General Costs
The Costs section allows you to track and categorize project capital and operating expenditures. These will be pulled into the Financials module and used to calculate project financial performance metrics.
How to Add Cost Line Items
First, we will explain the different options you have for uploading your general costs and operating expenditures balance of materials. You can add costs directly into Odyssey or if you have many costs, you can use the Excel template to upload all costs at once.
Examples of the costs that should be included in the General Costs and Operating Expenditures section are explained later in this help document.
Add Costs Directly in Odyssey
This method is best if your costing data is not already housed in Excel or if you are in the process of determining and editing your costing information.
1. Select the Add button
2. Fill out the row with the following information for each cost item:
The Type field categorizes your cost items. Select the appropriate Type of cost from the dropdown list (see an explanation of what you should include in each type category below).
Provide details on the cost item.
Enter the number of units of the cost item or material you will be using in your project.
Specify the cost per unit.
Select the correct unit type from the dropdown menu.
3. Once you fill out the row, use your cursor to click outside of the row (anywhere on the page) to save
4. View the calculated Total Cost for the line item and the summarized cost at the top of the section.
Deleting a row
- Select the checkbox next to the cost item(s) you would like to delete
- Select the Delete button.
- If you would like to delete all rows, select the checkbox in the Header row.
Adding Multiple Costs with the Excel Template
If you have many costs to upload and they are currently in an Excel balance of materials (BOM), you can copy/paste the costs into the Odyssey Excel template for easy uploading.
- Select the Download Template button to download a copy of the Odyssey Costs template.
- Read the Excel template Instructions sheet and complete your costs in the template
- Be sure to follow the instructions as the upload requires specific formatting in order to successfully upload to the platform.
- Save the completed Excel template
- Select Import Excel button and select your completed template for upload
- View the uploaded costs
Updating your costs with the Excel template
- You can upload a second Excel template in order to add additional line item costs.
- You can make edits directly in Odyssey or you can delete your existing line items and reupload an updated version of your Excel file.
What to Include in each section
This section outlines what costs would fall within each cost section and cost type. You can use it as a reference to make sure you're accounting for all relevant costs.
General Costs
Include all general costs (logistics, insurance, warehousing, installation, etc.) that are not directly related to your customer connections or distribution here.
Logistics
Communication, customs clearance, loading/offloading, inspection, return of excess material, agent costs, warehouse space rental, and any other warehousing costs etc.
Travel
Staff transportation/trips to site, travel, accommodations, per diems, etc.
Shipping
General transportation of materials. If you do not have broken down shipping costs related to Distribution Design, include general shipping costs here.
Insurance
Shipping and materials insurance, equipment rental insurance, and any other necessary project-related insurance.
Land
One-time land purchase and fees.
Permits
Import permits, land use permit, interconnection permit, or any other approvals and permits.
Project Management
Design fees, hours of management time, etc.
Training
Grid operator training, and any other project-related training costs.
Customer Acquisition/Training
Customer training and acquisition.
Installation
General labor costs related to installation. Labor wages, equipment hire/rental, labor per diems. If you do not have broken down installation and labor costs related to Distribution Design/Customer Connections these can go here.
Site Preparation
Site surveying, leveling and clearing, labor directly related to site preparation.
Other
Customer surveying, customer application, preliminary site study, costs related to additional services (Cable TV, internet, and mobile network),IPADs/Tablets for employees, and additional general costs.
Operating Expenditures
Include all project-specific operating expenditures that occur on an annual or recurring basis (i.e. insurance, O&M, security, fuel, etc.) in this section. Corporate-level operating costs can be entered when you package your projects into a portfolio.
Note: If you run HOMER in the Generation Design module, it will calculate yearly Generator Fuel Costs and O&M. These operating costs will be factored into your project Financials and can be viewed in the Summary section of your project.
Insurance
Materials insurance, any project-level insurance on an annual or recurring basis.
O&M
Operation and maintenance of generation system, preventative maintenance that occur on an annual or recurring basis.
Permits
Any annual or recurring land-use permits.
Staff
Grid operator salary, recurring annual labor costs for client engagement.
Security
Any security related costs for monitoring the site and monitoring the distribution system for tampering.
Other
Service provider fees from additional services (Cable TV, Internet, and mobile network).
Land
Land leasing and fees.
Meter/Monitoring
Data and monitoring fees, metering fees.
Taxes
Property taxes, other project-related annual or recurring taxes.
Related Articles
General Costs
The Costs section is a place to track and categorize project capital and operating expenditures. These will be pulled into the Financials section and used to calculate project financial performance metrics. How to Add Cost Line Items First, we'll ...General Costs
The Costs section is a place to track and categorize project capital and operating expenditures. These will be pulled into the Financials section and used to calculate project financial performance metrics. How to Add Cost Line Items First, we'll ...General Costs
The Costs section is a place to track and categorize project capital and operating expenditures. These will be pulled into the Financials section and used to calculate project financial performance metrics. How to Add Cost Line Items First, we'll ...General Costs - NOT REQUIRED
This section is not required for your REA NEP Performance-Based Grant submission. You may complete this section but are not required to share it with REA for your PBG application. The Costs section is a place to track and categorize project capital ...Distribution Design
Track and categorize project capital expenditures relating to the distribution system using the Distribution Design module of a project. The distribution design costs will be pulled into the Financials module and used to calculate project financial ...