Contract Forecasting - Time Phased Budgeting

Time phased budgeting maintains subdivided budgeted, actual spent, and forecasted values over specified periods applicable to the job phase lifetime. A period is identified as a regular interval of time, like a calendar month, calendar year, etc.

This option allows discrepancies between budgeted/forecast and actual spent/revenue amounts to become more apparent sooner rather than at the end of the job cycle, hence making forecasting more accurate. For more in-depth details, refer to Job Costing.

NOTE: The Time Phased Forecasting is applicable to CMiC Field (PMJSP) Contract Forecasting with PCI Projections, only when using ‘Detailed Time Phased Budgeting’ at the category level.

Spread Rules and PCIs Posting

PCIs may be manually time phased between the PCIs start and end dates. Then upon posting, time phased PCIs affect the corresponding time phased budget for the periods covered by the PCIs date range. However, it may also occur that only the PCIs start/end dates and a PCI value are specified without any time phasing. In that case, the PCI value is automatically time phased using a virtual flat spread rule with 2 segments each with a y-value of 1, prior to affecting the corresponding time phased budget.

If only the PCI value is specified without time phasing, and without the PCI start/end dates, then the following assumptions are made about the PCI start/end dates:

  • The PCI start date becomes the greatest of the time phased budget minimum start date and the PCI reference date.

  • The PCI end date becomes the time phased budget maximum end date.

  • If the time phased budget minimum/maximum start/end dates are not available, then the PCI start/end dates become the PCI reference date, which is always specified.

Posting Considerations with Time Phase Budgeting

Cost Transactions

Costs are incurred at a point in time. In relation to time phased budgeting, actual spent values are posted into the period in which the post date is found. Also, the posted cost applies for the whole period. If the period did not exist in the budget, it is created.

Forecast Impacts

The posting of costs should not normally affect projections. However, because of the rule (Slide Projection Rule) that projections at the jcjobcat level can never be less than the jcjobcat level spent value, posting of costs may be automatically increased/decreased by the jcjobcat level projections by a value called “sliding value”. When the sliding value is not zero, the time phased forecast value is also increased/decreased by the same sliding value for the period of the post date.

PCI Transactions

PCIs occur over a date range. When time phased PCIs are posted, the corresponding time phased budget values are increased/decreased by the PCI values for each budget period corresponding to the PCI periods. If the budget periods do not exist, they are created. If there is a discrepancy between the cmdetail value and the sum of time phased PCI values, the time phased PCI is automatically synchronized (using PRO-RATA method) with the cmdetail value first.

Forecast Impacts with PCIs

The posting of time phased PCIs affect time phased forecast values in the same way as time phased budget values, but only if the flag ‘Update Project Amount during Posting’ is checked. Otherwise, posting of PCIs should have no effect on the time phased forecast values.