What Is a Cost Loaded Schedule? EVM Baseline Builder

<div class="ge-article-wrapper"><article class="ge-article-body"><p>A cost loaded schedule assigns budget values to programme activities, creating the time-phased budget that becomes your <a href="/en/earned-value/definitions/planned-value">Planned Value</a> baseline in <a href="/en/earned-value">earned value management</a>. Without cost loading, your programme shows time but not money. With it, every bar on the Gantt chart has a pound value, and the cumulative total at any date is PV.</p><p>This term is part of the <a href="/en/earned-value/definitions">earned value definitions glossary</a>.</p><h2>How Cost Loading Creates PV</h2><pre class="ge-ascii-diagram ge-anim">PROGRAMME (time only) COST LOADED SCHEDULE PV CURVE Piling ████ Piling ████ £1.8M £ ╱ Substr ██████ Substr ██████ £2.4M │ ╱╱╱ BAC Frame ██████ Frame ██████ £3.1M │ ╱╱ Envelope ████ Envelope ████ £2.2M │╱ ├───────── Time Time only = can't do EVM Budget per activity = PV Cumulative budget = S-curve</pre><h2>Building a Cost Loaded Schedule on NEC4</h2><p>On NEC4 Options A and C, the <a href="/en/earned-value/definitions/activity-schedule">activity schedule</a> already has prices. Map each priced activity to its programme bar. The budget spread across the activity's duration creates PV for that period.</p><h2>Worked Example</h2><span class="ge-worked-label">Worked Example</span><div class="ge-callout ge-anim"><p><strong>Scenario:</strong> A £15M NEC4 Option A project. The activity schedule has 42 activities. The planner maps each to the programme. Total PV at month 6: £7.2M.</p><p>If EV at month 6 is £6.8M: SPI = 6.8/7.2 = 0.944. The project is 6% behind schedule in value terms.</p></div><h2>Common Mistakes</h2><ol><li><strong>Linear spreading.</strong> Don't just divide the budget equally across months. Follow the actual work profile.</li><li><strong>Not updating after CEs.</strong> New activities from compensation events need cost loading too.</li><li><strong>Front-loading.</strong> Artificially loading early activities inflates early PV and makes SPI look worse than reality.</li></ol><div class="ge-product-note ge-anim"><p><strong>How Gather helps.</strong> Gather builds cost-loaded baselines from your programme and activity schedule automatically. <a href="https://gatherinsights.com/contact">Book a demo</a>.</p></div><h2>Frequently Asked Questions</h2><h3>What's the difference between a cost loaded schedule and a PV curve?</h3><p>The cost loaded schedule is the data (budget per activity per period). The PV curve is the cumulative chart derived from that data. Same information, different views.</p></article></div>