where do i enter in cost estimates into project to track

[tadk]

needing to enter in the dollar estimates for different aspects of our projects.
Other than in the notes where i can input them
I cannot find any specific place to do so

the reason is to track estimated costs vs hours worked to check the budget
in different areas of each project.

 

[JD]

In project, costs are usually associated with resources.
For this reason go to the view menu and select "resource sheet". You can
enter an hourly cost or a cost per use. Then when you assign those resources
to tasks project will calculate the estimated cost.
If you aren't seeing the cost show up in the table go to the insert menu and
select column, then insert the cost column.
-Jack Dahlgren
for project examples and VBA programming see http://zo-d.com/blog

 

[tadk]

I already have costs for all my resources entered in
I know it calculates

But in our office for a project (engineering firm) we have dollar estimates
for each job already
what i need to do is input those dollar amounts and have the cost of the
resources subtract out from that and report on that so i see what % of
billing is done based on hours put into the project by resource and compare
the billing % to the dollar estimate to the actual work % complete and
tick/tack the different figures.

I dont think MS Project will be able to do it. But I am asking all of you
for help

Tad

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

If you can wait for a few months, this is a feature of Project 2007.

 

[tadk]

Jan,

Thank you so very much for that heads up.
That will certainly be a factor when it comes time for me to say "I want to
buys this" when it comes out
But unfortunately I have 30 plus projects running right now to track with
that data and so I need to keep forging ahead.
Another post mentioned doing by Fixed Duration instead of Fixed Work which
is the set up I inherited taking this position so I am looking at that right
now.

Again thanks and I am sure you and others will help me out tons here on
these forums.

Tad

 

[Steve House]

The normal calculation for a task's budgeted costs is the sum of the
man-hours of work times the hourly rate for each work resource on a task
plus material resource costs plus any fixed costs entered in the "fixed
cost" field. As actuals are posted, the same calculation is usually done to
come up with the actual cost, based on actual hours worked and materials
consumed plus fixed. These are bottom up calculations, of course. It sound
like your "estimated costs" are top-down instead, something I usually think
of as an allowable distribution of revenues and capital. Bottom up
estimates are an estimate of what tasks are LIKELY to cost you
out-of-pocket while the top-down budget is an estimate of the maximum per
task you are going to be able to spend. Hopefully the former is less than
the latter. There's an extra $500 after my bills are covered that I can
spend on something new, that sort of thing. But Project's cost estimates
are more like "I need to buy a new suit and the only one that fits properly
costs $400." That says nothing about whether I can afford it or not, only
what I'll have to spend if I'm to get it. If my discretionary income for
the month is greater than the estimated costs, I can get my new suit - if
it's less, I can't.

It sounds like what you're really asking is to have the ability to compare
the project's allowed expenditures by task (your estimates, in other words)
on the one hand with Project's calculated bottom-up cost estimates, and
later the bottom-up calculated actual costs as well, on the other hand to
see if you can afford the suit this month <grin>. So why not grab one of
the user-defined empty cost fields to hold those allowed budgets and use
another calculated field to do the comparisons. Take, say, [Cost1] and
rename it "Budgeted Cost" and input your estimates. Meanwhile Project will
calculate [Cost] based on the schedule and [Actual Cost] as you input
progress data - hours of work performed etc based on hours and resource
rates. Then it's straight-forward to set up another calculated field for
[BudgetedCost]-[ActualCost] or whatever other calculations you may need.

Will this achieve your goals or have I misunderstood?