Cost Management

Cost Management

The cost management capability supports planning, tracking, and controlling costs for the organization. Each capability within the Planview Capability Framework has a distinct set of features and functionality, business processes, best practices, and analytics and reports that deliver value to customers in the form of specific business outcomes.

Processes and Reports

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The cost management capability supports the capture of actual labor and non-labor costs for products, programs, and projects. Costs may be rolled up from the financial plan, automatically captured from timesheets, or entered manually. Cost management and analysis is performed through the tracking and comparison of costs to date, forecasts to complete costs, and plan to actual for variance reporting. By allowing financial managers to track the current performance of costs against the forecasted budget, this information can be used to make informed decisions and manage exceptions.

           

Video: Cost Management Demo

 

Cost Management Process Steps

           

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Cost management process flow

           

Process Step Description
Capture actual costs

Update the financial plan with the actual costs incurred in a historical time period to capture an accurate representation of the expenditures. This information can be used as a comparison against the budget or previous baselines to track variances against the estimated spend.

Costs can be loaded from the plan, rolled up, or captured directly on the financial plan. Costs may include:

Manage forecasted resource effort and costs Ensure the financial plan accurately reflects the estimated resource costs and effort required. This up-to-date cost and effort information helps managers understand the impact of the pending resource costs on the portfolio.

Make sure that resource demand and assignments information is current to ensure that the financial plan accurately represents the forecasted costs.
Manage forecasted non-resource costs Ensure the financial plan accurately reflects the estimated non-resource costs. This helps provide an accurate forecast of the predicted expenditure.

Manage forecasted benefits and revenue

Ensure the financial plan accurately reflects the estimated benefits to provide an accurate forecast of the predicted revenue.

Update the benefit costs which were previously populated in the original estimation or previous rounds of reforecasting directly into the financial plan to reflect the latest and most accurate forecast. These amounts should continue to be associated with the appropriate benefit sub-account information depending on your configuration to help categorize the revenue and allow portfolio-level summarization of the types of benefits.
Monitor financial performance

Track the current performance of the financials against the original budget and use this information to make informed decisions and manage exceptions.

Managers can use financial versions to compare different financial versions over time. For example, to monitor the financial performance against the original budget and earlier snapshots, the current actual and forecast data in the financial plan can be compared against previous baseline versions.

           

           

Cost Management Reports

How are we able to see where we are currently forecast to not meet our approved budgets (under or over)?

FastTrack Power BI Showcase Dashboards – Strategy – Strategy Financial Analysis

Power BI Dashboard

This dashboard shows the forecasted costs of strategic initiatives and programs in select portfolios, allowing you to identify the trend of forecasted costs over time. You can configure the dashboard to slice and display data in numerous ways.

Strategy Portfolio – Portfolio Manager – Customizable Column Set

Tile

This allows you to see strategy data in a customizable column set, including roadmaps, financials, effort, and more.

STR16 – Program Highlight Report

Analytic

This one-page report provides an executive summary of key program information for program stakeholders followed by detailed reports, including:

  • Program responsibility information

  • Program condition/RAG/RYG status

  • Program dates and milestones

  • Program financial summary

  • Program commentary and change request/risk/issue lists

  • Key information on associated projects delivering the program

This report can be run for a single program or a portfolio.

STR32 – Strategic Portfolio Financial Performance

Analytic

This report compares versions of the strategic program and summarized portfolio financial plan data, with effort represented as FTEs, days, and hours, and financials as cost, benefits, and revenue. A burndown chart is included for the portfolio and each initiative. You can run the report against each level in the strategy structure.

Work Portfolio – Portfolio Manager – Customizable Column Set

Tile

This column set gives you an overview of work items in a portfolio and their details, including synced AgilePlace boards, start and finish dates, and percentage complete.

Work Portfolio – Work Over Budget

Tile

This tile lists all projects where the forecasted costs are greater than the baseline costs.

WRK14 – Project and Portfolio Highlight Report

Analytic

This report summarizes key project information into a one-page report for stakeholders and project review meetings.

The report includes the following: 

  • Project attributes 

  • Assigned owners and responsibility information 

  • Dates and milestones 

  • Trend of project condition, RAG, or RYG status 

  • Financial summaries  

  • Change requests 

  • List of risks and issues  

  • Descriptions 

  • Additional commentary 

You can run the report for a single project or across the portfolio. The portfolio report includes an executive summary on the first page, followed by one-page summaries for each project on individual pages.

WRK32 – Project/Work Portfolio Financial Burndown Comparison

Analytic

This report compares versions of project and work portfolio financial plan data, with effort represented as FTEs, days, and hours, and financials as cost, benefits, and revenue. 

The report includes the following:  

  •  Burndown chart for the work portfolio and each project 

  • Portfolio-based and summary time-phased chart showing the financial profile across the whole portfolio, based on versions of the financial plan 

  • Project-level and time-phased chart showing the financial profile for each project, based on versions of the financial plan 

  • Detailed data tables

Planning Portfolio – Planning Manager – Analyze Pivot View

Tile

In the Planning Portfolio – Investment and Capacity Planning View, use the Planning Manager Tile to view investments and make decisions based on portfolio financial targets and capacity targets. 

Use the Analyze Pivot View to analyze investments by moving them above (accepted investments) and below the line (pipeline investments).

How are we able to see actual costs to date, forecast to complete, and total cost at completion?

Work Portfolio – Portfolio Manager – Customizable Column Set

Tile

This column set gives you an overview of work items in a portfolio and their details, including synced AgilePlace boards, start and finish dates, and percentage complete.

WRK14 – Project and Portfolio Highlight Report

Analytic

This report summarizes key project information into a one-page report for stakeholders and project review meetings.

The report includes the following: 

  • Project attributes 

  • Assigned owners and responsibility information 

  • Dates and milestones 

  • Trend of project condition, RAG, or RYG status 

  • Financial summaries  

  • Change requests 

  • List of risks and issues  

  • Descriptions 

  • Additional commentary 

You can run the report for a single project or across the portfolio. The portfolio report includes an executive summary on the first page, followed by one-page summaries for each project on individual pages. 

How are we able to understand the impact of financial benefits across time and the impact of changing schedules against our budget?

FastTrack Power BI Showcase Dashboards – Work – Financial Summary

Power BI Dashboard

This dashboard allows you to compare strategic investments over time. You can view the total costs of a select portfolio over a given timeframe, view the breakdown of those costs by the strategic program, and identify portfolios that are meeting or exceeding approved budgets. Data for investment demand entities can be viewed and managed, allowing you to change their approval status, priority, and above or below-the-line status.

STR32 – Strategic Portfolio Financial Performance

Analytic

This report compares versions of the strategic program and summarized portfolio financial plan data, with effort represented as FTEs, days, and hours, and financials as cost, benefits, and revenue. A burndown chart is included for the portfolio and each initiative. You can run the report against each level in the strategy structure.

STR33 – Strategic Initiative Pipeline Matrix

Analytic

This report can select cost, revenue, or benefit-based measures from the financial planning data to drive bubble size and visualize the pipeline of strategic initiatives. You can configure the report to run against each level in the strategy structure.

WRK32 – Project/Work Portfolio Financial Burndown Comparison

Analytic

This report compares versions of project and work portfolio financial plan data, with effort represented as FTEs, days, and hours, and financials as cost, benefits, and revenue. 

The report includes the following:  

  •  Burndown chart for the work portfolio and each project 

  • Portfolio-based and summary time-phased chart showing the financial profile across the whole portfolio, based on versions of the financial plan 

  • Project-level and time-phased chart showing the financial profile for each project, based on versions of the financial plan 

  • Detailed data tables

WRK33 – Project Cost or Revenue/Benefit Bubble

Analytic

This report can select cost, revenue, or benefits-based measures from the financial planning data to drive bubble size.

           

           

Cost Management Process Steps

           

AW Cost Management Process Flow.png

Cost management process flow

           

Process Step Description
Capture actual costs

Refresh the financial plan with the actual costs incurred to capture an accurate representation of the project's expenditures. This information can be used as a comparison against the project budget to track variances against the estimated spend. 

Costs can be loaded from timesheets or loaded from manual entries on the schedule (work breakdown structure).  Labor costs from timesheets are calculated based on defined labor rates and time entries. 

For more information: 

Manage forecasted resource effort and costs

Ensure the financial plan accurately reflects the estimated resource costs and effort required to deliver the project or program. This up-to-date cost and effort information helps managers understand the impact of the pending resource costs. 

Make sure that resource demand and assignments information on the schedule are current to ensure that the financial plan accurately represents the forecasted costs. 

For more information: 

Manage forecasted non-resource costs

Ensure the project financial plan accurately reflects the estimated non-resource costs required to deliver the project or program. This helps managers provide an accurate forecast of the predicted expenditure.

For more information: 

Manage forecasted benefits and revenue

Ensure the project financial plan accurately reflects the estimated benefits to provide an accurate forecast of the predicted revenue.
Monitor financial performance

Track the current performance of the financials against the original budget and use this information to make informed decisions and manage exceptions.

           

           

Outputs, Reports, and Analytics

There are a number of standard financial reports in the report library. These can be run with specific filters to see the appropriate financials. See Financial Planning Report Examples  and Timephase Financial Data in Reports and Dashboards for more information.

Additional reports and dashboards can be created by the administrator and shared with the organization and appropriate team members.