A unit price is a conversion factor that allows you to specify expenditures in non-monetary units. For example, if a particular requirement is for 100 hours of labor, you need to know the price per hour of that labor to convert it into a monetary value, e.g. $80 per hour. Unit prices in Mandrel can be in any currency.
Price Definitions
Each unit price is part of a larger definition that includes the price name, the quantity unit (hours, tons, each, etc.), the unit price itself, the price currency, and any comments or notes. Mandrel provides an ability to define, import, store and update price definitions. Over 8000 price definitions can be accommodated in a Mandrel datafile.
Price Ranges
In many cases you may not know the exact price, but only a range of values such as $80/hour +/-5%. Each unit price within Mandrel is actually composed of three separate values, known as nominal, high and low. Of course, if you know the exact price the high and low values will be the same as the nominal and can simply be ignored.
Time Variability
Each unit price can be expanded into a time series. For example, in a multi-year project you can represent labor rates with different values for each year. Since each price in the time series is still composed of nominal, high and low elements, you can build in uncertainty in downstream prices.
Importing Prices
Mandrel provides a capability to import price lists from an external spreadsheet. Imported prices can be in any currency.
Price Groups
Locating a single price from a list of hundreds or even thousands can be difficult. Mandrel provides an ability to create named groups of prices to make recall easier.
