In the budget file there are two main sections. It is very important that you do not alter the column order of this file!
The first is M&S / Travel. These are for fixed costs that are not directly associated with a schedule task. They may be indirectly linked to a schedule item such as "Purchase x,y,z". In this section Travel and M&S are in two separate sub-groups.
The second section is for Labor. Each of the rows in this section will have an equivalent row in the Schedule file.
Of all of the columns in this file the 5 that are used for project reporting are the following:
These are the key outputs from this file and will appear in the tracking file and project dashboard.
This column contains the name of the individual item for purchase or the individual scheduled task. It may also contain the name of a sub-group of items or tasks for organizational purposes.
This field is provided for allow the user to add budget planning specific notes related to a particular item. This can be self reminders of how an estimate was generated or can provide further details about what the task or sub group contains.
This field contains either the budgeted number of hours for a given task or the number of components being purchased. For the Labor section the value entered into this field should be linked outwardly to the equivalent task item in the schedule sheet.
This field contains the fully burdened cost (with overhead) of the item being budgeted. For M&S items this is the cost after applying the M&S overhead factor for a given item. For the Labor section this cost is the fully burdened labor cost for the person being assigned the task. In some cases this cost will vary by job code or which project the task is for.
This is the assigned risk factor for each M&S and Labor item in the planned budget. You should assign the risk based upon your confidence level in the budgeted item. This field is used to compute a contingency factor for each budgeted line item.
This field contains the applied contingency multiplier based upon the risk factor assigned to the item.
This field is the computed cost of the M&S or Labor item based upon unit cost and quantity.
This field is the result of applying the contingency factor to the Total Budget number.
This file is an incoming link from the Schedule sheet which contains the planned calendar duration of each task. This field is used in later fields to compute the schedule status of the project.
This column will soon be removed
This field is the result of applying the contingency factor to the Planned Duration.
This column will soon be removed
This is an incoming linked field containing the resource name assigned to each Labor Task in the Schedule File.
We will eventually change this so it is assigned in the budget file.
The use of this filed is slightly different between the M&S/Travel section and the Labor section. In the M&S/Travel section this is either 0% or 100% depending on if the item has been purchased, entered locally. In the Labor section this is the linked percentage complete field from the Budget sheet (not entered locally).
This field computes the earned value of a given item. For M&S this earned value is the estimated cost of an item if purchased, for Labor this is the Budgeted Labor Cost multiplied by the percentage complete. In a perfect project the Earned Value would match the total cost of the project.
This field applies the contingency factor to the earned value field.
This field is used in the Labor section only and is an incoming link of the actual hours charged to a given task. This field ideally should match the total budgeted hours for the task, but in reality it will be a value either greater to or less than the budgeted item.
The use of this field changes between the M&S/Travel section and the Labor section. For M&S/Labor section the value in this field is manually entered with the real cost of the M&S or travel item. For the Labor section this is the result of multiplying the actual labor hours from the Schedule sheet by the hourly rate associated with this item.
This line item is the result of comparing the Actual Cost of each line item with the Earned Value. A negative value in this field means that you earned more value than it costed for a given line item, indicating a Budget under-run. A positive value is a budget overrun.
This is the same as Budget Variance but computed with contingency applied.
This is the planned percent complete based upon the task's start and end date compared to today's date, assuming the task will have linear progress.
This is the expected earned value of a task using the planned % complete and the total cost for the task.
This is the expected earned value of a task using the planned % complete and the total cost with contingency for the task.
This is the computed schedule variance comparing the current earned value with the planned earned value for each task.
This is the computed schedule variance comparing the current earned value with the planned earned value with contingency for each task.
This is the PA-Number to which the costs associated with this line item should be charged. This is outwardly linked to the Schedule tasks.