Controlling costs before you get into your project is key when managing a project well. If you get 3 weeks into your project and haven’t considered these concepts, you will regret not thinking about them before. Here are 5 ways to be sure that you are controlling your costs as you work to better succeed at project management.
Forecast Budget
Forecasting your budget can be daunting. However, it has been industry proven, time and time again, to help immensely when protecting your profit margin and controlling your overall costs. So get to it! Work on estimating your earnings, and then create a schedule (or multiple if you need them) and finally stick to it.
Define Project Scope
No matter what project you are working on, the scope is important to map out ahead of time. If you neglect to accurately map out the scope and deliverables of your project, you will most certainly see cash walk out the door that you won’t be able to stop. Lock the project scope down and don’t fear large changes midway through your project.
Be Specific
Talking to your co-workers? Assigning a project? Renting equipment? Be specific and you will save time and money. If you rent a piece of equipment for a week or month longer than it is actually needed, you will be spending needless dollars.
Forecast Resource Usage
Being specific leads well into forecasting your resource usage. At the beginning of your project when you are forecasting your budget, take some time and forecast your resource usage. This may be difficult and not always completely accurate, but it will greatly help in better managing your project. That greater accuracy will lead to well-managed costs that have the propensity to get out of hand quickly.
Keep Accurate Records
Keeping accurate records is where we come in. We provide a variety of solutions to keep you on track throughout your projects. We keep track of everything for you, from document storage and searching to punch lists, equipment tracking, pricing and submittal tracking. These are just a few of the many solutions we offer that will keep your project costs in check and help you better manage your job sites!
We can’t guarantee your construction project will control costs perfectly with these 5 methods, but we do believe they will help. Next time you are working to begin a project, think through these concepts and don’t watch your cash be pulled out from under you mid-project.
We here at FACS want to continue to help you manage your construction projects better. We help by giving you a valuable cloud-based project management software that will give you the best opportunity to manage your project data well. Connect with us here for further information.