entering a cost for a project

[Turki Ben Sumih]

Dears,
I have a field for project budget in the project information, so i want that
when the PM enters the budget such as 1000000 , i want 1000000 to be changed
automaticaly to 1,000,000.00 . So could you dears help me solving the issue.

Regards,

 

[John]

Dears,
I have a field for project budget in the project information, so i want that
when the PM enters the budget such as 1000000 , i want 1000000 to be changed
automaticaly to 1,000,000.00 . So could you dears help me solving the issue.

Regards,

Turki,
There are several ways to do this but your best bet is to simply use a
spare Cost field (e.g. Cost1). That way, the value entered will
automatically by converted to currency (i.e. 1000000 = $1,000,000.00).

Other methods include using a formula or VBA to convert the value.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[StrommyT]

When I enter a cost in excess of $1,million, the cell becomes #######, how
do I correct that?

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

This is a feature common to all software I know: enlarge the column

 

[Turki Ben Sumih]

john,
thank you so much for your valuable information,

 

[John]

john,
thank you so much for your valuable information,

Turki,
You're welcome.

John

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

FYI - in general budgets aren't entered into project files by the pm.
Individual resource costs are entered and from those and the amount of work
each task requires an estimated cost per task is calculated. Then all the
individual task cost are summed into the summary tasks and ultimately into
the project summary task at the very top level. You don't tell Project how
much you think the project should cost or how much you have available to do
the project. Instead it tells you what the required costs to do the work
are likely to be, a bottom-up estimate as opposed to a top-down budget.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Yet this is how ALL the companies I know work. Budgets are fixed top down.
Baselines are fine but budget is what the boss allows you to spend.

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

Actually it should flow in both directions. The PM estimates the cost of
the project bottom-up based on the projected costs of getting the required
work done. This is passed up to senior management for approval. Once
approved it flows back down to become the "top-down" budget. If it's NOT
approved, then the PM needs to advise senior managment that the only way
they can achieve their goals is to reduce the project's scope and be able to
give concrete reasons why the reduced budget is not adequate to achieve the
desired results. Otherwise what can you do in the scenario where the
top-down budget imposed by senior management only buys you 100 man-hours of
labour but once you prepare the plan you find that the minimum work required
to achieve the project's full scope is 500 man-hours? Of course, this
implies that the Project Manager himself is either a mid to senior level
manager himself or provides input to the decision makers so that he is
involved in the loop from the earliest stages of the process, perhaps
involved even before the decision is made whether the project should be done
at all.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs