During the implementation and execution of projects, procedures for control and record keeping are very important to project managers. In project management, the tool that serves a different purpose in recording different financial transactions to indicate the problems or progress that are associated with the project.
Control costs are defined as processes for monitoring the status of a project in order to update the project costs. This will allow project managers to manage the changes in the cost baseline if present. It is important to take note that there will changes in the cost in any project life cycle. The benefit of the control costs is that it gives project managers a way to determine different variances from the plan, particularly on the cost so that they can take the appropriate corrective action to reduce the risk.
Project management relies on control costs in order to determine the changes in the costs involved in implementing and executing the project. It relies on both inputs and outputs in order to analyze the cost data. The inputs necessary include the project management plan, funding requirements, work performance data and organizational structure. Using this information, project managers can create different outputs such as cost forecast, change request, project management plan updates and other updates concerning the documents and organizational structure.
Control costs require project managers to constantly review the budget as well as other financial information on a regular basis. This will ensure that all costs will be accounted for as well as determine potential cost risk of the project.
Simply coming up with a project budget is not enough during the planning session of your project. It is crucial for the entire team to keep a watchful eye on the cost to be always aware of the risks and how to avoid or mitigate them.
This term is defined in the 5th edition of the PMBOK.