The central global database of all your proposal costs is known as the "cost model". This model is generated from labor, material, travel and other direct cost estimates provides by your engineers and subject matter experts in your company. As well as considering these estimates the cost model is influenced by:

• Indirect cost rates and formula such as fringe, overhead and G&A burdens
• Labor rate changes over fiscal years based on the specific distribution of labor over time or distribution curve
• Parameter values for formula-based costs such as freight, QA/audit or travel
• Escalation rates or factors.

The cost model for non-parametric estimates, including the above, is generated automatically in real time anytime your BOE-WBS is at a workflow status or stage such as "submitted" where you want the cost model to be generated. There can be a few minutes delay especially when running the process to update and cost the consolidated BOM for purchased or in-house manufactured parts.

The cost model for estimates based on a formula with parameters is generated on demand by the user.  Click on the "More" toolbar button in your proposal or in the costing workbench and select "Generate Cost Model incl. Formula" from the menu, as highlighted below. This will:

1. Re-evaluate and calculate the result for every labor, travel and other direct cost estimate which is based on a parametric formula
2. Check to see if the cost model is complete, i.e. whether all your estimates which are ready to be costed have been added to the cost model
3. Summarize the total estimated direct + indirect cost on each WBS in your proposal and roll the estimated cost up your Work Breakdown Structure to view in the "Cost Estimate (Rolled-up)" column
4. Update the cost of each proposal line item based on the WBS / line item percentage allocations
5. Update the bill of material unit cost based on all planned proposals for the component part code
6. You can also see the status of the cost model update procedure and when it was last run.

Please note the following important considerations:

1. Individual labor, material, travel and ODC estimates not based on a formula are not re-calculated from this menu option, to save time. If you want to force every estimate in your proposal to be re-evaluated then check a box called "[ ] Force update for all costs" in the proposal CLIENT tab exchange rates popup. You should do this when you modify something like the proposal currency, exchange rate or modify one or more of the escalation or indirect costing rates, any of which can impact the cost of your proposal
2. Because cost model generation is an intensive process, care should be taken not to run it too frequently, especially be careful when running it with 'Force update for all costs' checked. Cost model generation may take up to 15 minutes to run, in the background. Reload your screen data to see the resulting costs
3. Formula-based labor and other direct cost may be based on the result of another formula; for example "Travel is 15% of onsite labor including Program Mgt. Office labor which in turn is 15% of all system engineering and testing labor". Maintain the rank or sequence in your formula to ensure that they are processed in the correct order, as:
   1. No sequence (or rank = 1) for formulae which do not depend on the results from any other formula
   2. Rank = 2 for formula which depend on the result of only no-sequence or rank = 1 formulae
   3. Rank = 3 for other formula which depend on the result of ranked 2 and higher formulae.

In the example above the formula for Program Mgt. Office labor would have rank = 1 and for travel, rank = 2.