Project 2013 Intermediate

Lesson 3 – Assigning Costs

Project 2013

D EFINING C OSTS

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Discussion

When you define a resource in Microsoft Project, you can assign costs to it. The costs may include the cost of the various resources as well as the expenses not directly related to the resources, such as overhead, fringe benefits, and fixed costs.

A cost can be defined as fixed or variable. A fixed cost means that the cost remains the same even if the task takes more or less time than was originally planned. Contractors often bid a fixed price for a job. A variable cost generally applies to people or equipment that accrue costs over time or per use. When you define a cost for a resource, you can also specify when the cost is incurred. A cost can be prorated, which is the default, or it can be incurred at the start or end of a task. Prorating the cost means that as work is done on a task, a proportional amount of the cost is considered incurred.

You can also specify different rates for a resource depending upon the task, as well as dates for the different rates to take affect. In addition, you can assign fixed costs to tasks and material resources as necessary.

A SSIGNING S TANDARD R ATES

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Discussion

You can enter a standard rate for both work resources and material resources in the Std. Rate field, which is available in the Resource Sheet view.

The standard rate for a work resource is the cost per unit of time. The default setting for the standard rate is hourly, but you can also enter a rate per minute, day, week, month, or year. You can identify the unit of time with the appropriate letter with m for minute, d for day, w for week, mo for month, and y for year. If you do not enter a unit of time, Microsoft Project calculates the costs for the resource based on an hourly rate. When you enter the rate, you need to enter the dollar amount followed by a forward slash (/) and then the unit. Therefore, if the cost of a resource is $25,000 per year, you would enter 25000/y in the Std. Rate field.

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