Re: How do I enter negative hours and costs?
John
ProjectNovice <Projec...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
> We are using MS Project 2003 and trying to adjust actuals. Our customer
> provides us a file of actuals and in some cases, hours/costs are negative
> because they have been backed out from the previous month. For example, a
> -66.5 to back out costs in month 2 that were entered in month 1. We would
> like to show the negative costs in the month identified, not by going back to
> month 1. That is, entering negative hours/costs in month 2 to adjust the
> project costs when the needed adjustment was identified without having to go
> back to month 1 and recalculate everything.
ProjectNovice,
I guess your customer is not aware that time machines have not been
invented yet, despite what is often shown on the SciFi channel. There is
no such thing as "negative hours" and, there is also no such thing as
"negative cost" - it is either a loss or a savings depending on how it
is viewed.
So what to do. There are several choices. Certainly one option (which I
personally do NOT favor) is to go back to the previous month, put in the
correct data and rerun all the financials for the month. Obviously this
is a "turn back time" type of approach which is why I do not recommend
it - plus it is a lot of work.
Another approach is to decrement the current month to make up the
difference. For example, let's say the current month has 10,000 actual
hours but the previous month was overstated by 1,000 hours. Then shown
9,000 for the current month. This approach is much better but it does
have two distinct disadvantages. First, the data must be accompanied by
a well written explanation as part of the permanent record. Second, the
historical value, (as might be used for future proposals), of these two
months is invalid.
Another approach is to carry forward the "negative" values and apply
them at the end of the project. This has the obvious disadvantage of the
current data always being off be a factor - probably not what you want.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. Perhaps someone else will offer more
suggestions.
John
Project MVP
ProjectNovice
Thank you for the super-quick response. Although we have no time machine, we
do have an expectation that we will never have a variance greater or less
than 10% (i.e., EVM). Since the customer is not accustomed to being refused,
we have been using your NOT recommended method because we are obligated to
apply the negative numbers in the month that the correction is applied. In
some months, many projects have needed these adjustments and we are looking
for a better solution.
This morning, we have been reading Microsoft Project 2003 Inside-Out. Do you
think that we can use VBA scripting to create a custom method that will
accept the negative values?
John
ProjectNovice <Projec...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
> John,
>
> Thank you for the super-quick response. Although we have no time machine, we
> do have an expectation that we will never have a variance greater or less
> than 10% (i.e., EVM). Since the customer is not accustomed to being refused,
> we have been using your NOT recommended method because we are obligated to
> apply the negative numbers in the month that the correction is applied. In
> some months, many projects have needed these adjustments and we are looking
> for a better solution.
>
> This morning, we have been reading Microsoft Project 2003 Inside-Out. Do you
> think that we can use VBA scripting to create a custom method that will
> accept the negative values?
ProjectNovice,
I never believed the old adage, "the customer is always right". It is a
nice politically correct sentiment but I never liked politics anyway.
At the company where I worked we had a formal, certified earned value
system and we occasionally faced issues just like yours, but those were
rare. And I must also admit that as I recall, we used the "time machine"
method to correct the data. However, it sounds like it is more than just
an rare occurrence in your case. That would bother me a whole lot. It
says there are not enough controls on many aspects of your earned value
system (EVS). If I were you, I would concentrate on fixing that basic
problem rather than trying to come up with an automated way to deal with
it. For example, at our company we thoroughly trained all our Cost
Account Managers (CAMS) in how to properly use Project and how our EVS
worked. We also performed audits of all plans when they were created and
each month when they were statused (now there is a great place to use
VBA). We utilized automated checking macros extensively in our process
and it certainly cut down the number of aw-#%&@*.
With regard to your question. Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is a
very powerful tool. I have yet to find something I wanted to do and
could not with VBA, so yes, a macro could be developed to accommodate
negative values. Now, is it worth it? I would say no because it is not
fixing the problem. Rather, it is accepting a failure of the process.
Correcting the problem you describe SHOULD be difficult and painful.
That's the only way someone will step up and address the cause.
Sorry if I was on my soapbox too much but maybe some of the decision
makers at your company (and your customer) should read this response.
John
Project MVP
Steve House [Project MVP]
theoretical predictions and experimental observations don't agree, you have
the choice of changing the theory to fit the universe or changing the
universe to fit the theory. In the latter case you apply Fudge's Constant
to your experimental results (not necessarily invalid - that's how Clyde
Tombaugh discovered the planet Pluto). It sounds like your client has
fomalized Fudging into his fundamental business processes. IMHO, the hours
and costs posted to your project plan should always reflect actual physical
reality - an hour worked in February is an hour worked in February -
period - whether its good or bad that it was done then. The only way you
could ever have negative hours and costs is if the resources were undoing
work previously done and giving you back the money they were paid.
Your situation is a perfect example to illustrate that Project is not an
accounting system and except in the simplest of cases trying to use it as
one is going to come back to haunt you at the worst possible time.
Accountants routinely apply adjustments and corrections, carry fowards and
carry backs, but the numbers entered into Project should be considered raw
data describing what happened, without interpretation. You'd no more carry
hours forward or back from one period to another than you would forge the
dates on sales invoices so the transaction appears to have occurred in a
period other than when it actually did. If you do, you lose all of
Project's value as a tool to actually manage the Project so as to achieve
its objectives on-time and within budget.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs
"ProjectNovice" <Projec...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:5EC8DEA8-F6DF-48B3...@microsoft.com...
davegb
Steve House [Project MVP] wrote:
> I'm reminded of the formal definition of the Fudge Factor in physics: When
> theoretical predictions and experimental observations don't agree, you have
> the choice of changing the theory to fit the universe or changing the
> universe to fit the theory. In the latter case you apply Fudge's Constant
> to your experimental results (not necessarily invalid - that's how Clyde
> Tombaugh discovered the planet Pluto). It sounds like your client has
> fomalized Fudging into his fundamental business processes. IMHO, the hours
> and costs posted to your project plan should always reflect actual physical
> reality - an hour worked in February is an hour worked in February -
> period - whether its good or bad that it was done then. The only way you
> could ever have negative hours and costs is if the resources were undoing
> work previously done and giving you back the money they were paid.
>
> Your situation is a perfect example to illustrate that Project is not an
> accounting system and except in the simplest of cases trying to use it as
> one is going to come back to haunt you at the worst possible time.
> Accountants routinely apply adjustments and corrections, carry fowards and
> carry backs, but the numbers entered into Project should be considered raw
> data describing what happened, without interpretation. You'd no more carry
> hours forward or back from one period to another than you would forge the
> dates on sales invoices so the transaction appears to have occurred in a
> period other than when it actually did. If you do, you lose all of
> Project's value as a tool to actually manage the Project so as to achieve
> its objectives on-time and within budget.
>
It seems Steve, that you haven't worked with, or understood, the world
of the beancounter. I've had more dealings with them than I care to
recall. Once I figured out that they have absolutely no understanding
of or interest in reality, it was easier to deal with them. They only
care about what is on paper. What "actually happened" is totally
unimportant. If it can't be or isn't represented as a "line item", it
simply isn't.
I remember when I worked at Mobil Oil, and a low level clerk who
handled our expense reports absconded with less than $2,000. They
instituted new procedures to prevent such an occurrence. A couple of us
sat down and worked up and estimate of how much it cost the company to
institute the new procedures. About $10,000/yr. So the beancounters
implemented procedures costing $10,000/ yr, every year for the
predictable future, to prevent a loss, which was most likely a one-time
occurrence, of $2,000! I didn't bother to do a Cost/Benefit ratio on
it. Since the $10,000 was not a line item, it didn't matter at all.
They believed that since there was already someone being paid to do the
job, it didn't matter. They can't comprehend that that person could be
doing useful work instead of all the extra procedures to prevent the
loss that probably wouldn't happen again. Accountants don't understand
probabilities at all.
I believe it's one of the reasons that so few companies are willing to
spend money to improve things like Customer Service or even quality.
Unless their accountants are willing to sit down and do some real world
accounting, or an exec is willing to clip their wings, the savings are
hard to demonstrate. They just don't show up as a line item.
The main driver in this world is balanced books. Has no connection with
reality. But negative hours help balance books. And in that world,
balanced books are far more important than knowing where the project
is.
Jan De Messemaeker
I can't but jump in here... memories of a 28-year long fight with the
Finance division of IBM create a burst of emotions... you certainly don't
exagerate, I could add some more and even more juicy.
Back to the start, I don't understand why MS has bothered to NOT allow
negatives in Usage Views. Not only would it make some accountants happy, if
you just could enter negative usage for material tasks you could follow up
inventory... no investment, just leave out a test..
But then again, what may we expect of people who invest in castrating a
feature (Reschedule work) that worked absolutely splendidly up to P2000, and
now forces you to review constraints before using it: shame and scandal in
the family, but that's how it is.
Greetings,
--
Jan De Messemaeker, Microsoft Project Most Valuable Professional
http://users.online.be/prom-ade/
For FAQs: http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm
"davegb" <dav...@safebrowse.com> schreef in bericht
news:1141921625....@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
Steve House [Project MVP]
first to admit I don't have a clue about the accountancy mind-set. Must be
all the physical sciences and engineering courses I took creeping in. That
may be why I dislike attempts to use Project for project accounting, time
and billing, etc, so much. It seems that the first and foremost function of
a tool like MSP is to serve as a reality check, keeping one's mind focussed
on what what can have rather than on what one wants. When someone uses a
constraint to make a task finish on a certain date when Project wants to put
it a month later, I always think to myself "Wait and see - when you get to
the day you've promised the boss it will be ready, you're going to have to
go to him with the news you've "discovered" there's still a month to go!"
IMHO, you don't create the project plan - it's already there, implicit
within the process of creating the project's deliverable itself, and it's up
to the project manager to reveal it.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs
"davegb" <dav...@safebrowse.com> wrote in message
news:1141921625....@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
Trevor Rabey
Project Management sure does touch some very primal nerves and bring out
some very strange outcomes and behaviour resulting from deeply embedded
perceptions, bias, expectation, desire, being right, being wrong, politics
etc. People and organisations have an enormous capacity for self delusion
and fantasy even in the face of abundant evidence of "what's so" ie reality.
First important question almost never answered, if ever asked, about MSP
"What's this tool for?"
I have used negative Fixed Costs for a group of Tasks which represent
progress payments and other income "events".
MSP allows it.
At break-even, Total Cost of the Project is zero and otherwise net profit is
a negative number of dollars.
I can plot cumulative net cash flow with this.
I don't have a matching concept for negative Hours.
"Steve House [Project MVP]" <sjhouse.r...@to.send.hotmail.com> wrote
in message news:%23Ae$qU8QGH...@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
davegb
Trevor Rabey wrote:
> That's almost mystical, Steve.
>
> Project Management sure does touch some very primal nerves and bring out
> some very strange outcomes and behaviour resulting from deeply embedded
> perceptions, bias, expectation, desire, being right, being wrong, politics
> etc. People and organisations have an enormous capacity for self delusion
> and fantasy even in the face of abundant evidence of "what's so" ie reality.
>
> First important question almost never answered, if ever asked, about MSP
> "What's this tool for?"
I hate to admit it, but this is a very good question I need to ask
myself often, particularly when I see an odd request like the OP's.
I can get very hung up on a strict interpretation of what Project is
for. I'm an expert, and it's for Critical Path Scheduling and related
functions like resource tracking. End of story. When someone tries to
bend it to some other use, I want to show them the error of their ways
and give a lengthy explanation of it's proper use. In point of fact, it
can be used to do lot's of things if you're willing to think
creatively.
Nowadays, the only ones I try to steer toward CPM and "proper use" are
the ones that are close, trying to do some kind of normal scheduling
and give some indication that they want to do that. Otherwise, I try to
help them do what they're trying to do, or leave them for someone else
to help.