Easy Cost Planning in the Project System 

Use

The Easy Cost Planning tool enables you to plan costs at WBS level, based on quantities and characteristics.

You use it to create a quantity structure (possibly temporary) for the cost calculation, starting from the project structure. The system valuates your entries using the prices and rates defined in the system, then distributes the costs in line with the basic dates for the respective WBS elements.

You can make best use of this tool in the following processes:

Project Processing Concentrating on Cost Controlling

If you use projects as cost control tools, cost planning which is high performance, clear, and easy to use is particularly important.

Easy Cost Planning meets this requirement. It has the additional advantage that, as the project progresses, you can trigger a range of follow-up processes, called the "execution services", from the costing. The Execution Services include the purchase requisitions, purchase orders, material reservations, goods issues, and internal activity allocation. As the system carries out Execution Services with the help of the data entered for the costing, there is no need for duplicated data entry for further processing to take place. If necessary, you can overwrite the data taken over; the values are only intended as default values.

Simplified Preliminary Costing for Complex Projects

You use the Project System to process complex overhead cost projects or customer projects. In this case, you need a preliminary costing tool that is easy to use, but high performance, to serve as the basis for creating quotations.

You can use Easy Cost Planning to carry out preliminary costing, using data from a temporary WBS.

You can also use Easy Cost Planning to carry out sales pricing and, if required, create a correspondng quotation.

You create your concurrent costing after the project is approved or when the order is received, using the networks from your WBS. The preliminary costing is preserved for analysis purposes in a separate CO version.

The integration of Easy Cost Planning and sales pricing with the Project Builder means that you can control the whole business process - from creating the project to carrying out the sales pricing - using just one tool.

Prerequisites

For information on the prerequisites for using Easy Cost Planning, see Carrying Out Easy Cost Planning .

For information on the prerequisites for using Execution Services, see Starting Execution Services .

Features

You access the function via the Project Builder.

The WBS forms the basis for the costing structure, which you use to plan and calculate costs. You can subdivide the costing structure as you want; the changes you make will not affect the WBS. This way, you retain a clear overview of your cost planning at project level.

You enter the data for the costing in the planning templates you have defined; these are the costing models . You use the costing models to reproduce typical business processes, whose costs always occur in the same way. You enter data typical of the business process in the model. This data is known as the "characteristics" and includes things like required quantity, number of days, and number of documents to be produced. The system uses the chosen characteristics to generate the costing items for the unit costing. If necessary, you can postprocess the unit costing.

The system distributes the planned costs along the time axis, in line with the basic dates in the WBS elements. The system adapts the cost distribution automatically if the project schedule changes. If you have not maintained basic dates, the system automatically takes the data from date control, which you maintain in the Project System IMG (by choosing Costs ® Planned Costs ® Easy Cost Planning and Execution Services ® Create Costing Variant).

You can also carry out costing from Easy Cost Planning in a simulation version, which you can also create and process in the Project Builder.

You can use the planned values calculated as the basis for carrying out sales pricing from the Project Builder.

You can trigger the following activities (the Execution Services) using the quantity structure entered in the costing:

The Execution Services function selects the costing items relevant for the process to be triggered. At the same time, the system displays the postings already made for the relevant service. For example, if you want to trigger a purchase order for a WBS element, the system displays the purchase orders already posted for this WBS element, to avoid duplication.

The structure, hierarchy, and cost element reports are also available, along with those from the Business Information Warehouse (BW).