Cash Flow; S-Curve

[terischmig]

Does anyone have example(s) of generating S-curve for cash flow (by quarter and then yearly) of just a list of activities (10-30 items), not an actual schedule?
Using options of Back Loaded, Front Loaded and generating output of tabular data to be used/exported to Excel.
Any experience/recommendation of using Project vs Excel to do this type of exercise?

Thank you for your time,
Teri

 

[JulieInMaine]

Hello Teri,

Project can graph or chart data in Excel using Visual Reports. There is a Cash Flow Visual Report which will create a Pivot Table and Pivot chart out of your data.

The choices for Back Loaded and Front Loaded apply to assignment data and as you have no assignments, this will have no effect.

That being said, it doesn't appear that you are using Project for any of its capabilities -- so I'm not sure there is much benefit to you for using Project right now.

I hope this helps.

Julie

 

[terischmig]

Thank you.
I am using Project. Attached file in first post is Project 2010.
I know Project is capable of the reports I need. My question is how? Instructions?

 

[JulieInMaine]

I understand you are using Project and in Project, there are Visual Reports as I noted in my reply. Project tab, Visual Reports, Cash Flow report. You may set level of detail daily, weekly, monthly etc.

Take a look at the report and then post back with more specific questions.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/p...oject-data-in-excel-or-visio-HA101811060.aspx

Julie

 

[terischmig]

Great - I got the Reports to work!
Thank you Julie.
Couple of more questions:
My resources are Work type with a Cost/Use lump sum value. Each task will have a dedicated resource.
When I assign the resource to a task, does that automatically distribute across the entire tasks' hours?

I have about 20 task (which are actually individual projects from 2013-2020) that are not related. Just trying to find s-curve for cash flow forecast.

 

[JulieInMaine]

You're welcome and thank you for the feedback.

To your new question:

I don't think I'd use a Cost per Use unless you are sure the resource will only be assigned once.

You could either use fixed costs which will be distributed evenly across the duration of the task (pro-rated) or can be accrued at either beginning or end. I believe your current project is fixed cost.

You can also use cost resources assigned to tasks which again will spread out the costs evenly.

If you use Work resources, your best bet is to set any hourly rate based upon estimated work and duration. The cost is then spread out based upon the work spread. You may then modify the work spread -- the assignment loads you noted -- and that will change the cost distribution.

If you use fixed costs or cost resources, you can manually edit the cost spread in the Task Usage view as needed.

Julie