How to Enter and Track Budgets and Expenses in Projects

Description

This article will explain how to enter and track budgets and expenses in ITS projects.  

Resolution

Follow these steps:

Estimating

    Get a good estimate on the over all cost of the Project.

1. Total Budget will include internal resources, consultants from vendors, software, hardware, and Travel Expenses.
2. Review other similar projects that have occurred in the past. Review previous project plans and their actual expenses as well as how many actual hours were needed.
3. Review number of person-hours required to perform the previous projects
4. Estimate as accurately as you can the number of hours and complexity of this project.
   1. Is it more complex than before.. Add more time.
   2. Is it less complex than before.. Subtract some time.
5. Which type of Project are you going to run?
   1. Waterfall projects, One of the PMI's Best Practice techniques says is to gather the team who will do the work, list out all tasks needed to accomplish the project and estimate hours for each.  Be sure each activity has a deliverable and is no more than one week's time for assigned resources. If longer break it up.
   2. Agile projects, One of the Best Practices for Agile projects is to list all deliverables, list them on a card then estimate time needed for each one. 
6. Use Quoted Software and Hardware items, attached the quote in the briefcase. Add the quotes to the overall estimated cost of the project. 

Capturing Team Member Efforts

1. Follow the directions to add Role Forecast when the project request is being scoped.  See attached document.
2. Once the project has started, each and every task must have an accurate amount of effort entered into the task associated with the project. Industry best practices state task time should be recorded in 15-minute (.25, .50, etc %) increments. Further best practices state that this information as a minimum should be filled out as soon as the task is done for that day.
3. To fill out the actual time for the task:
   1. Card Wall, fill out the % complete or
   2. Waterfall task, actual effort expended on the Task

Actual Expenses

1. As soon as possible after actual expenses have occurred, they should be added to the project. To add these to the costs of the project follow these steps:
   1. The Project Manager or his/her alternate will navigate to the project and open it.
   2. In the center window pane, click on the Expenses tab.
   3. Scroll down to find the correct Expense type. 
      1. Under the correct Expense type, click on the Edit or + Add Expense
      2. Enter the Merchant information being careful to enter it exactly as stated on the Invoice. 
      3. Enter the full correct amount of the expense.
      4. Enter the correct receipt date.
      5. Select either:
         1. Billable - The item will be purchased directly using the requestor's Org/Fund code
         2. Reimbursable – ITS will pay for the item(s) and charge back to requestor's Org/Fund Code 
         3. Receipt – ITS will pay for the item(s).
      6. Enter the description on what the item was for.
      7. Click on the green SAVE button
      8. Attach a picture of the receipt. 
   4. Repeat as necessary for additional expenses as they occur.

Final Notes:

1. TDX will add the effort with expenses to arrive at the total cost. Periodically review the Resource section and each assigned resource's requested and scheduled tasks for accuracy.
2. As costs come in, be sure to add the actual costs by steps located under actual costs below.
3. Assign tasks or cards to a resource.  Effort will be automatically added into the overall project costs once the resource is added. All ITS employees should have an hourly rate established. Add rate if not sure by getting TDx Administrators to edit the persons TDX Profile