Cost Loading with Stored Period Actuals, Scenario 2
Cost loading a schedule using a single material resource that is set up to auto calculate $ from Units. Each unit is equal to 1 $. You may substitute multiple resources if desired and follow the same steps.
- Financial periods need to be defined by your P6 Admin. They can be defined weekly, monthly, quarterly, whatever meets your reporting needs. But only one set per database may be defined.
- Resources created with $ associated.
- In the activities window, select the activity to be cost loaded and assign the resources adjusting the budgeted units to the desired $ amount along with the duration of resource usage and the lag. (Lag begins count days from the start of the activity.)
- Cost accounts can be created to segregate the cost-loading if desired or you can simply use different resources. Assign the cost accounts on the resource assignment in the resource tab.
- The cost curves are displayed based on a flat curve per resource assignment.
- In the resource assignments window, the cost assignments can be grouped by resource or cost account to display the $ as desired.
- The timescale can be adjusted as required and the $ will be allocated based on the timeframe of the resource loading.
- The Activity Usage Spreadsheet can also be used to see and report on the cost spread. It also is linked to the timescale. Many reports can be created and run monthly to show this info. If required, they can also dump this data into a csv file which you open in Excel.
- Once the process is entered, you can report on the Actual this period $ (see column 4 above).
- After reporting is complete and before the next update, you should store the period performance in the correct financial period. It is in the Tools menu.
- After the "store period performance" utility is run, you will see This Period column go to zero.
- In this screen shot, you can see the period totals for actuals. I intentionally skipped the Feb Store Period Performance for an example. Modeling what happens if you forget one monthly cycle. The tool put the totals for February and March in the same column. I would need to go back and adjust this distribution manually.
- Below is a sample report from the Resource Assignments Window.