do you do the project cost control using P3?

Earned Value is Job Costing at 50%, unit price provides you with more information than just a "broad budgeting status" or "earned value". In addition you get unit cost trends related to time and production, useful for forecasting (remember the learning curve, it happens in every job, in every activity), useful to keep historical cost data in a meaningfull way, earned value alone does not provide this information. In a sense earned value is a subset of full job costing, is a summary. Job costing is earned value and more.



Scheduling is not to be set aside as scheduling provides information necessary to project costs related to time such as inflation cost, fixed costs ...



All tools have real value, the error would be to believe there is a single tool that provides all the answers, be either accounting, scheduling, earned value, job costing ... Even weekly payroll reports are important as information regarding overtime is provided here, usually skipped on other reports. Yes smart use of overtime saves money.



I believe the future will be in open source software, able to communicate among each other rather than a single solution, a single vendor, a single point of view, a single need ...

Rafael,



I agree. Doing cost control using scheduling software doesn’t make sense.



But, using accounting software also doesn’t make sense.

With accounting software, you’re not doing cost control, you’re doing cost reporting. You’re always looking at historical data, whereas for cost control, you need to look into the future.



A good cost control system has to provide functions that will allow you to accurately forecast final costs... before they happen, so decisions can be made beforehand to take action against rising costs... and this is where Earned Value Performance Measurement comes in.



A good project cost control system must have strong EVPM functions; must be able to integrate with CPM scheduling software; must be able to integrate with accounting systems... that’s why I suggested PRISM Project Manager.

For Cost Control using CPM Software makes no sense. No CPM software makes the grade. You should not limit your accounting through your CPM software.



I would recommend you to look on traditional Job Costing Modules. You would be able to get reports on labor costs from your payroll, you would be able to get materials, equipment, subcontractor’s and other costs from your accounts payable module and purchase orders modules if integrated with the job costing module, your costs can be very close to real time.



I worked several years ago for a construction firm in were we were required to make all purchasing using purchase orders. The purchase orders were required to be completed with costs and job cost accounts per item, general ledger accounts would be included at the main office by accounting personnel. I will left out details on adjusting entries from invoices, on “dummy” PO’s for Concrete from your local Ready Mix supplier… is not difficult to figure out.



Then with a weekly production report you would get unit price costs, yes unit price costs is how real life contractors control and keep track of their costs.



With this method you do not duplicate effort and you will get precise results. No distribution will be left out as with other methods.



You can get some feedback from your bonding company.



A couple of suggestions:

     Great Plains Accounting

     ACPAC

     Timberline (heard integrates with P3 but would never base my decision on this)

Alex,



I would recommend looking at "PRISM Project Manager" as a cost control tool.



It allows you to integrate your P3 and P3e schedule with "Control Accounts’ in it’s "Cost & Progress Module" and use the activity dates to timephase quantities, hours and costs by Control Account.

Accounting data can also be easily imported and stored by period and it calculates accruals.

Alex, you’re 100% right. Project performance (in $ meaning) is something different from payments.

Best regards,

Andrew

Dear All



IMHO if you can seperate Project Account (Accounting) and Project Costing/analysis, P3 can be use in the Project Costing / analysis aspect.



It is simply because accounting rule is somehow different from running a project. Cash accounting / Accural accounting will creat a lot of misunderstanding on the project $ situation.



Thats why I see a lot of good Project Managers uses P3 to run a separate costing/cash flow report and analysis rather asking the accountant to tell them the financial situation of the project. It is because accounting is always 1 month behind, and project is live.



It is good to see if someone in the forum integrated the two aspects into one tool.

Dear Shahzad,



As you said P3 is good for direct cost related items, but for indirect-costs we need to go for separate software, or prepare custom made programmes using visual basic in Access to monitor / control costs.............



Cheers!!!



Daya

P3 does not cover Cost Control aspect wholly although earned value calculations in P3 is used to for cost comparison but only for limited purpose. Therefore for detailed controlling cost control, you may use other software which suits your system and fulfill your requirements.

Dear Daya,

U can send it to "bipreshpaul@yahoo.com"



Regards

BP

Hi BIPRESH PAUL ,



The file size is 2.49mb, if you have 2mb capacity in hotmail then you can’t receive it. Do you have any account in yahoo?



Cheers!!!



Daya

Can anybody send me the file"od32v24.exe" to email"bpaul2404@hotmail.com"



Bye Bye

2 BIPRESH PAUL :

Hi, Paul.

I’ve used a very usefull tech tip from Paul Harris site:

http://www.eh.com.au/technical_papers.htm.

This is self explanatory document. So I’m sure you won’t have any difficulties to link the database.

If you’ll have any questions don’t hesitate to contact me.

Best regards,

Andrew

The earned value report in P3 can help you to compare with the actual figures from the costing department.



The comparison shall be made useful as lessons learned.

Could ne1 tell me how to connect by btrieve to excess, the steps by steps from p3 v3.1..it would be of immense help...Is the driver available with P3 or has to be downloade....

MS Access link to P3 through Btrieve ODBC driver and than you can prepare very comlex queries against cost/resources tables in P3 as well as reports.

Hi



I would suggest a software called "CCS - Construction Computer Software" which is specifically developed for construction industry. It integrate almost all aspect of the construction industry.



Main thing is what consitute the cost control and what are procedures used in a particular organization than only utility of software can be judged.



For last four years I used combination of CCS and Excel for cost control.

I would say no P3 can not be used for cost control.



You would need a cost engineer to do cost control. But it depends on what is your difinition of cost control is.



To me Cost Control involves estimating / Creating Budget / Montitor these Budget versus the AFE (Anticipated Final Expenditure)and value engineering.



Includes is depreciation / Rate of exchange / Cash Flow which I have found P 3 to be good.



Also monitoring Commitment / Invoice / Payment.



So once you have defined what is your difinition of cost control maybe yes.

can u send the report to "bpaul2404@hotmail.com"....

You can use Database link to your p3 schedule with this you can monitor / prepare report to the most detailed you want.



Moises donato

Bechtel Engineering Overseas

P3 provides Activity-Based cost control. It is useful for doing Earned Value Analysis and there are valuable cost-analysis reports (tabular and graphical) than can be generated from P3.





HOWEVER...

If you want to control cost by document or contract, then you can take a look at another Primavera software called Expedition. This software manages contracts, purchase orders, material deliveries, change orders, pending changes and other documents that affect project cost.



If you want both, then P3 and Expedition can be linked but this takes some self-discipline, not to mention implementing a culture change in your organization to do this successfully.



I would suggest that you call your nearest Primavera dealer so he can show you all you need to know about these two software packages. And while youre at it, you can also ask the techie about P3e. P3e has more advanced fields for handling costs. Here, you could do top-down or bottom-up budgeting (while you can only do bottom-up budgeting in P3). By the way, P3e can also link with Expedition.



Let me know what happens.



Good luck!



Jorge

Crown Systems (Philippines)

I come from China ,but we cant use P3 as cost control easily,because there are many difference in control way(Many contries have their especially regulations),so

I also want to get this , and want to know how to use P3 as a time control and control control tool in your project.

thanks!

regards!

yours y.k.lee

my email:yongkuili@hotmail.com

Ali,

I have sent some PDF sample report to your E-mail address. Please have alook and let me know whats your idea.

Thanks,
Ali

Hi Ali



can you pls send the reports to my



email:ahamouda@hotmail.com , I would like to have a look about what you did.

Hi there,



I have created cost loaded schedule in P3 for a construction project in South Carolina and the project cash flow and monthly billing report were generated directly from P3. I have used spreadsheet as monthly updated data sheet and then all data were imported to p3.

If you need more info. please send me an E-mail to avessali@yahoo.com

The sample output reports are available in PDF format.



All the best,

Ali Vessali

hI,



I am doing a prelamenary cost control in excel sheet for the purpose of easy calculation, then I export the result to primavera.



I Generat S-Curve and Earned value reports from Primavera.



It serve my projects to a minimum limit,but I think it is not enough...and we need deep understanding and anlayzing and control the project cost.



thanks for your Issue,we hope to find better answers from experts.



Ali



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