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Cost loading in Programme

21 replies [Last post]
Kannan CP
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Hi all,

Which is the best option to assign a resouce type for cost loading (labour, non-labour or material)? My intention to assign a cost loading resource (with unit rate 1/hr) fo all activites to develop the overall budget cost as per contract value. Will also insert other resources (lan, non lab and mat) with out any unit rate, for the required construction activities.

 

Other thing is -as per client requirement we need to insert the payment lilestone value for all milestones (in addition to the above said cost loading). Since our contract is milestone payment this to be done. How I can show this without affecting the cost loading(overall budget cost should be the same as contract value-even with this milestone values).

Regards

Kannan

Replies

Dieter Wambach
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Hi Kannan

I avoid this setting. So I found the solution with an extra project for the payment milestones.

Regards

Dieter

Kannan CP
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Hi Dieter,

Thanks for reply. I do use excel files to prepare the S-Curve, to show progress with the BOQ Values (excluding milestone values).

I need to send the p6(xer) file to client and they will be confused with performance percentage progress, as I explained in my previous mail. All the management staff are not well aware of the working of P6, and they want to see the results in the way they want. Unfortunately P6 cant help it.

I found a solution for it-but I dont know if it will impact any other settings or scheduling;

In the Project tab(calculation), I removed the link "link budget and at completion for not started activities". Then I add the milestone values in the expense tab-remaining section. Now the total budget cost colum is counting only the BOQ values. Only problem is I have to change the remaining duration in order to change the durations.

Did you experience this settings before?

Regards

Kannan

Kannan CP
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Hi Rafael,

Thanks for the detailed explanation. It will work in Spider Projects. But unfortunately in P6, it will not give the required results as we want-as in my case. I am still trying to find some easy options.

Regards

Kannan

Dieter Wambach
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Hi Kannan

p.s. to my post from yesterday:

In the past I used a special project for the payment milestones which was linked to the main project. If I wanted to control cost part only, I only opened the main project.

 

@ Endralie: Hi, please have a look into e.g. PMBoK:

"Milestone: A significant point or event in a project, program, or portfolio."

You use Milestones to control a project, some are given by contract and may be fixed (and later moved due to reality), others are given by you. An example are the Payment Milestones. In P6 you may add a responsible person.

 

Regards

Dieter 

endralie halog
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Hi kannan,

I think you mis understood me,"If you add a value in the milestones it will be added to the total budgeted cost of the project".

So insert a "User Defined Columns",and from the Resourge usage Profile take a look in date of your milestones and copy it from that.

As a Planning Engineer,we define milestones as a date of a target,it is establish by the client or the Project  Management,we don't put values in milestones,it does not have durations to compute.

I hope this help.

Endralie G. Halog

Philippines

Rafael Davila
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I do not use P6 and understand it does not provide functionality for cost centers but for cost accounts it does.  I believe for such simple model assigning differnt cost accounts one for distributed on activities BOQ and another for distributed on milestones BOQ shall do the trick.

The following is how I would do it using Spider Project.

cost components photo costcomponentddd_zpsb1fd2af2.jpg

Monthly cahs flow is a bit more interesting.

mo cash flow photo mocashflow_zpsb143d145.jpg

But still simple enough not to require use of cost centers.

Rafael

Dieter Wambach
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Hi Kannan

Therefore we use EXCEL for those graphics - with original data from P6 but for the better functions.

I assume you use the activity usage profile or ...table. If you only open one project you can reduce the calculation to the current view. I didn't test but it may work: Filter activity type not equal to (Start MS or Finish MS) then reduce calculations to "selected"

Good luck and regards from Germany

Dieter

Kannan CP
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Thanks endralie,

I will try it.

Regards

Kannan

Kannan CP
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Hi Dieter,

I can change the name of the columns, its not an issue. But the real issue is during updating the progress and calculating performance percentage, I want to use only cost loaded to the activities, not milestone values.

for eg:

section1

act.1: 100 dollar(10 days)

act2: 200 dollar(10 days)(FS act1)

act3: 100 dollar(10 days) (FS act2)

act1+act2+act3: 400 dollar (contract value,will be used for S-Curve and contractor progress monitoring)

milestone value:400 dollar(after 30 days)(this milestone as per client requirement for their monitoring and record)

In p6: Total budgeted cost column will be shown as 800 dollar. If I update progress after 20 days and % progress for activity 1 &2 as 100%. milestone is still 0%.

so the performance% should be 300/400=75% in P6

but in reality (due to the insertion of milestone value) it will show 300/800=37.5% in P6

but i want to show 75% in P6 which is the real progress.

 

Regards

Kannan

endralie halog
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Hi kannan,

    "Other thing is -as per client requirement we need to insert the payment lilestone value for all milestones (in addition to the above said cost loading). Since our contract is milestone payment this to be done. How I can show this without affecting the cost loading(overall budget cost should be the same as contract value-even with this milestone values)"(your question)

      I hope this will help you,i never experience the milestones billing,but i think it is the best against progress billing,cause the contractor will surely focus on planning. If you add a value in the milestones it will be added to the total budgeted cost of the project.But you can see everything on the resource usage profile, the date,earned value,actuals..you can use that in order to show the milestones dates and see the values..you can insert a column in the User Defined Fields and Just copy it from that.

 

thanks,

Endralie G. Halog

Philippines

endralie halog
User offline. Last seen 8 years 35 weeks ago. Offline
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Hi kannan,

    "Other thing is -as per client requirement we need to insert the payment lilestone value for all milestones (in addition to the above said cost loading). Since our contract is milestone payment this to be done. How I can show this without affecting the cost loading(overall budget cost should be the same as contract value-even with this milestone values)"(your question)

      I hope this will help you,i never experience the milestones billing,but i think it is the best against progress billing,cause the contractor will surely focus on planning. If you add a value in the milestones it will be added to the total budgeted cost of the project.But you can see everything on the resource usage profile, the date,earned value,actuals..you can use that in order to show the milestones dates and see the values..you can insert a column in the User Defined Fields and Just copy it from that.

 

thanks,

Endralie G. Halog

Philippines

Dieter Wambach
User offline. Last seen 6 years 51 weeks ago. Offline
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Posts: 1350

Hi Kannan

The Overall Budget Cost is labour + non-labour + material + expenses. But you use the expenses for payments not for costs. You can madify the names of columns.

What prevents you to modify the name of labour costs into total costs within special layout? Describe this and the reason in your procedure an you'll pass any audit.

Good lock!

Dieter

Kannan CP
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Hi dieter,

You understood correctly.

As you mentioned- I assign a labour type resource (name as BOQ Value) for all the activities to incorporate the Contract value. In the next step, I incorporate the milestone payment value for all milestones as expenses. Now the total budget value is doubled in the  "Budgeted Total Cost" column (contract value + expenses). I want to show only the contract value in the column. How to fix it?

 

Regards

Kannan

Dieter Wambach
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Hi Kennan

I'm not sure if I understood correct. You'll have to cover costs / budget and the customer payments (milestones).

You can cover the budget by labour costs and the customer payments (=negative costs) by expenses - for milestones only expenses are possible. Depending on what you want to show, you can select labour costs, expenses or both.

In my opinion this will be the easiest way.

Regards

Dieter

Kannan CP
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Hi edralie

 

Thanks for reply.

If both the resourse (for cost loading) and expense (for milestone value) are used, how I can show the total budgeted cost equal to contract value. any minor changes to be done?

Regarding the resource type for cost loading- which is the best option to follow?

 

Thanks

Kannan

endralie halog
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hi Kannan,

I am new here,hello!,Since the goal is to know the project budget,if your is a plan is more detailed,for me it is best to use the Resource Tab,but if your plan is not that detailed it much easier to use the Expense.And to maximize the of p6 if your using it,use both of the tab.It is not that hard to use any of them,it just takes time.

I hope this help you,

Endralie G. Halog

Philippines.

endralie halog
User offline. Last seen 8 years 35 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 15 Jun 2014
Posts: 16
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hi Kannan,

I am new here,hello!,Since the goal is to know the project budget,if your is a plan is more detailed,for me it is best to use the Resource Tab,but if your plan is not that detailed it much easier to use the Expense.And to maximize the of p6 if your using it,use both of the tab.It is not that hard to use any of them,it just takes time.

I hope this help you,

Endralie G. Halog

Philippines.

endralie halog
User offline. Last seen 8 years 35 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 15 Jun 2014
Posts: 16
Groups: None

hi Kannan,

I am new here,hello!,Since the goal is to know the project budget,if your is a plan is more detailed,for me it is best to use the Resource Tab,but if your plan is not that detailed it much easier to use the Expense.And to maximize the of p6 if your using it,use both of the tab.It is not that hard to use any of them,it just takes time.

I hope this help you,

Endralie G. Halog

Philippines.

endralie halog
User offline. Last seen 8 years 35 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 15 Jun 2014
Posts: 16
Groups: None

hi Kannan,

I am new here,hello!,Since the goal is to know the project budget,if your is a plan is more detailed,for me it is best to use the Resource Tab,but if your plan is not that detailed it much easier to use the Expense.And to maximize the of p6 if your using it,use both of the tab.It is not that hard to use any of them,it just takes time.

I hope this help you,

endralie halog
User offline. Last seen 8 years 35 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 15 Jun 2014
Posts: 16
Groups: None

hi Kannan,

I am new here,hello!,Since the goal is to know the project budget,if your is a plan is more detailed,for me it is best to use the Resource Tab,but if your plan is not that detailed it much easier to use the Expense.And to maximize the of p6 if your using it,use both of the tab.It is not that hard to use any of them,it just takes time.

I hope this help you,

endralie halog
User offline. Last seen 8 years 35 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 15 Jun 2014
Posts: 16
Groups: None

hi Kannan,

I am new here,hello!,Since the goal is to know the project budget,if your is a plan is more detailed,for me it is best to use the Resource Tab,but if your plan is not that detailed it much easier to use the Expense.And to maximize the of p6 if your using it,use both of the tab.It is not that hard to use any of them,it just takes time.

I hope this help you,