Time phased budget
Time phased budget lets you plan out where to spend money in the months of the active fiscal calendar for the project.
The point of being able to time phase your budget is so that you can plan out your budget cost per cost item. You are spreading out your budget over the course of the project for each cost item.
Budget organization setting
The time phased budget feature includes an organization setting located in the Project tracking tab of the Control settings. The organization setting sets the default for all the projects within that organization.
You can also change the budget setting at the project level. If you are starting new projects in your organization, you need to have Time phasing budget switched on.
By default all the projects that are created under that organization also have the time phased budget switched on. This is the same for when budget is switched off.
Edit Past Time Phased Budget Values
The Edit past Time phased budget values toggle lets you edit past fiscal period time phased budget values.
When this setting is turned on, you can edit your past time phased budget values via a budget move or a contract adjustment in the time phased budget step, with the proper permissions.
Selecting the new Rebaseline icon resets the cost item's time phased budget distribution based on the Start and Finish dates against that cost item. Rebaselining lets you amend your time phased budget distribution costs for a cost item.
You can also edit any of the Adjusted cost values manually for past months.
At the project level, the time phased budget inherits the organization settings, but still lets you switch the budget setting on or off at the project level. For example, you can have time phased budget turned on at the organization level and you can turn it off at the project level.
Switching off time phasing budget
If the Time phasing budget is switched on, that means there is time phasing budget data in the database. If you turn it off time phasing budget at the project level, it gives you the following warning message:
All of your time phased budget data is going to be deleted if you switch time phased budget off. You must select the check box in the warning dialog acknowledging that you understand and accept these conditions.
If you still want to turn off the time phasing budget, you can select Yes and then click Save. This will delete the time phasing budget data from the database.
Switching on the time phasing budget
If you want to turn on time phased budget, the following dialog box appears if there are any missing start or end dates:
Every cost item in your project needs the start and finish date entered to use that data in the time phase budget.
When time phased budget data is calculated, the calculation is based off of the data in the current budget and total cost for the cost item. Then, the cost is distributed to the cost items start date, finish date, and cost curve.
Default all budget to current fiscal period
The first option you have is to default all of the budget to the current fiscal period. Then, all cost items that don't have defined start and finish dates have the current budget going to the current fiscal period.
For example, if you look at WBS phase code 1007, you would have $100,000 put into December 2020.
Default to project start and end dates
The next option is to default to the start and end dates. On the project details page you define all the project start and end dates. After those are defined, then we can default all of those missing start and end dates to just the project start and end dates.
Populate missing dates manually
You can also return to the Time phased budget step and manually populate the missing dates. If you choose this option, the budget setting turns off again (if it wasn't already turned off and on again in previous sections). You then have to go into the CBS and manually enter all the start and finish dates. Then, you could turn the budget setting back on and it should distribute the budget.
Time phased budget data currently can only be seen in the CBS contract adjustment.
Time phased budget in contract adjustment
From the CBS, select cost items to adjust in the contract adjustment.
Then select the Actions drop-down, hover over the budget move and contract adjustment and then select Contract adjustment.
In the contract adjustment, there is an area called Change order attributes. This area lets you set your change orders/contract adjustment to the following:
- Start date
- Finish date
- Cost curve
Cost Curve can be adjusted in many ways. If you select Bell Shaped the cost adjustments increase during the summer months and then decreases in the winter months.
In step 3 of the contract adjustment, the Time phased budget step can be used for both Start with Cost items work flow and the Start with Pay items work flow. You can adjust your time phased budget in either contract adjustment work flow.
The only time your time phased budget should change is when you get change orders and you have to change your overall budget amount.
For the Start dates, you cannot put budget in the past. If you try to select a month that has already passed, you will get an error stating Start date must be in an open fiscal period.
Finish date has to be greater than your start date otherwise you get the following error.
Move onto step 2 Cost Items. You can add Adjusted CB total cost. In this example we are adding $100 to each cost item.
In the Time phased budget step, the 100 dollars now has to be distributed. Scroll over to the Distribution type column.
In step 3, only TERMINAL cost items will be brought into that grid. Non-terminal cost items do not show on the Cost items grid of the contract adjustment.
There are three different Distribution types:
- Change order (default setting)
- Cost Item
- Manual
When Distribution type is set to Change order, it means it is pulling in the start date, finish date, and cost curve from the details step of your change order.
The changes to the Adjusted total cost column are then distributed throughout the start and finish date and shows in the Adjusted Cost column.
If your cost curve was set to linear, roughly the same amount of cost goes into the same fiscal period. Since some months are longer than others, they will have additional cost.
Time phased budget at the budget move
Time phased budget is included for both the non-associated and associated budget move.
The total adjusted CB total cost must be zero before you can move budget. This shows as a net zero budget adjustment when you are moving budget from cost items to other cost items. You can also move the time phased budget.
You can set the start date, finish date, and cost curve for the budget move change orders.
The Time phased budget step is similar to the Time phased budget step for Contract adjustment. The distribution type on this step is where you can select to distribute by the change order attributes or the cost item attributes. You can also manually adjust your cost.
When you adjust the budgeted cost either through a contract adjustment or a budget move, you can adjust the cost over the different fiscal periods and decide where to place the adjusted cost.
Time phased budget grids
In the left side gird, you have many of the cost item details in columns. This includes the following columns:
- CBS position
- Description
- WBS phase code
- Start
- Finish
- Cost curve
- Distribution type
- CB total cost
- Adjusted CB total cost
- Pending budget cost: any outstanding budget cost that has not yet been approved. For example, if you have another pending contract adjustment, it adds those values in this column.
- Phased budget cost delta
You can adjust the amount of columns you see using the slider to move between the left side grid and the right side grid.
The right side grid shows your cost and adjusted cost columns. Your cost columns show current cost that has been approved.
For example, in the CB total cost column, if you have $1,000 approved, the cost columns for each month distributes that cost throughout each month.
Changing Distribution type to cost item
You can change the auto distribute type to Cost item if you want your adjusted budget to use attributes from the CBS.
To do this, you can select one, many, or all of your cost items in the left side grid, and then click on the auto distribute icon. Then select Cost item.
Your Distribution type has changed to cost item. You are now distributing your adjusted budget based on the cost item attributes that are pulling in from the CBS.
This also changes how the Cost curve distributes the adjusted cost. As you can see from the screenshot above, some cost curves have been adjusted.
Manual distribution of cost adjustment
You can change a specific cost item's cost adjustment to zero and then manually redistribute that zeroed cost to other months. If you do not distribute the cost to other months, the following missing amount for the adjustment cost is highlighted in orange.
After redistribution, there are some manual indicators showing what the value was before the change.
The warning indicator on the cost curve column lets you know that your cost item contains manual time phased months and is not technically back loaded anymore.
Deltas in a adjusted cost columns
Deltas appear on a contract adjustment when the adjusted cost for a cost item does not match the current budget total cost.
You are not allowed to submit or approve a cost item adjustment that has a delta.
That is where the phased budget cost delta column displays any missing or over budgeted costs for any one cost item.
This column sums up all of your adjusted cost in the right side grid and compares it to the Adjust CB total cost.
For example, if you have $10 not distributed, you need to add it to the adjusted cost in that same cost item before moving onto the next step. If the current budget total cost has $100, you must spread that total cost amount throughout your months.
Hovering over the delta warning in the right side grid shows where the error in cost is occurring. If you have multiple deltas in different cost items, the delta cost would then sum up all delta costs.
If you attempt to submit or approve the contract adjustment with deltas and you return to the Time phased budget step, the Phased budget cost delta column shows which cost items have a delta. You need to resolve the deltas and redistribute the costs in the Adjusted cost columns in the right side grid before moving forward.
You can also adjust your delta costs using the same Auto distribution button from earlier and selecting Change order. Change order always distributes without a delta.
Now you can submit and approve your contract adjustment. All those values are going to be committed into your time phased budget.
For example, if you sync into your ERP, you can receive all changes made in the contract adjustment right after those changes have been approved.
View cost columns
If you want to view just your adjusted cost columns, select the View Cost column slider to turn off your cost columns. Only the adjusted cost columns shows. These columns show what you are adjusting in the active project months for the contract adjustment.
Date range filter
The date range filter lets you filter the right side grid to show only the months you want to see. You can view the project months based on the following options:
- This month (current fiscal month you are in)
- Next 3 months
- Next 6 months
- Next 12 months
- Through project finish date
You can also manually select the months you want to view using the Show months drop-down lists.
Approving budget warnings
You can't approve budget set in the past. If you have any adjusted cost set for the current month (December) and the contract adjustment is approved in the next month (January), the approver receives a warning stating you have budget in past or closed periods.
The contract adjustment can still be approved, but the adjusted cost from the closed month moves to the following month.
The other option the approver has is to revise the adjusted cost. When revising, the adjusted cost from December has already moved into the adjust cost column for January. If you do not want all of the previous month added into a single month, you can manually move the additional adjusted cost from January into the other open fiscal period months.