Labor Budgets

Labor is the most significant cost on any project and, as such, the most important element to budget and track.

On the Project Budget Worksheet, you can budget:

• Labor hours
• Labor cost
• Both labor hours and labor cost

Because a project can be under budget in hours, yet over budget in cost, Deltek recommends that you budget both hours and cost.

Use the Labor Billing tab and/or Labor Costs tab of the Project Budget Worksheet to budget labor for your project.

Budget by Labor Code

Budget labor by labor code, at the labor code level most appropriate to the size and complexity of the project.

For example, assume that your firm has a three-level labor code, representing department, phase, and staff levels. You may find it unnecessary and time-consuming to create budgets to the third level of detail. Instead of entering budgets for staff levels, you can use a general code (for example 00) in place of the third labor code level.

Another option is to create a multi-level labor code solely for budgeting (for example, BU000) and enter entire project labor budgets using that code. That is why Deltek recommends that you include a general code for each labor code level when you create your labor code structure.

Percent Complete Overrides

You can override the percent completes entered on any of the Project Budget Worksheet tabs. For example, you can specify an overall percent complete for the entire project.