Lay out the development program

Open the Program tab. The Development program card lists seven standard tasks: Acquisition, Concept Design, Town Planning, Design Development, Early Works, Construction and Operation. A new blank project starts them on a 36-month timeline, with Construction from M13 for 18 months.

Each row shows Start M, Months, the Start – finish dates (for example “Jul 27 – Dec 28 M13–30” when M1 is July 2026) and a bar on the timeline.

Type a start month into Start M and a duration into Months for each task. The dates and bar update as you type. The program can run to 240 months.

Turn on Auto shift (top right of the card) to have later tasks follow a change: changing a task’s duration moves every task that starts after it ends by the same number of months. If Town Planning on your Brunswick townhouses, 12 lots, needs 9 months instead of 4, Auto shift pushes Early Works, Construction and Operation back 5 months in one edit. Auto shift is a working aid, not saved with the scenario.

Click + Add Task to add “New task”, running M1 to M3, and type a new name such as “Subdivision works”. Names must be unique and can’t repeat a derived phase’s name. Drag a task’s handle, or use the arrow keys on it, to reorder the list.

Standard tasks can’t be renamed or removed; custom tasks have a remove button. If anything is timed by the task, a dialog lists it before you click Remove task: cost lines and sales move to Whole Project and land purchases to Acquisition, so check their timing afterwards.

Below the tasks, Derived durations — used to time cost lines shows five phases worked out from the tasks:

• Development Phase: from the start of Acquisition to the end of Construction
• Design Phase: from the start of Concept Design to the end of Design Development
• Whole Project: from the first task’s start to the last task’s end
• Major Consultant: from the start of Concept Design to the end of Construction
• Minor Consultant: from the start of Concept Design to the end of Town Planning

They move with the tasks they come from. Cost lines can be timed by any task or derived phase.

Land Holding Costs run to the end of Construction, and Operational Outgoings take over from the start of Operation. If the project has outgoings and Operation doesn’t start the month after Construction ends, a warning names the months left uncharged or charged twice. Set Operation’s Start M to the month it suggests.

These two tasks set other defaults too: a tenancy’s lease commences at the Operation start and is committed at the Construction start unless you enter its own months.

The Feasibility Phases card lists the windows returns can be reported for, starting with Whole Project. Click + Add Sub-Phase, name it (for example “Stage 1 townhouses”) and set its Start month and End month.

On the Summary tab, Report returns for switches the KPIs to that window, counting only its costs, revenue and returns. A sub-phase values completed leased lots still unsold at its end, and one starting after M1 buys in at that value; the note under the card explains both.

Open the Cashflow tab. A coloured strip over each column heading shows the stage the period falls in, and every cost, sale and finance flow sits in the months its phase gives it. Move a task and the cashflow, interest and returns recalculate straight away.