Maintaining your budget is always important. One of StratusVue’s goals is to keep your current and future budgets accurate using our forecasting tool.
The budget is a key factor of your project and is normally set by your company’s estimating department. It’s vital to stay on track during the job so that the estimating department can refine their future proposals.
The issue is that the Estimator is typically not on the job site and the Project Manager is normally not providing the bids to your clients. Therefore, communicating what happens on the project, and its effect on the budget, has to be as accurate as possible. That’s where forecasting software shines. It is the only way to effectively relay actual project information to the estimating team during, and/or after the project.
Keeping Your Budget on Track
For Project Managers, our forecasting tool is the best way to make sure you know where your money is all the way up to project completion. To achieve this, it’s recommended that you update your forecast monthly.
It’s important to review your costs for the following:
- What’s complete?
- What do I know is going to happen?
- What do I think could happen?
By inputting your forecast numbers for those three items, your estimating department could look at your forecast at any point in the project and understand how they should adjust their internal numbers.
StratusVue: Forecasting from StratusVue on Vimeo.
Creating the Best Possible Outcome
As the project progresses and the risk is reduced, a final number should be generated. When you start seeing the project finish line, there are two possible options: leave your final numbers as they exist or adjust your budget to compensate.
Ultimately, the decision depends on how closely the estimators follow the project and account for company culture. It is important to understand whether pricing differences are a scope miss, a unique one-time event, or an estimate bust. This tells the estimator what should be carried over to the next project or legitimate added scope.
In the end, the knowledge and management of the costs discussed above is the bread and butter of making money. The more you review, manage, and discuss your costs on the project, the more profitable your company should be in the end.
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