Earned Value and inputting delayed actuals

[KingKikapu]

Hello.

I work for a large general contractor that has operations throughou
Western Canada. The size of the country makes for somewhat slow receip
of bills/invoices to be inputted into our accounting system (worst cas
it can be up to a month after task completion). I need to track projec
status on a weekly basis. These two facts do not go well together...

We are trying to implement an earned value management system on all o
our major construction projects. The tracking is rigorous and a
objective as I can make it, but I'm experiencing problems when we try t
import our actual costs from our accounting software for complete
tasks.

Since the actual costs reported in our accounting software migh
trickle in over the span of a few weeks, if I import the actual costs
have on file into some sort of actual cost field in project before al
of the bills are received in our accounting software, then my CPI's wil
be grossly over optimistic, thereby messing up all predictions for EA
(at which point why bother even doing EVM)

Somebody must have come up against this before. For a 100% complet
task: is there some sort of other field that I can place my actuals i
that won't overwrite the full baseline cost for a task, thereby keepin
CPI realistic? The only thing I can think of to plug the hole is t
also input the matching open purchase orders in as the remaining costs.
That way there should be some semblance of balance.

What does everyone think

 

[Paul Billings]

Hello.

I work for a large general contractor that has operations throughout
Western Canada.  The size of the country makes for somewhat slow receipt
of bills/invoices to be inputted into our accounting system (worst case
it can be up to a month after task completion).  I need to track project
status on a weekly basis.  These two facts do not go well together...

We are trying to implement an earned value management system on all of
our major construction projects.  The tracking is rigorous and as
objective as I can make it, but I'm experiencing problems when we try to
import our actual costs from our accounting software for completed
tasks.

Since the actual costs reported in our accounting software might
trickle in over the span of a few weeks, if I import the actual costs I
have on file  into some sort of actual cost field in project before all
of the bills are received in our accounting software, then my CPI's will
be grossly over optimistic, thereby messing up all predictions for EAC
(at which point why bother even doing EVM)

Somebody must have come up against this before.  For a 100% complete
task: is there some sort of other field that I can place my actuals in
that won't overwrite the full baseline cost for a task, thereby keeping
CPI realistic?  The only thing I can think of to plug the hole is to
also input the matching open purchase orders in as the remaining costs.
That way there should be some semblance of balance.

What does everyone think?

--
KingKikapu
------------------------------------------------------------------------
KingKikapu's Profile:http://forums.techarena.in/members/119086.htm
View this thread:http://forums.techarena.in/microsoft-project/1221975.htm

http://forums.techarena.in

I think you're on the right track -- you have actual costs and
commitments. For the purpose of EV, commitments are just as real as
actuals; you just haven't gotten the bill yet. I would use two custom
cost fields to capture the "received" and "outstanding" amounts. To
ease your life, I would then run a small macro to put the sum of those
two custom fields into the "real" actual cost column for all tasks.
Additionally, I would also make another macro for entering new costs
that would allow you to enter a cost, transfer that much from
"outstanding" to "received", and recompute the actual cost.

It's a little more complicated if you want to deal with partially
complete tasks: your "received" and "outstanding" columns should only
correspond to the amounts associated with the work achieved as of the
status date.

Paul

 

[KingKikapu]

Yeah that should work provided the caveat that everything outstanding at
least has been PO'd. Because, if it isn't, I do believe that screws me.

 

[Jim Aksel]

We use "estimated acutals" similar to they way commitments have been
described earlier. However, your billing needs to provide sufficeint detail
to be able to reconcile the Actuals and the Estimated Actuals.

In either case, you will not acrue ACWP until you make an entry to the
Actual Cost column. We do this all the time (I am in Los Angeles and
invoices come from India). It does make the tracking a bit "sporting"
doesn't it?
--
If this post was helpful, please consider rating it.

Jim Aksel, MVP

Check out my blog for more information:
http://www.msprojectblog.com