The planned value and actual cost serve as points of comparison throughout the project to monitor what the current value of the project is to what the planned value is. And the actual cost helps determine how much it will actually cost and if your budget is realistic. Being able to track this throughout the project is important rather than waiting until you’re close to the deadline to check whether you’re over budget or behind schedule. Detecting that there is a problem with the budget and scheduling will also cause you to look into what is slowing the project down and fix the problem so as to save time and money.