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Budget cost fields in MS Project
Hello, I have a question about the budget cost fields in MS Project. I'm having trouble setting specific budgets for individual tasks. Is there something I'm misunderstanding about how to use the software? Currently, there seems to be only one budget for the entire project, but I need to track specific budgets for each task or summary task. How can I input and track specific budget numbers for each task within MS Project?
I simply want to see original budget numbers for each line and be able to compare them later to actual cost.
MS Project: " The Budget Cost fields are used to enter or review budget costs for budget cost resources. Budget resources are assigned only to the project summary task. You can use the Budget Cost fields to compare the current budgeted costs with the planned or actual costs for the project. " project summary only, why? I want to track each line.
That is correct, Project only provides for budgeting at full up project level (i.e. Project Summary Task). You might want to take a read at a few other similar posts and our responses:
John
That is correct, Project only provides for budgeting at full up project level (i.e. Project Summary Task). You might want to take a read at a few other similar posts and our responses:
John
- Sir, would you mind if I ask for further clarification on how to create a budget for each individual task or line item? The previous responses did not fully address my question. I would like to input budgets for each task in MS Project and track their progress through budgeted vs. actual reports. This is different from baseline costs and fixed costs. Could you please guide me on how to input these budgets and track them accurately in the reports under cash flows?
2. or is my baseline cost the same as my "budget costs"?
3. Also, why is the total budget that I entered and assigned is being prorated to the whole project as equal amounts? this is not accurate. meaning if I have 10,000 budget and 10 months, MS project is allocating 1000 for each month. which is incorrect.
4. Also - Why are the fixed costs showing as zero in my cash flow reports when I look at the graph? They should show what I inputted in the cost table, but instead they show as zero.
Your assistance is greatly appreciated.Underbudget007,
Let me start by answering item 2 first. Is your baseline cost the same as your budget cost? That depends on how you set up your plan. If you used a top down approach, (often popular with management), then the cost for each task would in effect be the "budget". Or, even if you used a bottom up approach, and declared the developed cost for each task as the budget for that task, then when you set a baseline, the baseline will represent the budget cost.
Quite honestly, setting a "budget" for each task is not a good idea. In a real plan there are just too many variables that can affect how individual tasks perform. Remember, a summary line is NOT a task, but setting up a budget for each summary group might make sense.
If the baseline at each summary line is not the desired budget, and you should take a hard look at why it is not, then you can set up a separate cost field (e.g. Cost1) to represent the budget for that summary. Note that custom fields are not timescaled like the Cost and Baseline Cost fields are so the value will be a total value only. You could also then create a custom field to track the variance between Actual Cost and and your custom cost field. You'll have to play with the report format to get what you want, or close to what you want.
Project will always linearly spread cost for the full duration unless the cost is work based, (i.e. work type resource), and the assignment Work Contour field is set to something other than the default "flat". You can manually adjust the Budget Cost to whatever spread desired via the Task Usage timescaled values.
With regard to fixed costs not showing up in your cash flow reports, I'd like to see screen shots of your plan and the cash flow report.
John
