P.Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

P.Management - Essay Example We note that most of these costs are estimations; thus, some are more accurate compared to others. Director General Costs These are costs incurred in running a project and can be traced back to the said project. Such costs are charged on the project on an item-to-item basis. These include costs such as salaries and wages for personnel tasked with managing the student record management system. Moreover, costs such as fringe benefits for the project managers and other personnel should be incorporated in budgeting for direct costs. Fringe benefits refer to the benefits payable for insurance, retirement or group health policies taken on part time employees, temporary research professionals engaged in the development of the project and its implementation or any selected student employees who may be enlisted in the project management. Such benefits are, however, not payable to full time employees as they already enjoy the benefits associated with fringes. Purchase of additional computers, printers and scanners, which are essential in the project, is also classified as a direct cost to the project. While ordinary purchase of these devices may not be considered a direct cost, this project calls for purchase of highly updated models that are resistant to crashes and other device problems deemed normal. Costs involved in training staff who will be using the system on a regular basis, such as employees in the finance, administration and accounts departments, should be included when computing the project’s direct costs. It is also paramount to include transportation costs to the training centers and meals for trainees in computation of direct costs. Other direct costs for this project include costs of maintaining the system routers, computers, scanners and printers. Moreover, direct costs include costs incurred in maintaining high standards of security such as installation of security devices and security guards to man the project sites (Milosevic, 2001). Administra tive Overhead or Project Overhead Costs These are costs of activities which are beneficial to more than one project. Such costs are quite difficult to approximate, for instance, it is difficult to estimate how activities of the head of the finance department benefit the student records management system. Some of the administrative overhead costs involved in the running of the learning institutions include rent and utilities such as electricity and water payable by the institution, legal and audit fees to relevant persons or institutions, general college or university security, general telephone expenses incurred by the institution and salaries and wages of the institution’s administrative staff (Milosevic, 2001). However, there are certain costs that can be classified as either direct costs or administrative overhead costs. These include postage and telephone charges incurred by the project and other miscellaneous office expenses involved in the project, but which cannot be e asily differentiated from ordinary, miscellaneous expenses. Both direct and certain administrative overhead costs are summed up when formulating the budget for this project (Suhanic, 1999).  . Developing a Time-Phased Budget A time-phased budget such as the cost baseline budget is most suited for budgeting in such a project. The baseline budget involves the summation of estimates of costs of the project. A time-phased budget is the process of determining when funds need to be availed to support the performance of the project; thus, it requires information