What you will be able to do
- Cost a work plan activity by activity
- Compare budget and actual spending, and explain the gaps
- Update forecasts and justify reallocations
- Present financial progress to steering committees
Who it is for
- Project finance officers
- Project coordinators and component leads
- Planning and budget units
Prerequisites
- Basic spreadsheet skills
Program
Costing the work plan
- From activities to cost items
- Unit costs, assumptions and contingencies
- Budget by component, category and year
Budget versus actual
- Monthly monitoring that takes an hour, not a week
- Reading variances: timing, price or scope
- Commitments as well as payments
Forecasts and reallocations
- Rolling forecasts to project end
- When and how to request a reallocation
- Keeping the work plan and the budget in step
Reporting progress
- A one-page financial summary for the steering committee
- Linking spending to physical progress
- Raising problems early, with options
How we work
- Costing exercise on a sample work plan
- Variance analysis on training data
- Preparing a steering committee summary