Assigning Contractual Payments

Dear Utku,

I am not so sure that it is an easier way or not but my recomendation is as follows,

• Define a common resource by means of which you can assign a cost to an activity.
• Assgin this resource to activities requiring irreqular cost assignments.
• Go to resource assignment sheet.
• Specify the timescale
• On the right side Display-->Spreadsheet Fields-->Customize-->Time Interval-->Budgeted Costs
• Then assign your cost to each activity for specified time intervals by manually editing the corresponding cells as in Excel. (Bucket planning method)

Hope this helps.

Baris

Dear Utku,

I should make a correction. You cannot edit Budgeted Cost. It should be "Remaining Units" instead. If you set Price/Unit of a resource equal to 1, this problem will be solved.

Regards,

Baris

Dear Baris,

Thank you for your kindness to reply my post. The way you proposed worked perfectly. But I feel like going one step further and ask for help about another issue related to this topic.

In conjuction with my previous problem, let's say I have arranged all the payments using a common resource and then manually edited costs in each time interval specified. So far so good. Moreover, let's assume that my final payment has been planned to be made when the equipment is delivered to the site. Here is what I want: Final payment (delivery payment) should be delayed due to a possible delay in the delivery of the equipment. I mean is, if I plan to have the equipment on site & make its delivery payment in June, but for some reason in May, the equipment seems to be on site in July, then the final payment should shift to July too.

As far as I know, the manually edited cost can not be delayed in the way you proposed. I need to go back and edit the Remaining Units each time a delay occurs, which makes me think of creating seperate activities for each payment and adjust the relationship accordingly so that delay in the payment automatically occurs.

Do you have any suggestions related to this issue?

Thank is advance,

Regards,

Utku.

Dear Utku,

The total cost of an activity, no matter budgeted or actual, is composed of the cost of resources and cost of expenses. Therefore, you can make use of expenses for the last payment. Just separate the last payment from your whole amount and assign it by using expenses with "Accural Type" of "End of Activity". 

The main thing that you should bear in mind that to view the total cost ("At Completion Total Cost"), which consists of cost of resources and cost of expenses, as a sum, you shoud utilize "Activity Usage Spreadsheet" in the "Activities" sheet. You cannot use "Resource Assignment" sheet to see the effect of expense costs on the activity. 

Hope this helps Utku. 

Regards,

Baris

Utku,

Maybe you shall assign a WBS level for your payments and another WBS level for your Receipts/Income, both under a common WBS on top of them. At times can be convenient to create dummy WBS on a chain as to get the activities to the level you want if you filter and report by WBS levles and/or by Phases.

Or invert level for Payments and Receipts - whatever fits your needs

I use software that allows me to define multiple WBS Dictionaries/Structures and I can leave out from secondary WBS dictionaries the activities I want, maybe P6 users can tell about the idea on P6 even if limited to a single WBS structure.

Another would be to Keep Payments and Receipts under separate but linked job.

It is about making it easier for you to control access and reporting; activity codes and filters can also be of help, but this is as far as I can go here. Remember all this is tied to how your software control access, maybe you do not want certain users to be able to see your payments history, financial data is usually considered confidential.

Keeping individual payments under separate activities gives you more control over the logic and over data confidentiality.

Best regards,

Rafael