#37 Cost

[Ben]

Hi,

Looks like a good project. Congrats.

I know this is a gantt chart, but one thing I find
lacking in nearly all implementations is the ability to
assign a "cost" to a task and a "budget" to a project.

This would allow people to "manage" their cashflow as
well as their time, which for me is MORE important.
(You can have all the time you want, but if you don't
have the money to complete a project ... you are stuck!!!)

This is very important for small businesses that
actually have a budget to work from!

Thanks

Nom

[THOMAS Alexandre]

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What do you think it's better to process...
- put a field for cost directly on the task and the user can
put the cost for each task

Or

• Assign a cost for a resource (cost for day/hours) and when
  a resource is assign to a task that calcules the cost for
  the assigned-task

I think the second solution is better but some many have to
be done...like no work on week end, how many hours work on a
day, and so on

[Ben]

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Thanks for wanting to add this to your program.

Both solutions are good and will be important for different
people.
For me, the first solution is more meaningfull. (i.e. Just
put a cost on each task.)

Actually I was thinking about this last night, and I
realised that the way you are doing things now needs to be
changed a little.

Right now we can only add a new task. There is no
distinction between a task and a project UNTIL you indent a
task. The header task then becomes the project.

The way this would work is that a PROJECT (which will have
tasks associated to it) has a budget.

Then each task will have a cost.

To be more specific let's think about a builder. He will
have a budget to build a house. (say 100000) (it will have a
start date and an end date)

Then we have several tasks (each with a start date and a end
date AND a cost). The cost will be averaged over the period
of the task. (so if the cost is 7000 over 7 days, then each
day will cost 1000)

So for our House project we wil have tasks like:
task 1 - Foundations 10000
task2 - Bricks 5000
task 3 - Roof 7000
etc...

All these tasks happen at different times.

Then what would be really cool is that for each day you can
calculate the total cost and the amount left.
The important thing is to make sure that you always have
enough money left on a given day to complete a given task.
This could be shown for each day as a bar chart.

In effect you are doing a cashflow analysis (or PROJECTION)
with all the Gantt chart features (like Start-start,
finish-start etc...), this would be very powerful feature as
it allows managers to see if a project can be finished not
only in time, but within the budget, and actually take the
decisions NOW to make sure that it will fit within the
budget (and not when it is too late! whcih might result in
the whole project being jeoperdised).

I am actually very suprised no one implements this as this
is so important and very practical.

[clemare]

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Calculate total cost of the project will be an excelent
feature...

The second approach mentioned by bbadmin is the better, and
it is the same you can find in other project applications
(like Ms Project).

Thanks all for this excelent application.

clemare

[clemare]

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Please, assign a cost for a resource (cost for hours). Thanks.

clemare

[Eduardo M. Costa]

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IMHO, it work like human resources.

GP could define a generic "resource" subsystem and then the specialized resources, like human resources, financial resources, etc.

[Tom Arnold]

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It may be best to have both options: cost per unit of resource time, cost per task. If I outsource a task I may get a fixed price on it. If I use hourly or salaried labor then a unit cost makes more sense.

In any case, being able to do a report of cost for the project or for a given time period (day, week, month, quarter, year) are important.