New to MS Project

[jasondimass]

Hi All, I am just after a little advice re MS Project.

In fact I have 2 issues. The first is that I would like to add a custom
cost field on the resource sheet. I currently have a standard rate
field, and an overtime field. I have inserted a column and selected
various different one, but to no avail. What I want to do is use the
standard rate as the resource cost to my company, and have a second
rate at which I charge a customer. For example in a consultancy role,
my internal cost may be £100, but I may sell a days consultancy at
£400.

Another issue I am currently having is that I have recently attended a
training course (I was obvioulsy not aware of these issue prior to the
course!!!), and one of the instruction step by step sheets ask me to
open a new project, click the Project Guide toolbar, and click the
tasks button (which I CAN find), but it then asks me to select 'Define
the Project' link, which I do not have avaialble. I am wondering
whether I have some defualt settings set incorrectly. The next step it
asks for is to select a date, then at the bottom of the 'SAVE YOUR
PROJECT SIDE PANE' click SAVE AND GOTO STEP 2. Again, I do not see this
Save side pane, and have done several help searches to no avail!

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

jasondimass --

Welcome to the madness! To answer your questions:

To use the second cost rate, navigate to the Resource Sheet view,
double-click the name of the first resource, and click the Costs tab. On
the Costs page you will see five tabs, labeled A (Default), B, C, D, and E.
You will see that the Standard Rate appears on the A (Default) tab. Click
the B tab and you can enter the second cost rate. You will need to do this
for every resource in your project. After you have done this, return to the
Gantt Chart view and assign resources to every task (if you have not done
this already. Now click View - Task Usage, and then click View - Table -
Cost. Pull your split bar to the right so you can see the Total Cost
column. The Total Cost column currently shows the internal cost for every
task and for the entire project.

Right-click on the Fixed Cost column and select Insert Column from the
shortcut menu. Select the Cost Rate Table tab from the list of fields and
click the OK button to insert the new column. Notice that the Cost Rate
Table value for every resource assignment is currently set to Cost Rate
Table A, which is the default. Set the Cost Rate Table value to B for the
first resource assignment, and then use the fill handle (like in Excel) to
fill that value down to every other resource assignment in the project.
This will re-cost your project using the billing rate. The Total Cost
column will now show your billing cost to the client.

Regarding your second question, click View - Turn On Project Guide, assuming
you are using Microsoft Project 2007. Hope this helps.

 

[jasondimass]

I have done what you said, but I only get a total cost which shows th
multples of the defualt tab. ie 5 days x 100, £500. I would like to se
this field as well as the field I am selling. ie 5 days x 400 £200
which in turn will show £1600 in the varience.

I am using 200

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

jasondimass --

You can't see both Total Cost values at the same time, so you can't see your
profit. You can display the Total Cost for the first rate (A) and then copy
the Task Name and Total Cost columns to Excel. Then you can select the B
rate and copy the Total Cost column to Excel as well. Then you can write
the formula in Excel. Hope this helps.

 

[Rod Gill]

You can apply rate B to all assignments, copy the cost to Cost1 then
re-apply rate A. Cost2 can now have a formula to calculate the margin
between the two. You can also create a macro to automate this.


--

Rod Gill
Microsoft MVP for Project

Author of the only book on Project VBA, see:
http://www.projectvbabook.com

 

[Steve House]

Be careful with your approach trying to track the billing rate. Project
calculates costs based on man-hours of work, not time. If you bill $800 per
day, for many organizations the minimum billing increment would be half-day
or whole-day increments but the internal costs would reflect actual
man-hours spent. Even if you're just on the client site for 2 hours, it's
not unusual to bill him for the full 8, or $800. But Project will see that
as 2 man-hours and cost it as $200. Project is NOT a time and billing
program, or any other sort of accounting program for that matter, and makes
a very poor substitute for one. By all means use it for rough
approximations of billing and revenues if you like but don't bet the farm on
the accuracy of the numbers you obtain. Project is very good for what it is
designed to do - schedule work and estimate internal direct resource costs -
but adapting it to other functions, not so much.