In Oracle Primavera Cloud, the Cost & Funds app allows you to create budgets, and track, manage, and report on project costs and funds. This can be especially useful for cost engineers and project managers to ensure that the project is running within the set budget.

One of the first steps for accurately organizing, tracking, and managing costs is to create a Cost Breakdown Structure, or a CBS. The CBS is a hierarchical structure that represents cost sources and classifications for an organization. This is often used along with the Work Breakdown Structure, or the WBS. Whereas the WBS breaks the project down into discrete phases of work, the CBS represents the different costs associated with those same phases of work. Creating a Cost Breakdown Structure is critical to manage and organize the financial aspects of the project.

In Oracle Primavera Cloud, the Cost Breakdown Structure will be able to be utilized on a variety of different Cost & Funds pages, such as Budget and Actuals. Once the CBS is created, costs can be associated with different CBS levels to track how much each portion of the project should cost and how much it actually costs.

In this article, we will cover how to create a basic Cost Breakdown Structure in Oracle Primavera Cloud.

Cost Breakdown Structures can be created at both the Workspace and the Project level. If a CBS is created at the Workspace level, any projects within the Workspace can inherit that CBS if needed.

Creating a Cost Breakdown Structure at the Workspace Level

At the workspace level, you can create a Cost Breakdown Structure that can be used across projects and sibling workspaces within it.

To create a Workspace CBS, open a workspace by selecting the Object Selector > Workspaces. Search for or select the desired workspace.

Within the workspace, select the Summary & Settings app from the left toolbar.

Select Dictionaries > CBS, and press the Create CBS button.

The CBS Setup dialogue box will open, and the only option, Create New, will already be selected. Select Next to continue on.

The first step to creating a Cost Breakdown Structure is to create Segment Definitions. Each segment definition will correspond to a level within the CBS hierarchy. These are not the specific hierarchical levels, but rather the number of levels that the CBS will have. For example, if you want to have three hierarchical levels in your CBS, you’ll need to add three segments. If you just add one segment, the CBS will be a flat list with just one level. 

Select Add to add additional segments, and then use the cells to adjust the segment details.

For each segment definition, you’ll enter in a name for the hierarchical level. I’ve created two segments here – one named Divisions, and another named Subdivisions. This allows me to create a CBS with two hierarchical levels.

For each segment definition, you can also enter in a Default Value. This is a value that will appear next to the CBS code name. For example, if I had the Divisions segment have a default value of 00, and I added a CBS code named Labor, the code would read Labor 00 – with the default value appended to it. The separator value will change the separator between the code and the definition – such as using a “.” – will have the previous code example displayed as “Labor.00.”

Both the Default Value and Separator fields are optional, so in this example I’ve left both as they are. Then, select Finish.

Cost Breakdown Structure codes can now be added. The CBS codes will represent the categories that the costs can be classified and organized into. To add a new CBS code, select the Add button.

For each CBS code that is added, you can enter in a Code, a Name, and a Type. The Code should be an ID for the CBS layer, whereas the Name should be a description of what the layer is going to be used for.

You can set the code to have no type, or to be set as Capital or Expense. Capital expenditures would be expenses that are recorded as assets and depreciate overtime, whereas expenses are immediately recorded costs that directly impact the profit of the company.

Currently, all of these layers are parent layers. Because I added two segments to my CBS definitions, I can add sublayers to these layers as well.

To add a sublayer, select the context gear and press Add Below, and then Move Right. Just like with WBS layers, these layers can then be rearranged in the hierarchy by using the gear and selecting Move Up, Down, Right or Left.

By default, all CBS codes will be set to active, but you can choose to deactivate codes if you don’t want them to be available to other users when copying and pasting CBSs.

Select Save. The CBS hierarchy will be saved to the Workspace.

Once created at the Workspace, this CBS can be inherited by any projects or child workspaces within it that will be using the same CBS. However, projects within the workspace can also be given their own Cost Breakdown Structures, as well.

Using a Workspace CBS for the Project

If you would like to use the workspace’s Cost Breakdown Structure for a project within that workspace, first open the desired project. Select the Cost & Funds app > Cost Sheet.

On the project Cost Sheet page, you can create a CBS and monitor rolled up costs from other Cost & Funds pages, such as the Funds page, the Actuals page, and the Budget page. As costs are added at the project level, the respective cost sheets will be updated on the Cost Sheet page.

To add a CBS at the project level, select Create CBS.

Now, you’ll have the option to create a new CBS, build from the workspace CBS, or copy from another project’s CBS. In this example I’ve chosen to build from the workspace. Select Next.

Under Select CBS Codes, you can choose which CBS codes to include in the project’s hierarchy by selecting and deselecting them from the list. I’ve kept them all selected . Press Next to continue.

Finally, you need to choose the sources for the Budget and Actual costs, which will automatically display on the Cost Sheet once added to the project. You can choose to have these sources come from the entered Budgets and Actuals from the Cost & Funds app, or from any entered Scope Based Values.

Select Finish.

The Cost Breakdown Structure will display on the Cost Sheet page. As Budget and Actual values are added to the Project, this page will adjust and display the costs at each CBS level.

Creating a Cost Breakdown Structure at the Project Level

To create a new Cost Breakdown Structure at the project level, simply press Create CBS within the Cost Sheet page. This time, choose to create a new CBS. 

You’ll be prompted to add CBS segments and CBS codes in the same manner as when creating it at the workspace level.

Resetting the Cost Breakdown Structure

With the CBS created at the project level, you can choose to reset the structure at any time to create a new one. To reset the cost breakdown structure, select Actions > Reset CBS.

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Lauren Hecker is an Oracle Primavera Cloud Instructor and teaches onsite and virtual Oracle Primavera Cloudcourses. To see her next open enrollment course, please visit our calendar. To schedule an onsite or custom course, please contact us!