costing question

[Mari]

i have a column that i need to put costs of let's say for example a machine.
that machine needs a down payment, a second payment, and a final payment. i
want to have a second column where i can update once that payment has been
issued and keep track on hom much the machine costs and the progress of the
investment (it needs to be able to add all of the down payments together to
equal the machine cost).

the only way that i have been able to do is add a "cost" column and change
the name to "baseline cost" for the actual investment costs and for the down
payments i have used a "baseline cost" column and re-label it "payments". the
"cost" column works perfectly, it adds all of the downpayments together to
give the total cost of the machine but in the other column it doesn't add the
actual payments made.

please help!

 

[Rod Gill]

Your biggest problem is that Project is not an accounting system: its there
to calculate costs and work and time frames. Any attempt to track progress
payments is going to involve manual intervention.

Personally I would take progress payments offline and let your accounts
department deal with them or at the very least track them in Excel.

In Project you would need to use Cost1...10 fields to track them. Using
formulas they will total for you.

 

[Mari]

thanks, this helps some.

my question now is i don't understand the concept of the Cost1 field and how
to use a formula to add them up...i really wished project had some of the
capabilities of excel to do formulas. i did try to figure out and in the end
i really confused myself.

mari

 

[Rod Gill]

Hi,

Cost1...Cost10 are unused custom fields you can use for any costs you like.
Search help for formulas. You can create a formula in Cost1 for example teat
adds Cost2+Cost3+Cost4

Enter formulae via Tools, Customize, Fields