Video - InEight Estimate - User Defined Indirect Cost Items

TRANSCRIPT

You may prefer to create your own indirect cost items. If so, you can create user-defined indirect cost items the same way you create direct cost items. The only difference is that your indirect cost items will not be assigned to pay items. One advantage of creating your own indirect cost items is the ability to create a parent-child structure for your indirect costs.

Let's add a user-defined indirect cost item at the bottom of your CBS by typing in the last blank field, and calling it Job Overhead with a Forecast Takeoff Quantity of 1, and a Unit of Measure of "each." Next, add two subordinates under the new cost item by right-clicking on the superior cost item and choosing Insert Subordinate. Then repeat. Name the first subordinate cost item, Job Trailer, and the second subordinate Utilities.

Job Trailer will be 1 each and Utilities will be 1 lump sum. Open the Job Trailer cost item by double-clicking the row header. Then open the Resource Rate Register by clicking in the Code field, then clicking the Resource icon. Select the Rented Construction Equipment tab.

Then click the Actions tab and select the green + icon to create and add a new resource on the fly. In the Resource Code field, enter RJT and in the Description field, let's enter "job trailer." You don't need to enter fuel, but the job trailer's cost is given to you at a charge per week. So you'll use the non hourly period charge rates to figure out the hourly cost.

Select the Calculate Non Hourly Period Charge Rates checkbox, and click OK on the dialogue box. Select Weekly as the period and type 1000 as the Amount Per Period. Since the period is weekly, type 40 in the Hours per Week field. Then press the Tab key, so the change takes effect on your Cost Category Breakdown shown on the left.

Click OK to close the Resource Rate Record. Back on the Resource Rate Register, select the new RJT resource you created and then click OK to return to the cost item record. Adjust the Trailer Quantity to 2, since we assume we'll have two job trailers on site. On the Production tab, change Days duration to 70.

This represents the total number of days estimated for the job. Click OK. Open the Utilities cost item by double-clicking on the row header. Create an ad-hoc resource on this cost item by typing "electricity" in the next blank resource row and making it a quantity of 1, with a unit of measure of Lump Sum.

On the Resource Cost Breakdown tab on the right, enter your forecasted electricity cost for the duration of the job. In this case, let's type 1500 on the Custom Category 1 row. Then click OK to close the record. Your user-defined indirect cost items now contain production and costs.