Budgets measured against real commitments.
Cost codes, budget versions, forecasts, and connected controls — so delivery and controllers share one number grounded in Finance and Materials, not a third export.
Variance
+$0.4M
CPI
0.97
Mode
Warn
Delivery and finance should share one number.
Cost control fails when budgets, commitments, and actuals live in different systems. Projects closes the estimate-to-ledger gap on the project record.
Three cost numbers
PMO estimate, finance commitment, site actual — reconciled in a Friday pack. Nobody trusts the variance until the meeting is over.
Budgets that erase history
Reforecasts overwrite the approved version. Controllers lose the baseline, sponsors lose the story of how spend moved.
Controls off the ledger
Purchase orders and material commits live elsewhere. Project cost “control” is a spreadsheet that never saw the PO.
A posting structure the project owns.
Summary and posting codes with cost types — labor, material, equipment, subcontract, contingency — so budget lines and connected spend land on the same tree.
Cost code register
48 active · 31 posting- 01.100
Civil works
SUMMARY - 01.110
Site labor
POSTINGLABOR - 01.120
Structural steel
POSTINGMATERIAL - 02.210
MEP subcontract
POSTINGSUBCONTRACT - 09.900
Contingency
POSTINGCONTINGENCY
Reforecast without erasing history.
Budget versions submit, approve, reject, and supersede — lines on cost codes and control objects. The approved baseline stays readable when the plan changes.
Budget versions
- v2APPROVED
Approved baseline
Current control budget · $12.4M
- v3PENDING APPROVAL
MEP uplift
Awaiting controller sign-off · $12.9M
- v1SUPERSEDED
Kickoff estimate
Retained for compare · $11.1M
Measure against what already booked.
Commitment accounting on the financial profile pulls connected controls from Finance and Materials — variance against reality, not the optimistic estimate.
Finance commitments
POs and commitments that Finance already booked — read into project control objects.
Materials demand
Material commitments from the materials spine, not a typed estimate that never hit inventory.
Connected controls
Budget, commit, actual, and earned value by project, WBS, work package, or activity.
Connected controls · by object
| Control object | Budget | Commit | Actual |
|---|---|---|---|
| WP · Civil package | $4.2M | $3.8M | $2.9M |
| WP · MEP coordination | $2.1M | $2.4M | $1.6M |
| ACT · Structural lift | $0.6M | $0.55M | $0.4M |
Scenarios with a lifecycle.
Current, what-if, recovery, risk-adjusted, and management forecasts — versioned and approvable so EAC isn’t a cell someone overwrote overnight.
Forecast versions
CURRENT
Month-end current
EAC $12.6MAPPROVEDWHAT IF
MEP surge scenario
EAC $13.1MDRAFTRECOVERY
Civil recovery plan
EAC $12.3MPENDING APPROVAL
Decide how hard the rails are.
Budget control mode on the financial profile — none, warn, block, or workflow — plus earned value and performance curves when progress and cost need the same cut.
Warn
Surface overruns without blocking work — visibility first.
Block
Hard stop when spend would breach the control budget.
Workflow
Route exceptions through approval before the next commit lands.
Earned value · period cut
CPI
0.97
Cost performance
SPI
0.94
Schedule performance
EAC
$12.6M
Estimate at completion
VAC
−$0.2M
Variance at completion
Stop reconciling three cost numbers
Budgets vs commitments — versioned, connected to Finance and Materials, governed by the control mode your controllers set.