If you’re concerned with project costs, it’s likely that you’re working with a budget. It’s imperative to always keep an eye on your various budget categories while you’re planning and later accruing project costs. If you can easily compare the budget against your planned and actual project costs, you’re more likely to stay within your allowed budget.
In Project 2010, a comparison with your budget can be integrated with the project itself. Using the Budget Cost and Budget Work fields, you have the means for setting up and entering values for budget categories within your project plan. You can identify which resources belong under which budget category. You can then group the resources by budget category and compare them against your budget amounts.
Although the initial budget setup is somewhat involved, you have to do the setup only once for a project. After that, you can compare cost amounts against your budget amounts anytime you like.
Create budget resources that correspond to the budget line items you want to track and compare in your project. Examples of budget categories that might apply to a project plan include Employees, Vendors, Outside Services, Equipment Purchase, Equipment Rental, Materials Inventory, Travel Expenses, and Fees and Licensing. The majority of your costs will come from your resources: human, equipment, material, and cost resources.
Note
Some costs will come from fixed costs on tasks. This budget process does not factor in these fixed costs.
To create budget resources, follow these steps:
Display the Resource Sheet.
In the next available blank row, enter the name of the budget resource in the Resource Name field. You can think of the budget resource as a budget item or category.
Be sure to name the budget resource item so that it is easily distinguishable from other resources. You might use all caps—for example, EMPLOYEES—if all other resource names are in lowercase letters or initial caps. You might use a budget number as a prefix to the budget resource name—for example, 6220-Vendors. You can also use Budget as part of the budget resource name, as in “Budget-Equipment.” This differentiation becomes important later when you’re looking at a view that compares the rolled-up numbers in your budget resources next to the numbers for the individual resources.
In the Type field, specify whether the budget item is for work, material, or cost resources.
For work resources, you will eventually express the target budget by the number of hours worked. For cost resources, you will express the target budget by the cost amount.
If you are creating a material budget resource, specify the unit of measurement in the Material Label field—for example, packages, pounds, or sets.
For material resources, you will eventually express the target budget by the number of units. To address this requirement, create a different budget resource for each different material resource that you want to track against the budget.
Double-click the name of the new budget resource.
On the General tab of the Resource Information dialog box, select the Budget check box.
Selecting this check box transforms a regular resource into the special budget resource item.
Repeat steps 2 through 6 to create all the budget resources you intend to use with your project.
The Budget check box is not available in the Multiple Resource Information dialog box. However, if you have many budget resources, you can designate them more quickly by inserting the Budget column. To do this, follow these steps:
With the Resource Sheet showing, right-click the column heading next to where you want to insert the Budget column, and then click Insert Column on the shortcut menu.
In the temporary drop-down menu that appears in the new column, type bu to quickly move to the Budget fields.
Click the Budget field to apply it to the new column. Clicking the field also dismisses the drop-down menu.
For each of the budget resources, change the No in the Budget field to Yes. You can click in the field, type y, move to the next field, type y again, and so on, until all the budget resources are so designated. (See Figure 9-17.)
After you designate all your budget resources by using the Budget column, you can hide the column. Right-click the Budget column heading, and then click Hide Column on the shortcut menu.
After you create your budget resources, assign them all to your project summary task. The project summary task is the only task to which budget resources can be assigned. To assign budget resources to your project summary task, follow these steps:
Switch to the Gantt Chart or other task sheet.
On the Format tab, in the Show/Hide group, select the Project Summary Task check box.
The project summary task now appears at the Task 0 position at the top of the sheet view.
Click in the project summary task to select it.
On the Resource tab, in the Assignments group, click Assign Resources.
Hold down the Ctrl key and click each of your budget resources. If necessary, scroll down through the list of resources to find them all.
If the list of resources is very long, you can click the + Resource List Options button to show the filter options. Select the check box under Filter By, and then in the drop-down list, click Budget Resources. Be sure that all the budget resources are selected. (See Figure 9-18.)
Click the Assign button, and then click the Close button.
Unlike regular resources, budget resource names do not appear next to the project summary task bar in the Gantt Chart.
Now that the budget resources are all assigned to the project summary task, you can enter the budget amounts for the work, material, and cost resources in your project. These values represent the cost targets against which you will compare project work and costs. To enter budget values, follow these steps:
Switch to the Task Usage view or the Resource Usage view.
Right-click the column where you want to insert the Budget Cost column, and then click Insert Column on the shortcut menu.
In the temporary drop-down menu that appears in the new column, type bu to quickly move to the budget fields.
Click the Budget Cost field to apply it to the new column.
Repeat steps 2 through 4 to add the Budget Work field to the view.
In an assignment row, enter the work or cost value in the Budget Work or Budget Cost field.
For a budget resource designated as a work resource, express the budget value as a work amount—that is, enter a number of hours in the Budget Work field. This value should be the number of hours (or days or whatever you prefer) that you have budgeted for all work in this category. You might need to extrapolate the number of budgeted hours from a budgeted cost amount, using an average hourly rate, for example.
For a budget resource designated as a material resource, also use the Budget Work field, but express the value according to the material label—for example, tons, board feet, yards, and so on. This value should be the total amount of material you have budgeted for this category. This figure might also need to be extrapolated from a budgeted cost amount.
For a budget resource designated as a cost resource, express the budget value as a cost amount in the Budget Cost field, as shown in Figure 9-19. This value should be the total amount of money you have budgeted for this category.
Figure 9-19. Enter the work, material, and cost values for each of your budget resources. These values represent the target budget against which you will compare project costs.
If you need to designate a certain budget within a specific period of time—for example, a month or a quarter—you can do so by adding the Budget Cost and Budget Work fields to the timesheet area of the Task Usage or Resource Usage view. To do this, follow these steps:
Be sure that the Task Usage or Resource Usage view is displayed.
On the Format tab, in the Details group, click Add Details.
The Detail Styles dialog box appears.
Under Available Fields, scroll down and click Budget Cost. Hold down the Shift or Ctrl key and also click Budget Work.
Both fields are selected.
Click the Show button to add the fields to the Show These Fields box.
Click OK. In the timesheet area of the view, double-click the right edge of the Details column heading to widen the column so that you can see the full field names.
On the View tab, in the Zoom group, click Zoom, and then click Zoom In or Zoom Out to see the time unit for which you want to enter timephased budget values.
For example, the budget for employees might be expressed per week or per month. Zoom the timesheet until it shows weeks or months (rather than days).
You can also use the Zoom slider on the status bar. Click the plus button to zoom in, or click the minus button to zoom out.
In the assignment row under the budget resource for which you want to enter timephased budget values, enter the work or cost value in the Budget Work or Budget Cost field under the appropriate unit of time. (See Figure 9-20.)
In this step of the process, you categorize the resources whose costs you want to compare with the budget resource values. You can use an existing text field that isn’t being used for anything else, such as the Group or Code field already in the Resource Sheet, or you can create a custom text field. Either way, you create your budget categories and then categorize the resources by using the text field, including the budget resources themselves.
To create a custom text field for your budget categories, follow these steps:
Switch to the Resource Sheet.
On the Project tab, in the Properties group, click Custom Fields.
The Custom Fields dialog box appears.
Under Field, be sure that the Resource option is selected.
In the Type box, select Text.
In the Field box, select the custom text field you want to use; for example, Text1 or Text2.
Click the Rename button, and type the name you want for this field—for example, Budget Category or Budget Group. Click OK.
The renamed field appears in the Field box, as shown in Figure 9-21.
Under Calculation For Assignment Rows, select the Roll Down Unless Manually Entered option. Click OK.
This option specifies that the contents of your budget category field should be distributed across assignments in the Task Usage view or Resource Usage view unless you manually enter information in an assignment row.
To add your new text field to the Resource Sheet, follow these steps:
Right-click the column heading where you want to insert the text field, and then click Insert Column on the shortcut menu.
In the temporary drop-down menu that appears in the new column, type tex or the first two or three letters of the name you gave to the text field to quickly find that field in the list.
Click the field name to apply it to the new column.
The text field appears in the Resource Sheet.
Now go down the list of resources and type a budget category for each resource you want to track against the budget. Be sure to also enter a budget category for the budget resources themselves. (See Figure 9-22.) The category names can be whatever you choose; for example, Employees, Vendors, or Equipment. Just be sure to use the same name and same spelling for the same category. This consistency becomes important when you group the resources by their category names in the next step of the process.
Figure 9-22. Specify the budget category for each resource you want to track against your budget—possibly all your resources.
Create a Lookup Table for Your Budget Types
You can enter your budget categories in a lookup table so that you can pick categories from a list rather than enter them for each resource. If you have a long list of resources you need to categorize, using a lookup table can save you a lot of time. To create a lookup table for the custom text field you already created, follow these steps:
On the Project tab, in the Properties group, click Custom Fields.
Under Field, be sure that the Resource option is selected.
In the Type box, be sure that Text is selected.
In the Field box, select the custom text field you created previously.
Under Custom Attributes, click the Lookup button.
In the first row of the lookup table, type the first budget category name you want to use, and then press Enter.
In the second row, type the second budget category name, and then press Enter.
Continue entering budget category names in different rows of the Value column until you enter all your categories.
When you have finished, click Close, and then click OK in the Custom Fields dialog box.
Now you can click in your custom text field, click the arrow that appears, and select a budget category from the list.
Note
For more information about working with custom fields and lookup tables, see Customizing Fields.
Note
If you’re not using the Group or Code field on the Resource Sheet for any other purpose, you can use either of those fields to categorize your resources instead of going to the trouble of creating a custom text field. Like a custom text field, you can enter any information in the Group or Code field.
At this point, you’ve completed all the steps necessary for the initial setup of budget resources. Unless you find that you need new budget resources or new resources that you want to track against the budget resources, you’re all set to compare project costs against your budget.
Now you can compare your resource costs against the values you identified for your budget resources and see where you stand. This comparison is useful in the planning stage, and it will also be useful later when your project is in the monitoring stage, as tasks are being completed and actual costs are being incurred.
Switch to the Resource Usage view.
If they’re not already showing, add the Budget Work, Budget Cost, Work, and Cost fields to the table, as shown in Figure 9-23. To do this, right-click the column where you want to insert the column and then click Insert Column on the shortcut menu. In the temporary drop-down menu that appears, click the field to apply it to the column.
On the View tab, in the Data group, click the arrow in the Group By box, and then click New Group By.
Click in the Group By field under Field Name, click the arrow that appears in the field, and then click the name of your custom text field (or the Code or Group field) that you used to categorize your resources. (See Figure 9-24.)
Click Apply.
The resources in your project are grouped by the budget categories you assigned, as shown in Figure 9-25. Each grouping includes one budget resource. The figures for the budget resource appear in the Budget Cost and Budget Work fields. The figures for all other resources appear in the Cost and Work fields. The total costs for the resources are rolled up in the grouping bar. Compare the rolled-up values with the values for the budget resources to see how the costs in your project are faring against the budget for that category.
Figure 9-25. When you group your resources by their budget categories, you can quickly compare the planned costs and planned work for the resources with the budgeted costs and work as shown by the budget resources.
Note
Your resources initially appear in the order in which they were entered in the project. If you want to see the resource names in alphabetical order, on the View tab, in the Data group, click Sort, and then click By Name. Analyzing your budget performance is easiest if the budget resource appears at the top of each grouping, either because of its name or its ID, which reflects the order in which it was entered.
To ungroup the Resource Usage view, on the View tab, in the Data group, click the arrow in the Group By box, and then click No Group.
