration tasks but not for long
duration tasks. Is there a way of splitting the cost/use into unequal parts
and specifying the various dates when those costs are to be applied.

 

[Rod Gill]

The materials resource allows pro rata costing, otherwise Project is not a
job costing tool and you may be better off doing your costs in Excel with
date input from Project. This can either be Copy Paste or via a VBA Macro.

 

[Haris Rashid]

hi Steve,

Using the cost rate tables, you can assign different rates to the selected
resource in different rate tables. Specifically, each tab constitutes a
different rate table, which can be used for different rates for different
tasks. Within each of the five rate tables (A, B, C, D, and E), you can
define up to five different rates for the selected resource, along with the
effective dates. These different rate tables can be used to account for rate
increases or decreases over time, due to work resource salary raises, for
example, or material resource discounts. By default, resources are assigned
to tasks using the cost rate from table A. The rate tables cannot be renamed.

You can change the assigned rate table in the Assignment Information dialog
box.

Effective Date is the date when the standard rate, overtime rate, and
per-use cost specified in this row are to take effect. If two dashes (--) are
in the Effective Date field, this means that the associated rate is currently
in effect. This is the default rate that applies when no other effective
dates exist, or for those dates that the effective dates don't cover. For
example, if the first effective date shown in the table is 11/14/03, then
anything before 11/14/03 is covered by the rate that has two dashes (--) in
the Effective Date field.

That rate stays in effect until the next Effective Date listed in the cost
rate table. On the date a new rate is to take effect, the rate changes
throughout Microsoft Office Project 2003, for example, in the Std. Rate and
Ovt. Rate fields on the Resource Sheet, and in resource cost calculations for
assigned tasks.

Regards,

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

The "cost per use" is attributed for each assignment to the task. You can
accrue it at the start, the end, or prorated. If you need to do it some
other fashion, break the task into smaller subtasks. If you have a 4 week
task with the cost accrued at the end of each week, make it a summary task
with 4 1-week subtasks. Assign the resource to the subtasks only, set the
cost-per-use to the weekly rate, and its accrual to the end of the task.

Do be very very careful - Project is a work scheduling and labour/material
resource cost estimating program first and formost. It is emphatically NOT
a cost accounting system and doesn't do a very accurate job of it -- in
fact, it completely ignores capital and cost of capital, opportunity cost,
ROI, etc so anything you do in that regard is a kludge with all the pitfalls
inherent in forcing a square peg down a round hole..