The Budget tab shows what the project planned to spend, what it has spent and where it is heading. Open it from the project menu: Money and people, then Budget. The page is called Budget and costs.
The numbers in plain English
- Budget (BAC): budget at completion. Your budget lines plus the impact of approved change requests.
- Actual to date (AC): every cost booked so far.
- Burn rate: the average monthly actual cost over the last three full months. The current month is left out because it is still being booked.
- Forecast (EAC): the forecast at completion. What the project will have cost by its end date if spending carries on as it is.
- VAC: variance at completion. Budget minus forecast. A negative figure means a forecast overrun.
- Spent vs complete: the share of the budget spent against the share of planned work done.
Before you start
Before you set up the budget
- The project's plan includes Budget (Professional, Enterprise or a personal plan)
- Your role can edit the budget and add costs
- The project has a start date and an end date
- You know the project currency and the budget by category
How to set up the budget
- Add budget lines
Under Budget plan, select Add budget line. Choose a Category, enter a Description and the Planned amount, and optionally a Workstream and Notes.
- Log costs
Under Cost log, select Add entry. Choose the Category, enter the Description, Amount and Cost date, and tick Budgeted if the cost was planned.
- Link the cost
Under Budget link, set Booked as and Invoice for contract if they apply (see below).
- Record the source
Add the Workstream, Vendor name, Invoice reference, Linked change request, Linked task, Approved by and Notes.
- Save
Select Add cost entry. The app gives it an ID such as ABC-COST-031.
One home per cost
People and contracts are planned on the Resources tab, and that plan already feeds the budget. To stop a cost being counted twice, each cost has one home:
- People: each month of a payroll or contractor allocation is a cost. Months before this one count as actual; this month and later count as forecast.
- Contracts: a fixed-fee contract's milestones carry its cost. A paid milestone is actual in the month it was paid; a planned or invoiced one is forecast in its due month.
- Cost log: everything else you log is actual cost.
Planned cost
- Comes from allocations on the Resources tab
- Shown as forecast from this month on
- Used until a booking replaces it
Booked cost
- A cost log entry with Booked as set to payroll or contractor
- Replaces the planned cost for that month and category
- So a payroll journal is never counted on top of the plan
Booked as has three options: Other cost, Company payroll and Company contractor. Choose payroll or contractor when the entry is the real cost of people already planned on the Resources tab. Invoice for contract links an entry to a fixed-fee contract. Such an entry is counted through the contract's milestones, not twice. The two links are exclusive: setting one clears the other.
Reading the analysis
- Budget versus actual cost: the budget phased evenly from start to end, against cumulative actual cost. A dashed line projects the burn rate to the end date.
- Budget versus cost by category: switch between At completion and To date.
- Cost variance: plan minus cost by category, so a negative figure is an overrun.
- Spend by workstream and category: two charts of where the money went.
- CR budget impact: approved and implemented change requests with a budget impact, read-only.
If actual cost passes the revised budget, a red banner says Over budget and gives spend as a percentage of it. The cost log can be searched and filtered by workstream, category and source (Budgeted or Unbudgeted), and shows a running total.
Good to know
- Approving a change request with a budget impact can add a cost entry for you. See Change requests.
- The Plan tab has a Budget view that shows the same budget, actual and forecast curve beside the plan. See Plan budget view. For people and contracts, see Resources: payroll and contractors and Fixed-fee contracts.
- Budget needs Professional, Enterprise or a personal plan. See Plans and pricing.
Who can do this
Admins and project managers can add budget lines and log, edit and delete costs. Executive sponsors, functional leads, technical leads, consultants, viewers and the module roles can read the Budget tab. See Roles and permissions.