Resource planning

To those who may follow this thread:
The user sent me the file, I examined it and found the reason for the problem. I feel the answer is worthy of explanation for the benefit of all users.

The user's file had an issue of a link on a summary line but that was easily fixed and had no bearing on the reported problem. All tasks were auto-scheduled, resources properly identified and assigned, and a baseline set.

The user updated task progress and cost solely by entering a value in the % Complete field. The result was the value in the Cost field was being "transferred" to the "Cost Variance" field. The issue: why did that happen?

Before progress update:

After progress update: Note the absence of actual cost values for the two updated tasks

What I found was the user's options were set for Project to NOT automatically calculate costs.

With the option off, a user must input actual cost values. But, as noted above, no actual cost values are entered. In Project the Cost field = Actual Cost + Remaining Cost. Since there are no entries for actual cost or remaining cost, when the task was declared complete, (or partially complete), the value in the cost field is decremented by the percent complete value. And, since the Baseline Cost captured the original Cost field value, the Cost Variance, which is calculated as Cost minus Baseline Cost, reflected the negative value.

The solution is to either set the option for Project to automatically calculate actual costs, or to manually enter an actual cost value when task progress is updated. With the option set, this is the result.

John