One of the best ways to keep track of time and money on a project is to forecast, and forecast often. Continually updating and adjusting your forecast figures throughout a project gives you a solid understanding of what is needed to finish the job and can help you adjust your budget and schedules if necessary. Identifying any problems early on can also help save you time and money.
That’s why we have added the enhanced forecasting feature to IPM Planning and Forecasting. You may already be using the Job Tasks Progress section in Planning and Forecasting to record all of your schedules for each task on the job. But if you are using the latest version of IPM, you can now enter detailed forecast to complete information for each job task in this section too.
How? Instead of adding a lump sum forecast, click on the drill button in the Detailed Forecast column to bring up all the budget information for that particular job task, including the original budget and any variations/change orders. Then simply add the forecast to complete information for each item and IPM will calculate the detailed forecast. Easy! This way you will also know exactly how much labour, time and materials are still needed, rather than just a dollar figure forecast.
You can also add extra forecast lines to a job task for any of those unaccounted for costs you know need to be included, and turn them into Subcontracts or Purchase Orders later.
If you want to see a demonstration of the new forecasting feature, check out our video tutorials page and click on Job Tasks Progress.