Project keeps changing values for cost and work

[roboito]

Hello,
I am trying to keep the "cost" and "work" columns constant as these are my "budget" information columns and should never change. I am using "Fixed work" for the task type. Everytime i try to manually put in the "actual work" and "actual cost" the work and cost columns keep changing. I am using zero values for cost right now so why is the cost being changed? Gets worse when I try to put in the % complete as well.
Am I using the wrong column types?
At the end of the day i want to be able to show budget vs actual via the "Analize Timescaled Data in Excel" function.

Rob O

 

[PDQBach]

You are, indeed, using the wrong columns and you do not understand task types.

For an explanation of task type (Fixed Work, Fixed Duration, Fixed Units) read my earlier answer here.

You should not be entering anything into Actual Cost ... let MSProject calculate that.

You will need to enter something into Actual Work ... Project uses that in its calculation of Actual Cost. It will also be using the resource rate.

While you can use "Analyse TimeScaled Data in Excel", your misunderstandings of some very basic MSProject design constraints suggest that you should use MSProject at a basic level for several projects before venturing into the more esoteric functionality.