An extremely powerful toolset for Quantity Surveyors and Cost Engineers to manage, control and monitor budgets as well as providing cost and profit information enabling Construction Project Managers to be proactive.

INTRODUCTION

CostmaX is an easy-to-use system enabling effective cost management of contracts (and in-house projects) of any size. It monitors actual costs versus budgets and forecasts providing maximum control. The system has the flexibility to manage various forms of contract with significant change control functionality.

CostmaX is designed around standard methods and procedures commonly applied for major construction and fabrication projects and it can be utilised by any organisation. The system is designed to minimise the number of highly paid specialist Quantity Surveyors / Cost Engineers that may be needed to assure a very high degree of control. It is specifically designed to deliver the information in the right format and at the right levels enabling project managers to proactively deliver maximum profitability.

CostmaX will:

CostmaX caters for management of the base contract and all proposed or approved change orders. It caters for contracts (and change orders) with cost breakdown by cost code using any combination of Measured Bills of Quantities, Time and Materials or Fixed Price. All element movements are booked against the relevant cost code.

At the start of a contract CostmaX is used to define budgets against cost codes. Whilst this is quite simple and quick it may be further simplified when EstimaX is also used to prepare the tender since that allows breakdown into the relevant cost code structure. An approval process enables cost codes to be released for usage within the ‘feeder’ systems that undertake the initial capture of actual time or expense. All costs are extracted from the various feeder systems and “rolled-up” periodically, based on contract requirements (daily, weekly, monthly).

The periodic cost report generation process produces an extensive set of results data with enquiries, spreadsheets and reports frozen for each project cost report set at the particular run date. According to cost code type, progress can be applied or generated according to labour expenditure. Manual applied progress overrides are tracked and highlighted separately by the system. Profit mark-ups may also be added and invoices to clients can be generated taking cumulative totals to date minus previously invoiced amounts.

The Project Manager can track “over budget” cost codes and investigate the associated breakdown to identify where the over spending has taken place. Forecasting for future progress is also available where the project manager can identify future or outstanding expenditures

In addition to progress being monitored by cost code, there are automated and manual facilities to track over-costing, forecast costs and additional expenditure by individual cost code. CostmaX can also track project costs on a cumulative basis with periodic comparisons available (daily; weekly; monthly) to assist performance monitoring. Project progress reports present the current and ‘forecast to completion’ status.

The client invoices generated by CostmaX can be produced in the client’s own work-breakdown format to enable easy reconciliation; with the invoice package providing the necessary back-up documents identifying hours and costs for Time and Materials work items.

SUMMARY OF KEY FEATURES

In summary, CostmaX contains numerous advanced features which maximise efficiency and enable deployment in any size of organisation for any size of project. Features include:

CostmaX is backed up by a comprehensive range of off-site support services. All clients are offered assistance with installation and start-up, although the system's intrinsic ease of use means that such help is often not required.

In addition, specialist on-site training can be tailored to suite the needs of the individual users. Once CostmaX is installed and operational, support is provided through a HelpDesk facility at Pinnacle Business Solutions - and a remote dial-in support option is also available if required.
 

CostmaX is one of the key components of the MatriX software system - the complete operational and strategic solution for the 21st century. An elegant, easy to use and integrated solution MatriX offers a guarantee of greater control throughout your business.