How to show use of budget across the lifetime of a project

[PhilipSt]

I can see on Project Details that we can add an initial budget figure, but how can one show the remainder of that budget (with expenses, labour costs, etc. nibbling at it) at any time in the project life...? We have tried various reports, and we do not want to go to custom forms, we would rather use native Workfront. Thanks, Phil

[EricLu2]

Hi: There are different sets of costs in WorkFront: 1) Budget a. There is a Project Budgeted Cost - This is based on the labor budget built in the business case and modified by the Capacity Planner, plus expenses; b. There is an attribute called “Budget” available when you edit the project. You can put any number in here you want; 2) Forecast a. When you roll up the task plan (labor and expenses), it comes up with a Project Planned Cost; b. When WorkFront looks at burn rate (I’m simplifying there), and calculates CPI, then it comes up with the Projected Hours which you can use to come up with Projected Cost; 3) Actual a. WorkFront rolls up the hours charged to a project and calculates an actual labor cost; b. WorkFront rolls up the actual cost charged to expenses and calculates an actual expense; c. The actual labor cost and actual expense equals the Project:actual cost; Do you want to take the Budget (1b, above) and subtract the project:actual cost? I’d do a custom attribute, calculated, at the project level if that is what you’re looking for. Does that help at all? Eric

[PhilipSt]

Thanks Eric, What we are looking for is a way to take that “budget” attribute, subtract costs accrued (external consultant invoices in particular) and display how much is left in the bucket….. Perhaps we are being too demanding of Workfront…? Cheers, Phil

[EricLu2]

Hi: I wouldn’t say you are being too demanding. Budgets are usually not co-mingled with forecasts and actuals, in general. The challenge is in the co-mingling of financial concepts. Please indulge me with these definitions I’m using: · A budget is the allocation - the setting aside - of an amount of money, based on a high level business case. It is usually a single value for the whole project; · A forecast is the calculation of a more precise amount of money. Once a forecast is calculated, usually approval is obtained to begin spending money that was allocated in the budgeting process. · As actuals come in, they are usually compared to the forecast. Are we spending money on what we said we would? · We compare our overall forecast to the budget - are we forecasting a need for more money than was allocated? Do I need to go back to the well and ask that my budget be increased because my forecast indicates a need for more work? I think WorkFront is somewhat designed around these assumptions. It is possible to do a custom attribute at the project level that shows the Budget less actual cost (labor charged and actuals reported against expenses). That is easily done. I’m not sure what the business semantics of that means, however. It is easy to do a custom attribute that subtracts current forecast from actuals. I know what the result means… Does this help at all? Want to know how to do a custom attribute that subtracts the project actuals from the budget? Thanks, Eric

[PhilipSt]

Thanks, Eric, I know about Custom forms, are custom attributes different? Thanks, Phil

[EricLu2]

< > Custom attributes/fields are aggregated together into custom forms. Each custom form is associated with a particular object, like a task, issue, project, program, etc. The same custom attribute can be used on multiple forms, if you want, as long as the form is associated with the same object. Hope that makes sense… Thanks! Eric ________________________________

[JasonMa]

One challenge I have always had with the way Workfront treats Expenses is that everything is the same type of expense, it is merely a matter of which fields have data in them or not. This often creates challenges that things are not distinct, but rather "mashed" together. I feel Workfront would be better off creating different Expense Types (Budgeted, Planned, and Actual/Invoice) with the ability to have relationships between them. We run into a lot of use cases where a Budget number is given for a certain Expense Category (we correspond these to our Accounting Codes) but when we actually go out and obtain quotes, the Planned start falling into other areas. For example, we Budget $1,000 for servers in Account #123. But, that number is really more like $900 for hardware and $200 for support (Account #345) when we start shopping around, so I have to create a new Planned for $200 in Account #345 with a Budget of $0. Then we get invoiced in 2 installments on the hardware, so I have to create 2 new Expenses to record the 2 different Actual totals that have come in with their Invoice numbers. As a result, I have a whole bunch of expenses floating around that may or may not be tied together via an account number without a great way to show connections. As a result, setting up Custom Views to parse the data can be frustrating. While it all makes sense and is technically correct, I don't feel like it "tells the story" of the expenses for that project. Everything becomes disjointed. Does anyone else feel the Expense section is a little too basic or limited to track things fully?

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

Hi Jason, We extended the Expenses functionality using Naming Conventions (for regions), Expense Types (for book pricing), Expense Descriptions (for sorting and grouping), Templates (for standardized pricing), Filters (for standardized jobs), Views (for efficient maintenance) and Custom Data (for advanced requirements, such as discounts, overrides, adjustments, and "locking" data on a line by line basis) It took a fair bit of configuration effort, but it's all out of the box functionality (albeit advanced), and gave us the rich functionality we needed. I'd encourage you to explore further in case you can do likewise. Regards, Doug