Using Cost Tracker for Jira Cloud to Identify Project Cost Overruns

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Managing project costs and adhering to budgets are critical aspects of project management. SaaSJet team offers an efficient solution called Cost Tracker, enabling teams to track and monitor project expenses. This article explores how organizations can utilize Cost Tracker for Jira Cloud to identify cost overruns and budget discrepancies, ensuring better financial control and project success. 

Let’s start! 

Understanding Cost Tracker in Jira Cloud

Cost Tracker for Jira Cloud is a comprehensive tool designed to help you track and manage project costs efficiently within Jira. This app allows you to easily monitor expenses, generate cost reports, and visualize financial data through interactive charts. Here are some key features of the app: 

• Worklogs and Direct Expenses: The app utilizes worklogs and direct expenses recorded in Jira to calculate and track project costs accurately.
• Billing Hours for Invoices: This feature enables you to generate invoices based on the billable hours recorded in Jira, streamlining your billing process.
• Cost Reports: Generate comprehensive cost reports for different scopes and periods. These reports can be customized using JQL filters to focus on specific projects, sprints, or version costs. Also, you can share reports with your teammates, stakeholders, etc.
• Time Reports: You can view time reports that include planned time, actual time logged, and the variance between them.
• Cost Tracking Chart: Visualize and analyze cost reports using interactive charts.
• Expense Management: Store and manage one-time and recurring expenses in one place.
• Integration and API: The app integrates with other systems and provides API support for cost reports and issue costs. 
• Access Management: The app allows you to manage access and ensure that sensitive information is not leaked.

Tracking project costs with Cost Tracker

In one of our previous articles, we explained how to track project costs (article Tracking Project Costs in Jira with Cost Tracker, video-tutorial 💸Tracking Project Cost in Jira [Step-by-Step Guide] ). You can read more about all the nuances there. 

I want to clarify that cost reports will be more informative from now on, as they now contain more detailed information about the issue. Now you can also see the type of task in the scopes and its status in the report.

Analyzing cost data and identifying overruns

So, let's move on to a significant visual update in Cost Tracker.

From now on, the Overview tab will be available in cost reports. This tab will help us assess budget overruns or their correct use.

For example, with the help of charts, we can visually evaluate the cost schedule for the project as a whole by day (for the period you specified when generating the report). Decoding of all values is also available for your convenience.

It is also possible to exclude specific labels from the chart if you must focus on specific indicators of a particular cost category, such as labor or direct expenses.

Charts make it much easier to be on the same page with your project. They provide an opportunity to understand the turnover of funds more clearly. The visual display is a source of insights. These reports can help you identify trends, spot overruns, and make informed decisions.

Once you identify cost overruns, analyze the root causes and take corrective actions. This may involve adjusting project plans, reallocating resources, renegotiating contracts, or revising estimates.

Best practices for using Cost Tracker in Jira Cloud

I should note that the Cost Tracker app allows you to make reports, not only for projects.

Sprint and epic cost.

This is possible by using JQL. You create a filter for the corresponding sprint or epic and save it. Then, like with the project cost, you generate a report and get information about the money spent.

Cost of a version and a separate stage of the project.

If you use versions, you can select one of them for the filter and get a task scoping to estimate the cost of developing a particular version. Also, for example, you can create appropriate labels to mark tasks that belong to a particular project stage - discovery, etc. And based on this, you can estimate the project's cost not as a whole but by investigating the amount of costs at each step of the project.

The cost of one individual issue - task, bug, meeting, JSM issue, etc.

The picture can be broken down into the most minor details. This will help you estimate the costs of one large project by looking at all the puzzle pieces it consists of separately.

First, the reports show the cost of each task in general and the volume of all logged hours broken down by workflow authors.

Second, each task has an issue widget that illustrates the cost in real-time.

You can read more about these and other use cases in the add-on documentation.

Billing hours, revenue, and invoicing

Don't forget about the possibility of assigning billing rates to users in addition to hourly rates.

This will provide you with the information you need to generate an invoice for the customer.

Takeaway

Cost Tracker for Jira Cloud provides organizations a powerful tool to monitor project expenses, identify cost overruns, and mitigate budget discrepancies. By leveraging the capabilities of Cost Tracker, project managers can enhance financial transparency, make data-driven decisions, and improve overall project success. Implementing best practices and a standardized cost-tracking process will enable teams to effectively manage costs, ensuring projects stay within budget and achieve desired outcomes.

👉Try it today - here is a 30-day trial for you. 

💸 Happy project and company cost analyses!

[John Funk]

Thanks for the article. And great meme- I used to work with Rachel Cruze!!

[Iryna Komarnitska_SaaSJet_]

@John Funk 
Thank you so much 🙂

[Riaan Le Roux]

@Iryna Komarnitska_SaaSJet_ - Can cost tracker track fixed revenue projects, where the Profit margin is measured against the fixed price revenue and not the revenue calculated?