The planned costs for your project become reliable figures that you can use for a budget request or a project proposal when the following information is entered in your project plan:
All required work and material resources, even if they’re just generic resources
Cost rates and per-use costs for all work and material resources
Cost resources, assigned to tasks with their individual amounts
All tasks, complete with reliable duration estimates
Assignments for all tasks
Any fixed costs for tasks
After this information has been entered, you can review planned costs by various categories, some granular and some high-level: assignment costs, resource costs, task costs, and total project costs.
Review assignment costs by applying the Cost table to the Task Usage or Resource Usage view, as follows:
Click View, Task Usage or click View, Resource Usage to display one of the assignment views.
Click View, Table, Cost. The Cost table is applied to the view (see Figure 8-10).
In the Task Usage view, you can see individual assignment costs, as well as the total cost for each task. In the Resource Usage view, you can see individual assignment costs with the total cost for each resource.
You can review timephased costs by adding cost details to the timephased portion of the Task Usage or Resource Usage view, as follows:
Display either the Task Usage or Resource Usage view.
Click Format, Details, Cost. The Cost field is added to the Work field in the timephased portion of the view (see Figure 8-11).
Figure 8-11. Review assignment costs over time by adding the Cost field to the Task Usage or Resource Usage timephased portion of the view.
To see more or less time period detail, click the Zoom In or Zoom Out buttons on the Standard toolbar.
You can review resource costs to see how much each resource is costing to carry out assigned tasks. To get total costs for a resource’s assignments, add the Cost field to the Resource Sheet, as follows:
Click View, Resource Sheet.
Click the column heading to the right of where you want to insert the Cost field.
Click Insert, Column.
In the Field Name list, click Cost and then click OK.
The Cost field is added to the table and shows the total planned costs for all assignments for each individual resource.
Note
Reviewing resource costs is a great way to see how much you’re spending on different cost categories as represented by your cost resources. Suppose you have assigned the "Airfare" cost resource to three different tasks. For one task the airfare costs $200, for the second task it costs $500, and for the third task it costs $300. If you add the Cost field to the Resource Sheet, you see that the total cost for airfare in your project is $1,000.
You can sort, filter, and group resources by cost information. In the Resource Sheet with the Cost field added, you can rearrange the view by cost information as follows:
Click Project, Sort, By Cost.
To return your Resource Sheet to its original order, click Project, Sort, By ID.
Click Project, Filtered For, More Filters. Click Cost Greater Than and then click the Apply button. Enter an amount and then click OK.
To see all resources again, click Project, Filtered For, All Resources.
Click Project, Group By, Standard Rate.
To ungroup your resources, click Project, Group By, No Group.
If you want to see the total resource costs along with the assignments that contribute to that total, use the Resource Usage view with the Cost table applied. The Cost field next to the resource name shows the total cost for the resource, while the assignments listed under each resource name show the component cost for that assignment, or the amount that the resource costs for that particular task (see Figure 8-12).
You can review task costs to see how much each task will cost to carry out. This cost is the sum of all the costs of resources assigned to this task, as well as any fixed costs for tasks. To view total costs for tasks, do the following:
Display the Gantt Chart or other task sheet.
Click View, Table, Cost.
Review the Total Cost field to see the cost for each task.
You can run one of two built-in reports that show planned costs: the Budget report and the Cash Flow report. To generate the Budget report, do the following:
Click Report, Reports.
Double-click Costs.
Double-click Budget.
The Budget report appears (see Figure 8-13).
To print the report, click the Print button. To close the report, click the Close button.
To generate the Cash Flow report, do the following:
Click Report, Reports.
Double-click Costs.
Double-click Cash Flow.
The Cash Flow report appears (see Figure 8-14).
To print the report, click the Print button. To close the report, click the Close button.
Note
For more information about reports, see the section titled Generating Text and Visual Reports in Chapter 12.
You can sort and filter tasks by cost. In the Gantt Chart or other task sheet, rearrange your view by cost information as follows:
Click Project, Sort, By Cost.
To return your task list to its sort original order, click Project, Sort, By ID.
Click Project, Filter For, More Filters. Click Cost Greater Than and then click the Apply button. Enter an amount and then click OK.
To see all tasks again, click Project, Filter For, All Tasks.
You can see the total planned cost for the entire project. This cost is the sum of all task costs, as well as any fixed costs you might have entered for the project. To see the total cost for the project, apply the Cost table to the Gantt Chart or other task sheet and show the Project Summary Task, as follows:
Display the Gantt Chart or other task sheet.
Click View, Table, Cost.
The Cost table is applied.
Under Outline Options, select the Show Project Summary Task check box and then click OK.
The project summary task row appears at the top of the view. The total project cost is displayed in the Total Cost field.
You can also see the total project cost in the Project Statistics dialog box. To display the Project Statistics dialog box, follow these steps:
Click Project, Project Information.
Click the Statistics button. The Project Statistics dialog box appears (see Figure 8-15).
