Project Cost Management Template

What is a Project Cost Management Template?

A project cost management template is a pre-structured file for estimating, budgeting and controlling the costs of a project. It sets out the cost breakdown, the approved budget for each line, what has been committed, what has been spent, and the forecast final cost.

It exists because cost information arrives at different times. On a construction project, a contract is signed months before its first invoice, and a change is instructed before it is priced. Without a fixed structure, each of those lands in a different place and the total is assembled by hand every reporting cycle.

Most templates carry two things: the rules for how costs will be controlled, which is the document usually called a cost management plan, and a tracking structure those rules apply to. Project cost management is the wider process both sit inside.

Cost Management Plan Example

Here's an example of a completed cost management plan template, showing the twelve plan decisions, the tolerance settings, and the variance escalation ladder.

What Should a Cost Management Plan Template Include?

At minimum, a cost management plan should record these decisions:

• Purpose and scope: What the plan covers and what it does not.
• Cost authority: A dollar figure against a named person, not a job title.
• Cost breakdown structure: The level at which one person can be held accountable, using cost codes or control accounts.
• Estimating basis: The estimate class behind every budget line, and its accuracy range.
• Budget and baseline: Control accounts plus contingency, fixed at authorization.
• Commitments: What is under contract or purchase order, and when a commitment counts.
• Actual costs: What has been paid to date, against each account.
• Forecasting: Who forecasts, how often, and when a forecast goes stale.
• Variance analysis: Forecast against budget, at account level and project level.
• Tolerance and variance response: The movement allowed before somebody has to act.
• Contingency: What it can be drawn against, and by whom.
• Change control: How an approved change enters the baseline.
• Cost reporting: Who produces what, and how often.
• Re-baselining: The threshold, and who authorizes it.

This free downloadable template records all fourteen, then applies them across five working sheets.

How to Create a Cost Management Plan in Excel Using This Template

To create a cost management plan in Excel, start with the six numbers on the Rules sheet. They decide what the Framework flags, so entering control accounts first means re-reading every variance afterward.

1. Complete the cover with the project, the owner, the delivery method, the plan version and the currency basis.
2. Set the six rules: notify tolerance, escalate tolerance, total project tolerance, the age at which a forecast is stale, the re-baseline threshold, and how far contingency may be drawn ahead of progress.
3. Work through the twelve sections on the Plan sheet, recording a decision in each rather than a description.
4. Name a person against every control account. Cost authority is a dollar figure against a name.
5. Build the Framework, one row per control account, with budget, committed and forecast.
6. State the estimate class beside every budget line, so a reader knows the accuracy behind the number.
7. Set the reporting cycle: weekly from account owners, monthly to the sponsor, quarterly to the Board, and a re-estimate at each stage gate.
8. Read the Dashboard rather than rebuilding it. It calculates from the Framework.

Set the total project tolerance tighter than any single account's. Accounts offset each other, so a project can sit inside every account tolerance and still be moving overall.

A template holds the plan; keeping the numbers current is separate work. Construction project cost management software brings budgets, commitments, payments and forecasts into one cost tracker view, with variances visible on a live dashboard rather than reconciled by hand each month.

Related Articles and Templates

Explore these resources for project cost planning, tracking, reporting, forecasting, and cost control:

• Project Cost Template
• Project Cost Plan Template
• Project Cost Report
• Construction Project Cost Tracking Template
• Construction Budget Template
• Cost Reporting in Construction: Guide, Examples, and Best Practices
• Cost Control in Construction: Definition, Strategies, and Tools