InEight Control adds time-phased budget and forecast feature

InEight Inc has introduced a time-phased budget and forecasting feature to InEight Control, that will provide project teams with enhanced connected insights to help ensure construction projects stay on schedule and under budget. 

With a time-phased approach to budget and forecast, project stakeholders can proactively take control of financials with real-time data, rather than using traditional monthly processes that can deliver out of date information. Ultimately, project teams will be able to more accurately and efficiently track and predict costs, allowing them to mitigate risk, reduce manual data entry and the need for disparate systems, and receive timely payment.     

“Until now, gaining greater granularity of a capital project’s budget or forecast has been a considerable challenge. This new feature further elevates the capabilities of project managers versus traditional ERP system offerings, allowing key project stakeholders to gain real-time insights into the project’s percent complete, revenue, budget and forecast, while creating numerous possibilities for earned value management.  

“Not only will the feature allow for more detailed analysis such as comparing forecasted value, earned value, and actual value for any period, it will also allow project teams to understand where to focus resources on improvement efforts, where the project is excelling, and whether forecasting efforts are accurate or need attention.  

“We believe that this added functionality makes InEight Control the most flexible and functionally complete project cost management solution in the world,” said Rick Deans, Executive Vice President, industry engagement at InEight.  

InEight Control’s new time-phased feature will allow budget to be aligned and tracked in any defined fiscal period to match required reporting. 

Project managers will be able to define budget distribution patterns using standard patterns or by creating custom cost curves, allowing the contractor improved visibility in specifying to the client when costs are incurred. 

The same monthly granularity will also be available for creating time-phased forecast values which can then be pushed over to the live forecast, adding to the already robust set of methods provided to users to arrive at their forecasted values in InEight Control. Live forecast snapshots will be available on a monthly basis to review project performance.  

By acting as a single source of truth for time-phased budget and forecast information, and with full external ERP system integration, project teams will no longer need to maintain separate systems or spreadsheets. Data will be automatically connected and kept up to date, removing the need to manually re-perform calculations or update data come fiscal closing.     

Lockdowns, labour shortages, and supply-chain disruptions driven by material shortages have set construction programs back by months. The prospect of a long, uncertain period of recovery is forcing companies to rethink future project plans - around 80% of business owners surveyed by CHAS said they have had to cancel or postpone projects. 

At the root of the sector’s unenviable record is a project-delivery model that has remained largely unchanged for a quarter of a century or more, according to McKinsey.

"It is a model plagued by issues and inefficiencies: a lack of integrated systems thinking; prioritising short-term cost management over long-term outcomes; poor communication between stakeholders; and bespoke projects and rigid planning systems that struggle to identify or adapt to changing demands," it states.