Construction S-Curve & Earned Value Tracker

About the Construction S-Curve & Earned Value Tracker

Build the S-curve of a project from its schedule and budget: list the activities with their dates and costs — typed, pasted from a spreadsheet or imported from a CSV or Excel file — and spread each cost evenly, front-loaded, back-loaded or along a bell curve. The tool adds them up month by month into the planned value curve. Then record each month’s percent complete (by activity, or overall) and actual cost: the earned value and actual cost curves follow, with the schedule and cost variances, SPI, CPI and the earned schedule worked out by the same engine as the Earned Value Calculator.

From the status month the tool forecasts the rest — at the planned pace or at the pace so far, at budget or at the cost efficiency so far — and turns it into a month-by-month cash-flow plan for the client’s funding, with a mobilisation advance and its recovery, retention and its release, tax and the delay before bills are paid. The free preview plots all your activities on a watermarked chart with the status figures and the first rows of the tables; a Premium pass unlocks the full tables and the PNG, PDF and Excel exports.

Common uses

• Contractors and project managers preparing the baseline S-curve that a client or lender asks for with the programme.
• Monthly progress reports with planned, earned and actual curves and the variances behind them.
• Owners and lenders planning how much funding a project needs each month, with advance, retention and payment terms.
• Spotting a slipping project early: SPI(t) and the forecast finish show the delay months before the end.

How the baseline is built

• Each activity runs from its start to its end date, both days counted.
• Its budget is spread with a cumulative profile P(x), x being the share of its time gone: even P(x) = x; front-loaded P(x) = 2x − x²; back-loaded P(x) = x²; bell P(x) = 2x² to the middle and 1 − 2(1 − x)² after it.
• The part in a month = budget × [P(x at the month’s end) − P(x at the month’s start)], rounded on the running total so the months add up exactly to the budget.
• Planned value (PV) of a month = the sum over the activities; its running total is the S-curve and ends at the budget at completion (BAC).

Earned value, the indices and the earned schedule

• Earned value (EV) at a month’s end = Σ budget × % complete, using each activity’s latest figure; or BAC × overall %. Actual cost (AC) = the running total of the monthly costs.
• SV = EV − PV, CV = EV − AC, SPI = EV ÷ PV, CPI = EV ÷ AC, as in NASA’s earned value tutorial and the GAO Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide.
• Earned schedule ES = the months of plan the earned value is worth (whole months whose PV is reached, plus the fraction of the next); SPI(t) = ES ÷ months elapsed keeps telling the truth after the planned finish, when SPI drifts back to 1 (earned schedule).

The forecast

• The work left is done in the order of the baseline, starting from the earned schedule: one month of plan per month (planned pace), or SPI(t) months of plan per month (current pace).
• Its cost: at budget, at the CPI so far, or at CPI × SPI. The estimate at completion is EAC = AC + (BAC − EV) ÷ factor; the variance at completion VAC = BAC − EAC.
• The forecast finish is the month the forecast earned value reaches the budget at completion.

The cash-flow plan

• Value of work each month: the actual cost up to the status month, then the forecast cost; before any progress, the planned value.
• Each month’s bill = value + tax − retention − advance recovery; it is paid the number of months later you set.
• The advance is paid in the first month and recovered at the percentage you set from each bill until it is repaid; a balance still unrecovered when the work ends comes off the bill of the last month of work. Retention is kept from each bill up to its limit and released in one sum after the last month of work.
• The cumulative funding is the money the client needs by each month; it ends at the estimate at completion (plus tax).

Importing a schedule

Paste rows from a spreadsheet, or open a CSV or Excel file whose first row names the columns: activity (or task), start, end (or finish, or a duration in days), budget (or cost), and optionally code and profile. Dates may be written 2026-01-05, 05/01/2026 or 5 Jan 2026, or come as spreadsheet dates. Download the template to see the layout; a bill of quantities with a start and a duration per item imports the same way.

A schedule from a planner (its CSV, with a type column of Task, Phase or Milestone) imports its tasks with their WBS numbers and dates; phases are left out, because their tasks carry the work, and so are milestones. A schedule has no costs, so each imported activity waits for its budget, and the checks name every one still missing.

Sources

• US GAO, Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide — earned value management
• NASA, earned value management tutorial — the formulas of the indices and estimates at completion
• Earned schedule — earned schedule and SPI(t)

The tool plans and reports; contract payments follow the contract’s own terms and certified measurements.

Limitations

• Months are calendar months; working-day calendars, holidays and non-working periods are not modelled.
• Activities are spread on their own dates: dependencies between them are not scheduled or checked.
• One currency and one status per month: costs in other currencies need converting first.
• The forecast follows the baseline’s order of work; a re-planned programme needs a new baseline.
• Your project is kept in this browser on this device: download a backup to move it or keep it safe.

Privacy

The activities, progress and payment terms are kept in this browser’s storage on your device and never sent to MySmartCoPilot or anyone else. Imported files are read on the device; the chart, the report and the workbook are made on it.