Work in Progress (WIP) Calculation
WIP represents the value of work you've completed but haven't yet billed to your client. It's calculated as:
Earned Value − Fees Billed = WIP
Both Earned Value and Fees Billed use gross values, not net — so WIP includes subconsultant amounts along with your own.
WIP is calculated on a phase-by-phase basis, then rolled up to the project level.
How Earned Value Is Set, by Billing Format
Since WIP depends directly on Earned Value, how Earned Value gets populated depends on how a phase is billed:
- Fixed Fee phases don't accrue earned value from hours worked — fixed fee contracts aren't billed by the hour. Instead, earned value is driven by Percent Complete, which a project manager sets based on their judgment of how much of the phase's scope has actually been completed. Earned Value = Percent Complete × Phase Fee.
- Hourly phases accrue earned value automatically based on time slips: hours logged are multiplied by their associated billing rates and summed for the phase. This gives you an accurate earned value without anyone needing to set a percent complete manually.
Because of this difference, keeping Percent Complete current on fixed fee phases is what keeps WIP accurate for that work — an out-of-date percent complete will understate or overstate WIP regardless of how much has actually been billed.
Billing Value vs. Earned Value
You may also see a Billing Value column on your phases (a custom-labeled column you can add). This is not the same as Earned Value:
- Billing Value = hours logged × billing rate, summed across time slips for the phase. This shows what the phase would bill out to if it were billed hourly, regardless of the actual billing format.
- Earned Value on a fixed fee phase reflects Percent Complete × Phase Fee, which may differ from Billing Value since fixed fee work isn't billed against hours.
On hourly phases, Earned Value and Billing Value will match, since both are based on hours × rate.
Updating Percent Complete
Percent Complete can be set manually on an individual phase, or updated in bulk:
- Single phase or project: select the phase, choose the Update Percent Complete action, and enter the new value directly.
- Multiple projects at once: from the project list view, select as many projects as needed, then choose Update Percent Complete from the batch actions. This updates active phases to whichever is greater — the accrued billing value or the percent complete already entered — so it won't reduce a phase's percent complete below where it already stands.
This batch action is useful for keeping fixed fee phases current across many projects at once without opening each one individually. After running it, you can still go back and adjust an individual phase's percent complete if you want to bill to a slightly different point than what was calculated — for example, rounding to a number you're comfortable billing for.
Projected Billings
Once WIP is current, BaseBuilders uses it to estimate what you're likely to bill next. Projected Billings is calculated as:
WIP + Unbilled Expenses and Pass-Throughs = Projected Billings
This gives you a forward-looking figure for what you expect to invoice on your next billing cycle, which you can view across projects in a list or report to see your expected billings for a given period.
Best Practice
Keep Percent Complete current on fixed fee phases, since this is what drives WIP accuracy for that work — hourly phases update automatically as time is logged. Use the batch Update Percent Complete action to catch up phases across many projects at once, then review and fine-tune individual phases where you want to bill to a specific point rather than the calculated value. This keeps both your WIP and your Projected Billings realistic ahead of invoicing.
Summary
WIP is calculated as Earned Value minus Fees Billed, using gross values on a phase-by-phase basis. Earned Value comes from Percent Complete on fixed fee phases and from logged hours × billing rate on hourly phases. Percent Complete can be updated individually or in batch across projects, and WIP feeds directly into Projected Billings — an estimate of what you expect to bill next, based on WIP plus unbilled expenses and pass-throughs.