Update costs

If you have entered costs in your project plan, Microsoft Office Project updates actual costs as a task progresses based on the accrual method you set.

Note: Before you can save changes to costing information for an enterprise resource, the resource information must be opened for editing.

What do you want to do?

Update actual accrued resource assignment costs

Update actual per-use resource assignment costs

Update actual fixed cost resources

Update actual accrued resource assignment costs

Actual accrued resource assignment costs are entered manually. To enter these costs manually, you must first turn off automatic calculation of these values.

1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Calculation tab.

2. Under Calculation options for, clear the Actual costs are always calculated by Microsoft Office Project check box.

3. Click OK.

4. On the View menu, click Task Usage.

5. On the View menu, point to Table, and then click Tracking.

6. If you want to update actual accrued resource assignment costs to the current date, in the Act. Cost field, type the actual cost for the assignment whose costs you want to update. Press TAB to move to the field if it's not visible.

7. If you want to update actual accrued resource assignment costs on a daily basis, on the Format menu, point to Details, and then click Actual Cost.

8. Select the cell for the task and time you want to update, and then type the actual cost.

When you update the actual cost, the percent complete and remaining costs are not calculated to account for the actual cost.

For example, you have a task with a duration of 20 hours, and you have a resource assigned to that task with a cost of $30 per hour, the cost for that resource assignment is $600.

• If the task is 0% complete and you enter an actual cost of $300, the Remaining Cost field will continue to show $600. It is not calculated to reflect the actual cost. However, because the Cost field is equal to the actual cost plus the remaining cost, it is updated to reflect the addition of the actual cost. Therefore, in this case, the Cost field adds the $600 of remaining cost and the $300 of actual cost, resulting in a cost of $900.

• If the task is 50% complete and you enter an actual cost of $300, the Remaining Cost field is updated to show $300 and the Cost field continues to show $600.

• If the task is 75% complete and you enter an actual cost of $300, the Remaining Cost field is updated to show $100 and the Cost field is updated to show $400.

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Update actual per-use resource assignment costs

1. On the View menu, click Resource Sheet.

2. Click a resource, and then, on the Project menu, click Resource Information.

3. On the Costs tab, update the Per Use Cost column in the tables in the Cost rate tables section to reflect the new per-use assignment costs.

   Tip: You can set a specific date for when the new per-use costs take effect by entering a date in the Effective Date column.

When you change a per-use resource cost, Project updates that cost in every assignment for that resource. It also uses the updated per-use cost to recalculate the scheduled cost.

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Update actual fixed cost resources

You can update actual fixed cost resources that are tied to the start or end of a task. You can also update actual fixed cost resources that are prorated across a task.

To update actual fixed cost resources that are tied to the start or end of a task:

1. On the View menu, click Gantt Chart.

2. Click the task with the fixed cost that you want to update.

3. On the Project menu, click Task Information.

4. On the Resources tab, type the updated cost in the Cost column of the Resources table for the cost resource.

To update actual fixed cost resources that are prorated across a task:

1. On the View menu, click More Views.

2. In the Views list, click Task Sheet, and then click Apply.

3. On the View menu, point to Table, and then click Cost.

4. In the Cost field on the timephased cost table, change the values for each task whose cost resource has changed.

   Note: If you do not see a Cost row on the timephased cost table, right-click anywhere in the grid, and then click Cost.

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