P
PreethiS
Hi .. What are Cost Resources? How useful are they as a resource type? What
is their function?
is their function?
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P
/pd
A cost resource is a resources that don't depend on the amount of work on a
task or the duration of a task, such as airfare or lodging.) provides a way
to apply a cost to a task by assigning a cost item (like airfare or lodging)
to that task. A cost resource doesn't depend on the amount of work on a task
or the duration of the task. And unlike fixed costs, you can apply any number
of cost resources to a task. Cost resources give you more control when you
apply various types of costs to tasks.
task or the duration of a task, such as airfare or lodging.) provides a way
to apply a cost to a task by assigning a cost item (like airfare or lodging)
to that task. A cost resource doesn't depend on the amount of work on a task
or the duration of the task. And unlike fixed costs, you can apply any number
of cost resources to a task. Cost resources give you more control when you
apply various types of costs to tasks.
D
Dale Howard [MVP]
PreethiS --
Good question. There are several good uses for Cost resources:
1. You want to track an overall budget for the project. To do this, you
must create a Budget Cost resource, assign it to the Project Summary Task
(Row 0), insert the Budget Cost field temporarily, and then enter a budget
for the project for the Budget Cost resource.
2. You want to manually enter Costs and Actual Costs for the project,
rather than having the software calculate these for you. To do this, you
should not enter a Standard Rate for any resources in your project (or
Enterprise Resource Pool). Instead, you can create an Expense Cost
resource, assign it to all tasks (or all summary tasks) in the project, and
then you can specify an anticipated Cost for each task (or summary task) and
manually enter Actual Costs as well. If you do not want to manually enter
Actual Costs, you can also write custom software code to extract this
information from a 3rd party financial system and "push" the data into the
Microsoft Project plan for each Expense Cost resource.
3. You want to track additional expenses in a project unrelated to the
resource costs (calculated by the software as the Standard Rate x Work for
each resource assigned to each task). For example, perhaps you would like
to track travel costs associated with a number of tasks in your project. To
do this, you could create an Expense Cost resource called Travel Expenses,
assign it to any task that requires travel, and then enter your Actual Cost
for the Travel Expense resource after the travel is completed. By
navigating to the Resource Sheet view or the Resource Usage view, and then
by applying the Cost table, you can see the total Travel Costs for the
project.
Just some thoughts. Hope this helps.
Good question. There are several good uses for Cost resources:
1. You want to track an overall budget for the project. To do this, you
must create a Budget Cost resource, assign it to the Project Summary Task
(Row 0), insert the Budget Cost field temporarily, and then enter a budget
for the project for the Budget Cost resource.
2. You want to manually enter Costs and Actual Costs for the project,
rather than having the software calculate these for you. To do this, you
should not enter a Standard Rate for any resources in your project (or
Enterprise Resource Pool). Instead, you can create an Expense Cost
resource, assign it to all tasks (or all summary tasks) in the project, and
then you can specify an anticipated Cost for each task (or summary task) and
manually enter Actual Costs as well. If you do not want to manually enter
Actual Costs, you can also write custom software code to extract this
information from a 3rd party financial system and "push" the data into the
Microsoft Project plan for each Expense Cost resource.
3. You want to track additional expenses in a project unrelated to the
resource costs (calculated by the software as the Standard Rate x Work for
each resource assigned to each task). For example, perhaps you would like
to track travel costs associated with a number of tasks in your project. To
do this, you could create an Expense Cost resource called Travel Expenses,
assign it to any task that requires travel, and then enter your Actual Cost
for the Travel Expense resource after the travel is completed. By
navigating to the Resource Sheet view or the Resource Usage view, and then
by applying the Cost table, you can see the total Travel Costs for the
project.
Just some thoughts. Hope this helps.