It’s critical to know how much a project will cost. Lately, that’s been more of a crapshoot than it should be, but construction business managers are finding innovative ways to guesstimate costs and when costs will hit the budget.
Time-Phased Budgets for Construction Business Projects
The challenges of cost-loaded schedules for construction business projects are real:
- The goals aren’t necessarily shared commonalities.
- Construction business manager wants to monitor costs
- General contractor and sub-contractors want control over how costs are entered
- Owner wants to stay within budget and on-time
- The schedules may not adequately reflect the “real” expenses.
- Pareto’s Rule: 80% of the outcome of any project is determined by 20 percent of its included elements…
- The stakeholders may have different concepts of what a cost-loaded schedule is.
| …The biggest problem is, (the) cost loaded schedule needs to match with accounting records. …The cost engineers must spend countless hours to find the difference; troubleshooting cost and hours when using cost loaded schedule method in the project. …Secondly, how do you communicate the schedule and who has the financial information when cost loaded schedule is used on the project? –Rahul Shinde, Support Engineer |
Even complicated time-phasing schedules are more flexible and transparent. “Because the nature of construction itself is time-phased, successful project teams plan for costs, revenues, escalation/risk windows, and key resources via their phases of timing,” says Rick Deans of technology solutions company InEight.
Getting project income and expenses to the finish line at the same time is the goal. Spreadsheet solutions present a myriad of problems, not the least which is, whose version reflects the most recent updates? Software solutions* can keep your project revenue and expenses in real-time.
Construction Monitor Software Generates Real-Time Leads
We update our data – your information – every week. It may be a cliché, but it rings true: When it comes to our building permit analysis, if you don’t use it you lose it (construction business opportunities).
Do you want to win more projects? You can, with the right information. Call 800.925.6085 (International/435.586.1205) or contact Construction Monitor.
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*Construction Monitor does not recommend nor endorse any brand of construction business software (except our own).