Clarify with all project team members what they should book their time to.

When they start working on the team they should be given a printout of the cost codes that they should book time to.
Don’t assume they will already know.
This will save time and provide more accuracy for cost accounting for the project.

Tagged with: accounting • cost codes • time sheets

Filed under: Cost • Human Resources • Time • Training

If you have control of the system at the start of a project, make sure the project (or even at the program level, project office level, or company level) uses a document and accounting system that can record and output everything.

This would include costs, labour, forecasts, statistics, billing, budget, expenses, changes etc.

It should be able to output things like:

• Weekly reports.
• Monthly cost summary
• Invoices
• Labour costs for a period
• Expense breakdowns
• Cost to date
• Variance
• Total cost at completion

This should all be available from one package or a number of modules that are automatically linked together. You do not want to have multiple spreadsheets that people record things in that are not linked. The result should be a significant reduction in paperwork.

Certain inputs could only be allowed by certain people (by log in), such as:

• Accounts (accountant)
• Billing
• Labour (site manager)
• Design hours (design manager)

Individual hours by each person could be input (linked) from time sheets. All staff/employees should have adequate training so that the system is used properly

To start with, I recommend looking at the list of project management software at Wikipedia.

Tagged with: accounting • budget • changes • expenses • forecast • labour • statistics • system

Filed under: Cost • Documentation • Planning