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.