Budget at Completion (BAC)
Budget at Completion (BAC) is the total budget approved for the full scope of work - the value the cumulative Planned Value curve reaches at the end of the baseline schedule, and the anchor for every EVM forecast.
BAC is the project's financial finish line as planned: the sum of every work package's budget, the top of the baseline S-curve, and the figure all completion forecasts are compared against. On a labour package it is often expressed in hours as well as currency - total budgeted hours at completion.
BAC appears inside most of the forward-looking EVM arithmetic: the work remaining is BAC - EV, the headline forecast is EAC = BAC / CPI, the efficiency needed to land on budget is TCPI = (BAC - EV) / (BAC - AC), and the forecast overrun or saving is VAC = BAC - EAC.
The management discipline around BAC is change control. Approved variations re-baseline it; quiet scope growth must not. When variation work is tracked as its own WBS branch with its own budget, BAC moves only when a change is approved - and percent-complete, SPI and CPI stay honest through the change.
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