Burden schedules establish the multipliers used to calculate the burdened cost, revenue, or bill amount of each expenditure item charged to a project. You can define different burden schedules for use in internal costing, revenue accrual, and invoicing. When you define burden schedules, you specify the burden structure on which the schedule is based.

You can use both burden schedules and bill rate schedules within a project to accrue revenue and invoice. You can also use a bill rate schedule for non-labor expenditure items, and use a burden schedule for labor expenditure items. You specify default burden schedules for each project type. You can use different schedules for different types of projects. You can override the default burden schedules for each project by using a schedule of multipliers negotiated for the project or task.

Types of Burden Schedules
There are two types of schedules you can use in Oracle Projects: firm and provisional. Use firm schedules if you do not expect your multipliers to change. Generally, firm schedules are used for internal costing or commercial billing schedules. Because burden multipliers may not always be known at the time that you are calculating total burdened costs, you use interim, or  provisionalmultipliers. Provisional multipliers are generally estimates based on a company's forecast budget for the year based on the previous year's results. When you determine the actualmultipliers that apply to costs (after the multipliers are audited), then you replace the provisional multipliers with the actual multipliers. Oracle Projects processes the adjustments from provisional to actual changes for costing, revenue, and billing.

Defining Burden Schedule Versions
You define schedule versions for a burden schedule to record the date range within which multipliers are effective. You can have an unlimited number of versions for each burden schedule, but use one active version at a given point in time. However, after you apply actuals, you can have one active provisional version and one active actual version existing at the same time within a schedule.

In addition, you may have a number of versions for each quarter of the fiscal year in which your company does business, especially for government billing projects. At the end of the year, when the government audits your burden multipliers, you create a new version that reflects the actual billing rates. The following illustrations shows and example of the use of schedule versions

In the illustration Burden Schedule Versions, a company defines provisional burden schedules on a quarterly basis, based on a forecast of budgeted costs. Each quarter, the company creates a new version of the burden schedule to reflect updates in the budget. At the end of the fiscal year, when the company is audited, actual multipliers are applied which reflect the true burdened cost of affected items.

Assigning Burden Multipliers
When you create burden schedules, you assign a multiplier to an organization and burden cost code. The multiplier specifies the amount by which to multiply the raw cost to obtain the burden cost amount.
When you compile a burden schedule version, Oracle Projects calculates and stores the multipliers for each organization and burden cost code in a schedule version. Additional information stored includes compiled multipliers, which allow Oracle Projects to quickly determine burden cost amounts based on the burden multipliers used for a particular organization as of a particular date.
Instead of performing a buildup of costs each time you calculate burden amounts, Oracle Projects uses the compiled multipliers to multiply the compiled multiplier by the raw cost to determine each burden cost component.

Suggestion for Organizations that Have No Burden
You may need to set up special procedures for organizations that have no burden. For example, your company may use contractors that do not have a particular type of burden cost (such as fringe) applied to their raw cost. To implement this scenario, you can first set up a new organization for contractors. Then, create a zero burden cost amount by assigning that organization to the burden schedule and using a multiplier of zero for the burden cost of Fringe. Each time that burden cost for Fringe is calculated for the contractor's organization, Oracle Projects will multiply the contractor's raw cost
multiplier by zero, resulting in a burden cost amount of zero, which reflects the true representation of the raw cost and burden multipliers.