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Attaching costs to a task

Traditionally ProjeX works with costs that are allocated as part of a resource. for example a mechanical digger could be defined as a resource with a cost of $500 a day. We can then allocate that resource to a given project task (eg digging the foundations for a tower) and so that cost will show up as part of that task.

For some tasks it can be more convenient to attach a cost directly, for example we might be subcontracting the foundation work out to another company with a total price $1000. ProjeX now includes this functionality as well as combining the two (we might also attach the cost of the site foreman to make sure the subcontractor is doing the work correctly).

So, how do we do it?

Lets look at the house building project we used in the critical path example. Using the right mouse button to select a task from the project sheet we can select the 'Task definition' option to set the task up.

Under the 'Workdays and Cost' tab we can set the cost and units (ie. is the cost for the entire task, per hour or day).

In this case we have assigned a cost of $300 a day to dig the foundations.

We can repeat this process for each of our task. If a task does not have a cost (for example while the concrete is curing are workers are on another site so there is no cost) then we just leave the cost as zero.

Having defined the costs we can generate the cost plot and table for the project (don't worry if you don't have a resources file, just create a dummy one when ProjeX requests it). From the menubar:

As part of the cost parameter dialog we can select the source of the costs, in this case we want to use those assigned to the tasks.

ProjeX generates a table showing the breakdown of costs for the tasks and a plot showing the cumulative cost of the project.

The costs can also be tabulated on the ProjeX sheet and used to show costs accrued as the project progresses.