Budget & control
Delivery is only half the job. These modules keep the project on the path everyone agreed: within budget, with risks managed, scope protected, and every change decided properly.
Financials
Financials is where the project's money is planned and controlled. It has five views: Budget, Costs, Control, Reports, and ERP.
Build and approve a budget
The budget is organized as a cost breakdown structure: a tree of budget lines. Only the lowest lines hold amounts. The lines above them simply add them up.
- Create the structureStart from a blank sheet, a cost-type template, or a phase template. This opens budget version 1 as a draft.
- Enter amountsType amounts on the lowest-level lines. Amounts are exact and always carry a currency. The Omani rial uses three decimal places.
- Submit, then approveOnce approved, the version becomes the official budget and replaces the previous approved version.
- Revise when neededA revision copies the approved amounts into a new draft and asks for a reason. Every version, its total, and the difference from the previous version are kept.
- Spread it over timeSpread the approved amounts across months. Earned value and the S-curve need this spread.
The figures, explained
| Figure | In plain words |
|---|---|
| Approved budget (BAC) | The total of the currently approved budget. |
| Commitment | Money already promised, for example on a purchase order, but not yet spent. |
| Actual cost | Money actually spent, entered by hand or imported from the ERP. |
| Available budget | Approved budget minus commitments minus actual cost. |
| PV · EV · AC | Planned value (what should be done by now), earned value (what is actually done), and actual cost (what it cost). |
| CPI | Cost efficiency. Above 1 means you get more work for each rial than planned. |
| SPI | Schedule efficiency. Below 1 means the work is behind plan. |
| ETC · EAC | Estimate to complete and estimate at completion: what is still needed, and the likely final cost. |
Earned value uses the progress percentage recorded on the work item linked to each budget line, not its status. If the budget has no monthly spread yet, the earned-value area stays empty rather than showing made-up numbers.
Connected to the ERP
The ERP view connects the project to SAP or another ERP and imports actual cost lines. Imported lines are read-only, because the ERP is the source of truth for them. Manual costs can still be edited. Importing never changes the approved budget.
You can link a work item to one budget line, and many work items can share a line. Moving tasks in the plan never moves money in the budget.
Risks & issues
Risks keeps two kinds of entry in one register:
- Risks are things that might happen. Rate their probability and impact, plan responses, and track the remaining (residual) risk and any new (secondary) risks the response creates.
- Issues are things that have happened. They carry a severity, an escalation level, and a response-time (SLA) clock.
When a response is real work, link it to a work item so it gets planned and done. Every assessment is kept, so you can see how a risk changed over time.
Scope
Scope records what the project will deliver and what it will not. It holds:
- an approved, versioned scope statement and its exclusions,
- requirements, each with a permanent reference,
- a traceability matrix that shows which work items, and which acceptance records, cover each requirement.
Requirements that nothing covers yet stay highlighted, so nothing is forgotten. Changing the approved scope requires an approved change request.
Change requests
Baselines are the approved scope, schedule, and budget. They only change through Changes, so every important decision is recorded.
- Raise a requestDescribe what should change and why, and which baselines it affects: scope, schedule, and/or cost.
- Assess the impactRecord the effect on scope, schedule, cost, risk, and benefits.
- DecideAn authorized approver approves or rejects the request. The decision is saved with who made it and when.
- ApplyIf approved, the affected baseline gets a new version, and the previous one is kept. If rejected, nothing changes.
An approved cost change creates a new budget version in Financials. It never changes the actual costs that come from the ERP.
Stakeholders
Stakeholders lists everyone affected by the project, including people outside the team. For each person or group, record their interest, influence, current and desired engagement, and communication needs. The app then suggests how to engage them:
Manage closely
High influence and high interest. Involve them in decisions.
Keep satisfied
High influence and low interest. Meet their needs without overloading them.
Keep informed
Low influence and high interest. Share regular updates.
Monitor
Low influence and low interest. Check in from time to time.
The communications plan records the audience, message, channel, frequency, and owner of each communication. Adding a stakeholder does not give them access to the project.
Quality
Quality brings together:
- the quality plan: the standards, who is responsible, and the methods to use,
- checklists, which a stage gate can require before it says go,
- a defect log with an owner and an outcome for each defect,
- acceptance criteria that work items and products can refer to.
Procurement
Procurement manages vendors, contracts, and purchase orders, including their delivery milestones. Each commercial line is linked to a budget line and shows the commitments and actuals synced from the ERP.
If a change to a contract's value should change the budget, raise a change request. Procurement never overwrites figures that come from the ERP.