Under Settings the new menu item Project settings is now available. Companies can define annual calculation parameters there, which are used for project calculation and cost calculation.
The settings are versioned by calendar year and form the basis for calculating:
Production costs (labour costs)
Target revenue
Material costs
Project contribution margins
Annual configuration
The settings for project calculation are managed separately for each calendar year.
A new annual configuration can be created at any time using the year selector.
If no configuration yet exists for the coming calendar year by 31 December extro automatically creates a new version on 1 January by adopting all settings from the previous year. This ensures that project cost calculation can continue without interruption and that values can be adjusted for the new year if required.
Risk and profit
Each annual configuration contains a percentage for risk and profit.
This percentage is applied globally to the following calculations:
Labour costs (hours)
Material costs
and is included in the calculation of the target revenue.
The exact calculation logic is defined in the attached calculation specification (see Excel sheet below) .
Hours
In the Hours tab, employee categories and employee codes can be defined.
Employee categories
Each category contains:
Category name
Average hourly rate (optional for budget calculations)
The average hourly rate forms the basis for the hourly costs of all employees assigned to this category.
Examples:
Apprentice
Installer
Project Leader
Employee codes
One or more employee codes can be created within each employee category.
Each employee code defines the cost markups applied to employees with that code.
An employee code contains:
PZK (personnel cost markup)
ÜGK (additional overhead costs)
Ancillary materials per hour (CHF) (calculated in material cost reports)
VVGK (administrative and sales overhead costs)
These values are used together with the global percentage for risk and profit to calculate the following values according to the project calculation model:
Production costs (labour costs/hours)
Target revenue
The detailed calculation formulas are described in the attached calculation specification.
Standard categories and markups
The project controlling settings are prefilled with standard employee categories, employee codes and material categories. They include the currently recommended industry-standard markups (31 July 2026). These values serve as a starting point and can be adapted to your company's calculation requirements.
Please note: Once the standard values have been changed and saved, they cannot be automatically reset to their original values.
Assignment to employees
Employee codes can be assigned to individual employees in User management .
When an employee records project hours:
the employee code valid for the work date is determined,
the relevant markup values are saved together with the time entry,
these saved values are used for all subsequent project calculation calculations.
This ensures that historical project calculations remain correct even if hourly rates or markups change later.
Effective date
Each assignment of an employee code requires a Start date.
This allows the following changes within a calendar year to be taken into account, for example:
Promotions
Changes of role
Salary adjustments
Changes to markups
If an employee changes role during the year, a new employee code can be assigned with the relevant start date.
For the calculation, the employee code that was valid on the date the work was performed is always used—not the date on which the time entry was recorded.
Example
An employee works:
until 15 March as an apprentice
from 1 July as an installer
Project hours before 1 July continue to be calculated using the apprentice's markups, while hours from 1 July are calculated using the installer's markups.
Annual adjustment of rates
If new project controlling rates apply for a new calendar year:
a new annual project controlling configuration is created.
updated employee codes are created for the new year.
the codes created on 01.01 in the automatic annual configuration are automatically assigned to the relevant employees with an effective date of 01.01 (from extro version 3.10). This allows codes to be updated centrally and applied to all relevant employees.
Historical project calculations continue to use the configuration that was valid when the work was performed.
Material
In the Material tab, material categories can be defined for use in project calculation calculations.
Each material category represents a type of material and contains the markup values used to calculate material costs and target revenue.
A material category consists of:
Material category name
MGK (material overhead costs)
VVGK (administrative and sales overhead costs)
Xpandit key code
The markup values should correspond to the relevant material markups in Xpandit to ensure that calculations are consistent in both systems.
The ancillary material costs calculated from recorded project hours are always assigned to and displayed under the material category «HM (ancillary materials)» in the material KPI chart in the project overview.
Xpandit material synchronisation
Imported material values from Xpandit are assigned to the relevant material category in extro.
For project controlling calculations:
material values imported from Xpandit are assigned based on the name of the material category.
imported net material costs are assigned to the correct material category.
the MGK and VVGK markups configured in extro are considered in the project calculation.
the global values for risk & profit from extro are also included in the calculation.
This assignment ensures that material costs are correctly displayed and calculated in project controlling.