Labor Monitor Report Explained

The Labor Monitor Report contains both hourly and revenue information related to the progress and efficiency of an ongoing project. This report can used for a variety of purposes by a variety of roles within an organization. This document will describe the data contained within the report and explain the benefits of each element.

Cost Code
The report displays all cost codes selected in the Budget and all of the cost codes selected on time tickets within the Activity. This allows a manager to ensure that all items have been cost coded correctly. Cost codes are customized to suit the clients needs.

Original Budget CO Curr. Bgt.
The next three columns identify the budgeted number of hours for each cost code. The Original Budget column contains the hours for a specific cost code that have been loaded onto the project’s Original Budget. There can be multiple Original Budget’s for each project and the report would group these Original Budgets accordingly.

The CO column indicates the number of hours for a specific cost code loaded onto all change orders. If an Original Budget has 4 change orders, the CO column would indicate the total number of hours specified on all 4 change orders for that particular cost code.

Curr. Bgt. displays the sum of the Original Budget hours and Change Order hours for that cost code.

Comp. %
The Completion Percentage column pulls its values directly from the Field Survey. When the Field Survey is configured and used during the project, the manager will receive highly accurate percentage completion values for each cost code. This is because the Field Survey uses observed installed items to generate the Completion Percentage values.

Hrs. ATD
Time Tickets are entered in a variety of ways and all hours will be totalled by cost code in the Hrs. ATD (Actual to Date). This column will be updated each time the report is run so managers can get a handle on exactly the number of hours entered. This column forms the basis for the productivity calculation.

Earned
To calculate earned hours, we multiply the Current Budget hours by the Completion %. This will indicate how many hours have been earned on the project. This number may differ from the Actual hours to Date and it is this difference that helps generate the Forecast.

Forecast
The Forecast column indicates how many hours it will take to complete the job based on the Hours Actual to Date divided by the Percentage complete. The Forecast value is critical to plan resources with in order to correct the allocation of labor on a project.

Prod.
Productivity is likely the most important value in this report. At a glance a manager is able to evaluate the performance of the labor on a project by the Productivity. If the Productivity is over 1.0, the project is under budget and possible ahead of schedule. If the productivity is less than 1.0, the project is over budget and perhaps behind schedule.

Bgt. Total
Budget Total pulls its values directly from the Activity Budget for each cost code. The value displayed is the Labor portion of the budget only and does not include the budget for Materials, Services and Equipment.

Bgt. TD
Another way of saying Budget To Date is Earned Budget. This field will take into account the earned number of hours and display the Budget To Date in a financial way.

Rev. ATD
Similar to Hrs. ATD, the Revenue Actual To Date field sums all revenue related to completed time tickets for the project.

Variance
Variance represents the difference between the Budget To Date and Revenue Actual To Date columns to give a financial picture on the progress of the labor portion of the project. Similar to Forecast, this will assist project managers and stakeholders in adjusting expectations for the client.

Bgt. Rate Rate ATD
The Budgeted Rate represents the simple calculation of blended labor rate based on the hours and total revenue found in the budget. If the estimator took all roles into account when building the Budget, the Budgeted Rate would display the blended hourly charge-out rate for all employees.

The Rate Actual to Date value is calculated using actual time tickets and their cooresponding revenue in order to display the actual blended hourly labor charge-out rate for all employees.

These two fields assist in understanding if the project has the correct balance of roles. If the ratio of Journeymen to apprentices, for example, is wrong, these two columns will provide a way to check and balance the ratio.

For professionals managing a workforce, the Labor Monitor report provides the tools which will allow you to manage your workforce and your customer`s expectations.