P6 Professional User Guide

Adding Expenses and Entering Cost Information for Activities

Expenses

Expenses

Expenses are nonresource costs associated with a project and assigned to a project's activities. They are typically one-time expenditures for nonreusable items. Examples of expenses include materials, facilities, travel, overhead, and training.

You can categorize expenses, indicate a unit of measure for expenses, and specify whether an expense accrues at the start or end of an activity or uniformly over its duration. Each expense has a budgeted or planned cost, actual cost, and estimated remaining cost.

Expenses are not the same as resources. Resources generally extend across multiple activities and/or multiple projects. Examples of resources are personnel and equipment. Unlike resources, expenses are project-specific. P6 Professional does not include expenses when leveling resources. Resource curves are not supported for expenses.

Add expenses

1)Choose Project, Expenses.

2)Click on the Edit toolbar or choose Edit, Add.

3)Select the activity to which you want to assign the expense, then click the Select button.

4)Click the General, Activity, Costs, and Description tabs, and enter details for the expense.

Add expenses from the Activities window

1)Choose Project, Activities.

2)Select the activity that incurs the expense.

3)Display Activity Details, then click the Expenses tab.

To display the Expenses tab, click the Layout Options bar and choose Bottom Layout Options. In the Available Tabs section, select Expenses, click , then click OK.

4)Click Add, then type a name for the expense item.

5)Double-click in the Cost Account column, then click . Select the cost account you want to assign, then click the Select button.

6)Double-click in the Expense Category column, then click . Select the category you want to assign, then click the Select button.

7)Double-click the Accrual Type column, then select the expense’s accrual type.

8)Type the number of budgeted or planned units you expect the selected activity to use.

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Developing Projects

9)Type the price of each unit.

The module calculates and displays the expense's budgeted or planned cost (budgeted or planned units * price/unit) in the Budgeted or Planned Cost field.

10)To enter actual expense costs already incurred by the activity, type the cost in the Actual Cost field.

To automatically calculate an expense's actual cost based on the activity's planned completion percentage, mark the Auto Compute Actuals checkbox.

11)Type the name of the vendor business or organization to which the expense is payable.

Tip

To change the columns displayed on the Expenses tab, right-click anywhere in the Expenses tab, then choose Customize Expense Columns.

Assign an expense category

1)Choose Project, Expenses.

2)Select the Expense Item, then click the General tab.

3)In the Expense Category field, click .

4)Select the category to which you want to assign the expense, then click the Select button.

Assign expense categories from the Activities window

1)Choose Project, Activities.

2)Select the activity associated with the expense.

3)Display Activity Details, then click the Expenses tab.

To display the Expenses tab, click the Layout Options bar and choose Bottom Layout Options. In the Available Tabs section, select Expenses, click , then click OK.

4)Select the expense to which you want to assign a category. Double-click in the Expense Category column, then click .

5)Select the category you want to assign, then click the Select button.

Specify an accrual type for an expense

1)Choose Project, Expenses.

2)Select the expense, then click the Activity tab.

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