Burdening (also known as cost plus processing) is a method of calculating burden costs by applying one or more burden cost components to the raw cost amount of each individual transaction. You can then review the raw cost and total burdened cost (the sum of raw cost and burden cost) of each transaction.
Oracle Projects displays the raw cost and burdened cost in expenditure inquiry windows, and shows the cost of each detail transaction in reports. You can choose to account for the individual burden cost components to either track the overhead absorption or to account for the total burdened costs. You can write custom reports using standard views to report all burden cost components for each detail transaction.
Using burdening, you can perform internal costing, revenue accrual, and billing for any type of burdened costs that your company applies to raw costs. Oracle Projects calculates costs using the following formulas. (The formulas for cost also apply to revenue and billing amounts.)
Oracle Projects calculates burden cost by multiplying raw cost by a burden multiplier. This calculation is represented in the following formula:
Burden Cost = Raw Cost x Burden Multiplier
Oracle Projects calculates total burdened cost by adding burden cost to the raw cost amount. This calculation is represented in the following formula:
Total Burdened Cost = Raw Cost + Burden Cost
You use the burden multiplier to derive the total amount of the burden cost. For example, you may burden the raw cost of labor using a multiplier of thirty percent to derive the fringe component, and in turn, compute the total burdened cost of labor as shown in the following table:
| Cost Component | Amount |
|---|---|
| Labor (raw cost) | 1,000 |
| Add: Fringe at 30% (burden cost) | 300 |
| Total Burdened Cost | 1,300 |
On a project for which costs are burdened, you can create some transactions that are burdened and others that are not burdened. You define which projects should be burdened by setting the Burden Cost indicator for each project type in the Project Types window. When you specify that a project type is burdened, you must then specify the burden schedule to be used. The burden schedule stores the rates and indicates which transactions are burdened, based on cost bases defined in the burden structure. You specify which expenditure types are included in each cost base. With burdening, you can use an unlimited number of burden cost codes, easily revise burden schedules, and retroactively adjust multipliers. You can define different multipliers for costing, revenue accrual, and billing.
Note: If you are using the Actual labor costing method, then you can also identify payroll amounts as burden costs and create transactions for those amounts when you process payroll actuals. These burden costs can be created on transactions separately from raw costs. Since these amounts are distributed from a costed payroll set, they are not calculated using a burden multiplier and the burden calculation process does not apply