New: Automatic and Self-Learning Placeholders

Estimating project costs and profitability can be a complex and daunting task, especially in professional services businesses. You need to juggle multiple variables, including resource availability, skillsets, and cost rates, to ensure accurate budgeting and forecasting. Even thinking about specific resources at this stage can add unnecessary complexity to your project estimation process. At Price&Cost, we understand this challenge and have come up with a solution that simplifies the estimation process: Placeholders.

Automatic and Self-Learning Placeholders

Placeholders in Price&Cost are designed to make your life easier. Here’s how they work:

1. Automatic Creation: Placeholders are automatically created for every role you define in Price&Cost, saving you the trouble of creating them manually.
2. Inherited Bill Rates: These Placeholders inherit their bill rates from the associated roles. If you update a role’s bill rate, the Placeholder’s bill rate is updated automatically.
3. Dynamic Cost Rates: This is where Placeholders truly shine. Cost Rates for Placeholders are dynamically calculated based on the resources assigned to a specific role.

Let’s See It in Action

To illustrate this concept, let’s take an example:

1. You create a new role called “Snr Developer” with a bill rate of $100. Since you have no resources assigned to this role yet, Price&Cost uses your Global Profitability Goal setting to set the Placeholder’s Cost Rate, which, in this case, is $50 (given your 50% profitability goal).
2. Now, you add a resource, “Erin Clay,” and assign them the “Senior Developer” role with a Cost Rate of $75. The Placeholder’s Cost Rate is automatically updated to $75 because you now have a resource with this role.
3. Next, you add another resource, “Jack Black” with the same “SSeniornr Developer” role but a Cost Rate of $65. The Placeholder’s Cost Rate is now adjusted to $70, which is the average of the two resources’ Cost Rates.

Seamless Integration into Projects

Now, let’s see how you can use Placeholders in your projects:

1. In your project estimate, you can mix Placeholders with named resources. When adding resources, Placeholders are always at the top of the list and are easy to identify with a special badge.
2. When you select a Placeholder for a role, the Cost Rate and Bill Rate fields are disabled, ensuring you don’t accidentally change them.
3. You can then specify the number of hours or units you need for that role, and the Placeholder will be added to your project estimate.

Switch to Named Resources When Ready

As you get closer to your project start date and have specific resources in mind, you can seamlessly transition from Placeholders to named resources. When you do, the project’s cost and profitability are automatically updated to reflect your final projections, giving you the confidence to start your project.

In conclusion, Placeholders in Price&Cost turn project estimations into a quick and painless process. You no longer need to worry about selecting specific resources during the estimation stage. Moreover, it’s all fully automatic and self-learning. Price&Cost provides you with the financial confidence you need to manage your projects effectively, leaving you free to focus on delivering excellent results to your clients.

Try out this exciting new feature in Price&Cost and experience streamlined project estimation and financial management like never before. We believe that Placeholders will greatly enhance your project planning process, making it more efficient and error-free. Get started today and see the difference for yourself!

Sign up for to Price&Cost and supercharge your project financials with Placeholders.