Expenses Tab of the Plan Settings Dialog Box

If planning is enabled for expenses, use the Expenses tab on the Plan Settings dialog box to specify the planning level and the billing rate methods, tables, and multipliers for expenses.

Contents: General

Field Description
Planning Level
Use this drop-down list to select the work breakdown structure (WBS) levels at which you will plan expenses for the project:
  • Project, Phase, Task: Plan expenses at the specific level of the WBS that you select. For example, if you select Phase, you plan expenses at the phase level of the WBS. If the plan structure has branches that do not extend down to the selected WBS level, you can plan expenses at the lowest level in those branches.
  • Lowest Level: Plan expenses at the lowest level of each branch of the plan structure. For example, if the lowest level is the phase level for one branch and task level for another, you enter expense plan data for the first branch at the phase level and for the second branch at the task level.

If you later change the planning level and planned expenses exist at a level lower than the new planning level, Vantagepoint notifies you that those planned expenses must be removed before the change can occur.

Plan in Calendar Periods If your role has access rights to enable expense planning in calendar periods on a plan-by-plan basis, select this checkbox to plan reimbursable, direct, and indirect expenses in calendar periods for the project.

When you plan expenses in calendar periods, use the Sub-Row Selection dialog box ( > Sub-Row Selection) to specify which cost and/or billing sub-rows display for planned, actual, and baseline expense data in the calendar section of the grid. The sub-rows that you can choose to display depend on your system administrator's selections in Settings > Resource Planning > Grids. If you select to display the Planned Cost and/or Planned Billing sub-rows, this setting enables you to enter or update planned expense amounts in calendar periods within the plan date range. The ability to edit planned amounts depends on the specified budget type for the plan, applied markup settings, and if the currencies shown in the plan differ between cost and billing.

If you select this checkbox and apply markup settings in the Reimbursable Expense Billing Markup section on this tab, you can enter amounts only in the Planned Cost field in the calendar periods when you display planned sub-rows. The Planned Billing field displays the amount based on the planned cost amount and the markup settings (rate method or multiplier) for the reimbursable expense assignment.

If you clear this checkbox, Vantagepoint does not remove any existing plan or baseline data in the calendar periods and will restore previously planned values when you re-enable this setting.

Contents: Reimb. Expense Billing Markup

Use these fields to define the settings for reimbursable expense planned amounts on Regular projects.

If you select Cost in Budget Type on the General tab of this dialog box, or if the Use Billing (Not Project) Currency for Reporting option is selected in Settings > Accounting > Labor Options and the project currency is not the same as the billing currency, Billing Rate Method automatically defaults to None and the Expense Rate Method, Rate Table, Recalculate Planned Billing, and Billing Multiplier fields are display-only.

Field Description
Recalculate Planned Billing Under normal circumstances, you never need to select this checkbox. Each time you display a plan or you save settings for a plan, all plan assignments are automatically recalculated based on the current settings.

The exception is if the plan was a Vision or iAccess plan converted to Vantagepoint. Converted assignments may have rate information that was saved for specific calendar periods while in Vision or iAccess. Following conversion, those plan amounts, by default, are not automatically recalculated when you save plan settings in Vantagepoint. If you converted the plan from Vision or iAccess and you want all reimbursable expense billing amounts in the plan to be recalculated automatically, select this checkbox and then save the plan settings. You only need to do this once; from that point forward, the reimbursable billing amounts will be recalculated automatically each time you save settings.

Expenses Rate Method Select one of the following as the expense billing rate method for the plan:
  • Multiplier Only: Use a multiplier without a rate table: Planned cost x Billing multiplier.
  • From Account Rate Table: Use the rate for the expense account from an expense account rate table. If no rate is found, use Planned cost x Billing multiplier.
  • From Category Rate Table: Use the rate for the expense category from an expense category rate table. If no rate is found, use Planned cost x Billing multiplier.
  • None: The planned billing amount is set to the planned cost.
Rate Table

If you selected an expense billing rate method other than Multiplier Only or None, select an expense billing rate table for the plan.

The only rate tables displayed for selection are those that match the rate method you selected (expense account tables or expense category tables) and that are marked as available for planning.

Billing Multiplier If you selected Multiplier Only in Expenses Rate Method, enter a multiplier for calculating billing amounts for reimbursable expenses (1.2500, for example). If you selected From Account Rate Table or From Category Rate Table in Expenses Rate Method, enter a multiplier to use for calculating billing amounts if the specified rate table does not include a rate for the expense account or expense category.

Contents: Direct Expenses

Field Description
Billing Multiplier The multiplier is displayed for informational purposes only on Regular projects. The value is always 1.0000 and cannot be changed. The planned cost and planned bill amounts for direct expenses are always the same.

Contents: Indirect Expenses

Field Description
Billing Multiplier The multiplier is displayed for informational purposes only on Overhead and Promotional projects. The value is always 1.0000 and cannot be changed.