As we’ve learned, the planned value (PV) of a project is the estimated cost of the project’s activities which have been planned as of the reporting date. On the other hand, the actual value (AV) of the project is how much actual money has been spent on a project on the reporting date. The two numbers are very important to keep track of because as a project manager, you need to try you absolute best to keep the AV on track or under budget, as compared to the PV. This is very important in the monitoring and controlling phase because that is where the project is controlled and kept on schedule and on budget. Otherwise, many projects can become vastly over-budget and may even end up losing the company money if these costs are not supervised.