Cost control in construction projectsHow it works in this course

0-Master sheet:

1- Cost Estimation sheet:

our data model which will make the cost control process easy and organized contains 13 different excel sheets. The reason we do have several sheets is to be able to add more than one project to the data model and have one report that contains all projects data. Do not worry about linking the sheets together, I have a very smart solution for you.

The master sheet will contain the main information about our projects in the data model. The reason this sheet is a separate sheet is that we do not want to repeat data. for example, in this sheet, we will define the standard division of works and reuse this information in other sheets.

cost estimation sheet is our bill of quantities (BOQ) with a breakdown of each item in the Boq to segregate the cost of materials, equipment, Labor, and subcontractors. The course will not spend much time explaining how to calculate the different costs above since it is a pure quantity surveying job. we will be focusing more on how to store this data in a manner to serve the cost control process. anyway, calculating the budget costs above is very straight forward.

Data Model:

Well, this course is a little bit different than traditional cost control courses You may found. where other courses focus on theoretical process with more about Quantity surveying rather than real cost control practices, this course is an extremely practical course with a real project case study. we will focus on how to use Microsoft Excel and best practices for cost control to link different information and create a data model that fulfills all cost control requirements. Working smart not hard.

2- Schedule planned sheet:

3- Activity Boq sheet:

4- Monthly direct costs sheet:

By here, things became more interesting, I will teach you how to copy the data from a Primavera time schedule and convert it to database friendly table to use in our data model. Do not worry if you do not know anything about Primavera P6, it is a very simple process. Alternatively, if you are not a planning engineer, you can ask the planning engineer to provide you with theses data.

Now things became more interesting. linking Planning to cost control is the missing step in all cost control processes I have seen. If you are a professional planning engineer then you must be doing a cost loading sheet. if you are not a planning Engineer, then you can request this sheet from the planner. by having a link between scheduled activities and BOQ items we will be able to do many reports in cost control as I will explain later on in this course.

Here the magic will start. Imagine that we can blend the Activity BOQ sheet with the schedule planned sheet and cost estimation sheet to have a mixed sheet we call here monthly direct cost. by using the Primavera P6 distribution of monthly progress, we can implement the same % to our direct costs. The beauty of this process that we do not have duplicated data means, we only create a connection between the three sheets where whenever data is updated or changed in any of these sheets, this sheet will be automatically updated.

5- Monthly indirect cost sheet:

This is a straight forward sheet. we will store all the indirect costs in this sheet according to each project and on a monthly basis. These costs are required to calculate the net cash flow from cash in and cash out costs.

6- Monthly payments sheet:

The monthly payments sheet will include the expected monthly payments to projects based on the payment terms defined in sheet No. 0 ( Master sheet). This process is similar to the planned values we are doing in planning. However, in this sheet, we consider the net value of money that will be credited to the project account considering the advanced payment, retention deduction, and final payments as per contract conditions. We need to do these calculations to be able to estimate the cash in and out of the project / Company.

7- Cash in and cash out sheet:

Again here we will be doing some magic to link the monthly direct and indirect costs with the monthly payments to find out the net cash flow of the project. since we can put all company projects in one place, then we can also provide the company net cash flow on a monthly basis. This information will be highly appreciated by company management.

8- Progress update from P6 sheet:Do you remember when I told you that many engineers stuck at this point? I found you a smart solution to copy the time schedule progress update from Primavera and convert it to an update to our cost control plan. This process will save a lot of time and will make you able to create a weekly cost control report. This is not everything, You will be able to verify the progress update as well.

let me at this point talk more about what I called above magic. Since we stored our data in a database friendly method. we will be able to connect different sheets with Microsoft Excel Power Query. This is a very easy step, however, it will make us able to control our data in an amazing way. we will be executing several steps inside the power query and get the result to be loaded to an Excel sheet where we can reuse it to create other tables or reports. For example, in this sheet, we will use data from sheets 8 and 4 to create a direct cost progress sheet. when I say use, I mean it. we will not copy and paste the data from one place to another, we will link the source of data and grab updated data from the sources whenever we need it.

10- Actual costs update sheet:

9: Direct cost progress update sheet:

This is a straight forward sheet. just dump all the actual costs of materials, labor, equipment, and subcontractors. no need to store the data in a certain order. just follow the format we will create in the course and Excel will sort it out for us.

11- Cost control summary report:

This is our data model summary report where we can see the overall picture of the project. this report will also show the data in an interactive way where you can filter the data by date, Project, Div of work, and much more. But How to create such report? See the data model below.

looks scary? wait until we create it together and you will know-how simple and easy it is

12-cost control detailed report:

Do you think it is just another report? absolutely not. this is the report where you can find where every dollar has been spent in your projects and if it was spent right or wrong. you can filter the data by project time schedule WBS, Div of works, and variances between budget and actual costs.

Is this everything in the course?There are limitless possibilities of reporting using our data model. I gave you the most practical reports from my point of view. However, from your feedback, we will keep adding useful reports whenever it is required. furthermore, you can do your own reports and we can help you to do that if you face any problems. Although I will give you a big fish (This course data model), I will teach you how to catch bigger fishes by yourself (by creating your own reports)

Enough talking at this stage. Let us build this data model togethers. let us do the Actions! see you in the next chapter.