Setting up a monthly budget

[SPH1967]

I have a project that has an unlimited overall budget, but a maximum monthly
budget of $15000 that we can invoice our client. (in other words, they our
invoices cannot exceed $15K/mo, however the total cost of the project can be
infinite). The project has many tasks and three resources that we can use.
We bill our client $100/hour for our work. Can someone guide me through the
steps involved with setting this up? (it is critical that we stay within the
$15K budget/mo). I can setup a schedule and assign resources, no problem,
but do not know how to tell Project to schedule things such that we don't go
over the monthly budget).

Thanks in advance.

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Unfortunately Project isn't an accounting program and doesn't track
billings/revenues at all. It does estimate your internal costs to do the
work but that's something very different from tracking billings. As I read
your post, if you work 50 hours per week (do you bill per hour regardless of
the number of resources used or do you bill per man-hour?) for the first 3
weeks of the month, you'll 'stand-down' and stop work until the next month
begins. I can't think of any way to get Project to automatically schedule
like that.

 

[SPH1967]

Steve,

Thanks for responding.

We bill per hour, regardless of the # of resources used. Essentially, we
could burn up all of the hours in a single day with 100 people and spend the
rest of the month idle.

It turns out that the $15K/mo ends up being about 1 resource worth of work
almost full time (approx. 36hrs per week). We have three (3) resources we
want to use for this project (we don't want one guy to take all of the hours
and leave the other two without any, so the agreement is that everyone works
33% of the time until we can find other clients).

I tried a couple of things: (1) setting the work week to be only 12 hours
(i.e., all day Monday and 2hrs on Tuesday). This roughly gives me the
effect.

(2) I tried setting the max units for each resource to ~33%, so that 3
resources would equal 1. This sort of worked as well.

But, I was wondering if there was a more elegant/correct way of doing this.
Any thoughts?

Thanks,
-s

Unfortunately Project isn't an accounting program and doesn't track
billings/revenues at all. It does estimate your internal costs to do the
work but that's something very different from tracking billings. As I read
your post, if you work 50 hours per week (do you bill per hour regardless of
the number of resources used or do you bill per man-hour?) for the first 3
weeks of the month, you'll 'stand-down' and stop work until the next month
begins. I can't think of any way to get Project to automatically schedule
like that.


--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm for the FAQs

I have a project that has an unlimited overall budget, but a maximum
monthly
budget of $15000 that we can invoice our client. (in other words, they
our
invoices cannot exceed $15K/mo, however the total cost of the project can
be
infinite). The project has many tasks and three resources that we can
use.
We bill our client $100/hour for our work. Can someone guide me through
the
steps involved with setting this up? (it is critical that we stay within
the
$15K budget/mo). I can setup a schedule and assign resources, no problem,
but do not know how to tell Project to schedule things such that we don't
go
over the monthly budget).

Thanks in advance.

 

[SPH1967]

Steve,

We essentially don't want to consume more than ~157 hours every month. But,
we want to utilize three (3) resources to accomplish this. It's ok if some
resources are idle for part of the time, I suppose.

thanks,
S

Unfortunately Project isn't an accounting program and doesn't track
billings/revenues at all. It does estimate your internal costs to do the
work but that's something very different from tracking billings. As I read
your post, if you work 50 hours per week (do you bill per hour regardless of
the number of resources used or do you bill per man-hour?) for the first 3
weeks of the month, you'll 'stand-down' and stop work until the next month
begins. I can't think of any way to get Project to automatically schedule
like that.


--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm for the FAQs

I have a project that has an unlimited overall budget, but a maximum
monthly
budget of $15000 that we can invoice our client. (in other words, they
our
invoices cannot exceed $15K/mo, however the total cost of the project can
be
infinite). The project has many tasks and three resources that we can
use.
We bill our client $100/hour for our work. Can someone guide me through
the
steps involved with setting this up? (it is critical that we stay within
the
$15K budget/mo). I can setup a schedule and assign resources, no problem,
but do not know how to tell Project to schedule things such that we don't
go
over the monthly budget).

Thanks in advance.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Can't you just build a plan that doesn't spend more than 157 hours in a
month?

Steve,

We essentially don't want to consume more than ~157 hours every month. But,
we want to utilize three (3) resources to accomplish this. It's ok if some
resources are idle for part of the time, I suppose.

thanks,
S

Unfortunately Project isn't an accounting program and doesn't track
billings/revenues at all. It does estimate your internal costs to do the
work but that's something very different from tracking billings. As I read
your post, if you work 50 hours per week (do you bill per hour regardless of
the number of resources used or do you bill per man-hour?) for the first 3
weeks of the month, you'll 'stand-down' and stop work until the next month
begins. I can't think of any way to get Project to automatically schedule
like that.


--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm for the FAQs

I have a project that has an unlimited overall budget, but a maximum
monthly
budget of $15000 that we can invoice our client. (in other words, they
our
invoices cannot exceed $15K/mo, however the total cost of the project can
be
infinite). The project has many tasks and three resources that we can
use.
We bill our client $100/hour for our work. Can someone guide me through
the
steps involved with setting this up? (it is critical that we stay within
the
$15K budget/mo). I can setup a schedule and assign resources, no problem,
but do not know how to tell Project to schedule things such that we don't
go
over the monthly budget).

Thanks in advance.

 

[SPH1967]

Thanks, Rob. But, how do I do this? I'd like to be able to specify this
somewhere and let Project automatically reschedule everything so that no more
than 157hrs are used in a month. My project has many tasks and I don't want
to spend many hours doing the work for Project... And, we may need to add
new tasks and I'd like for Project to still maintain that 157hr limit, even
if the end date moves out.

thx
-S

Can't you just build a plan that doesn't spend more than 157 hours in a
month?

Steve,

We essentially don't want to consume more than ~157 hours every month. But,
we want to utilize three (3) resources to accomplish this. It's ok if some
resources are idle for part of the time, I suppose.

thanks,
S

Unfortunately Project isn't an accounting program and doesn't track
billings/revenues at all. It does estimate your internal costs to do the
work but that's something very different from tracking billings. As I read
your post, if you work 50 hours per week (do you bill per hour regardless of
the number of resources used or do you bill per man-hour?) for the first 3
weeks of the month, you'll 'stand-down' and stop work until the next month
begins. I can't think of any way to get Project to automatically schedule
like that.


--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm for the FAQs



I have a project that has an unlimited overall budget, but a maximum
monthly
budget of $15000 that we can invoice our client. (in other words, they
our
invoices cannot exceed $15K/mo, however the total cost of the project can
be
infinite). The project has many tasks and three resources that we can
use.
We bill our client $100/hour for our work. Can someone guide me through
the
steps involved with setting this up? (it is critical that we stay within
the
$15K budget/mo). I can setup a schedule and assign resources, no problem,
but do not know how to tell Project to schedule things such that we don't
go
over the monthly budget).

Thanks in advance.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Well, I guess I would experiment with computing out how many units of
resource 157 hours/month equate to. Limit your resource to those numbers
of units and level by month. It will probably get your close. Like
others have said, Project is not an accounting program.

The best control for this would be to let the people budget their
forward looking plans to 157 hours, and you stuff in as many deliveables
in that 157 hours as possible.

Let them control the builable hourr (not project) and you figure out
how many is the right number of deliverables to expect/promise. The
former can't really be done well in Project. The latter is what Project
is designed to do.

Thanks, Rob. But, how do I do this? I'd like to be able to specify this
somewhere and let Project automatically reschedule everything so that no more
than 157hrs are used in a month. My project has many tasks and I don't want
to spend many hours doing the work for Project... And, we may need to add
new tasks and I'd like for Project to still maintain that 157hr limit, even
if the end date moves out.

thx
-S

Can't you just build a plan that doesn't spend more than 157 hours in a
month?

Steve,

We essentially don't want to consume more than ~157 hours every month. But,
we want to utilize three (3) resources to accomplish this. It's ok if some
resources are idle for part of the time, I suppose.

thanks,
S

:

Unfortunately Project isn't an accounting program and doesn't track
billings/revenues at all. It does estimate your internal costs to do the
work but that's something very different from tracking billings. As I read
your post, if you work 50 hours per week (do you bill per hour regardless of
the number of resources used or do you bill per man-hour?) for the first 3
weeks of the month, you'll 'stand-down' and stop work until the next month
begins. I can't think of any way to get Project to automatically schedule
like that.


--
Steve House [Project MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm for the FAQs



I have a project that has an unlimited overall budget, but a maximum
monthly
budget of $15000 that we can invoice our client. (in other words, they
our
invoices cannot exceed $15K/mo, however the total cost of the project can
be
infinite). The project has many tasks and three resources that we can
use.
We bill our client $100/hour for our work. Can someone guide me through
the
steps involved with setting this up? (it is critical that we stay within
the
$15K budget/mo). I can setup a schedule and assign resources, no problem,
but do not know how to tell Project to schedule things such that we don't
go
over the monthly budget).

Thanks in advance.