Work out the cost of the work still ahead of you. Enter your budget, earned value and actual cost to get your Estimate to Complete and the total forecast at completion.
The Estimate to Complete (ETC) is the forecast cost of the work still remaining — how much more you expect to spend from today until the project is done. It's the number a budget owner needs to know they have enough funding left to finish.
ETC is the forward-looking half of the forecast: EAC = AC + ETC. The actual cost is what's behind you; ETC is what's ahead.
Actual cost is history and the budget is a contract artefact — ETC is the only number in this set that is a forward claim, which is why it is the one worth arguing about. On my jobs it is maintained as its own estimate, reduced against actuals every period, not merely derived from CPI.
A derived ETC can only repeat the past back at you. A maintained one is where the team's knowledge of what is actually left enters the forecast — and if nobody can say who owns that number, the forecast is running on autopilot.
A $4.2M project has earned $1.85M (EV) and spent $1.9M (AC), a CPI of 0.97. EAC = 4.2 / 0.97 = $4.33M, so ETC = 4.33 − 1.9 = $2.43M of work still to fund. If your remaining approved budget is less than that, you have a funding gap to raise now — not at completion.
They're two views of the same forecast: EAC is the whole-project total, ETC is only the part still to come. See both alongside CPI, SPI and TCPI in the full earned value calculator.
ETC (Estimate to Complete) is the forecast cost of the work still remaining: ETC = EAC − AC.
ETC = (BAC / CPI) − AC. A $4.2M budget at CPI 0.97 with $1.9M spent gives ETC ≈ $2.43M.
EAC is the total forecast cost; ETC is only the remaining cost. EAC = AC + ETC.
Aegis tracks ETC against remaining budget every period, straight from your schedule — so a shortfall shows up while you can still do something about it.
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