Budgets

A budget is what you sold: lines grouped into sections, a billing schedule, and the work recorded against it. Once a budget is active, time logged on mapped tasks counts as used, bookings count towards the forecast, and any change to what was sold goes through a change order.

Finance must be turned on first. See Finance Setup.

Who can do what

Capability	Lets you
finance:manage_budgets	Create, edit, activate, deliver, close and cancel budgets, raise change orders, map tasks
finance:view_prices	See sold, rates and invoiced figures
finance:view_cost	See cost and committed cost
finance:view_profit	See margin

Project members who cannot see prices still see the Money tab on their projects as hours and percentages. Owners, Admins, Managers and the Finance role can manage budgets; Managers see prices but not cost or margin unless granted.

Where budgets live

• Finance in the sidebar (shown to anyone with a finance capability) opens the Overview, then Budgets.
• A project’s Money tab shows the project’s own budget with the same lines, strip and actions.
• A master project’s Budget tab lists every child project’s budget with sold, used and burn, the amount allocated against the group’s overall budget, and the projects that have no budget yet.
• The project task table has a Budget line column for mapping tasks.

The overview

Finance > Overview shows the month, the billing entity, and a lens switch (Prices, Cost, Profit; Hours when you cannot see prices). The cards are at risk (budgets past a warning threshold or over), used this month on active budgets, ready to invoice (schedule items whose trigger has fired) and margin on active work against the target margin. Below them, Needs attention, Awaiting my approval and Ready to invoice open the matching lists, and Findings summarises what the nightly review found in the budget figures.

Create a budget

1. Open Finance > Budgets and choose New budget, or open a project’s Money tab.
2. Choose where to Start from: Blank or a Template. To discuss a task plan with Ru, create a blank draft and use Ask Ru in its empty lines editor.
3. Give it a Name, choose the Kind (Project budget or Internal budget), the Client, the Project (optional) and the Currency. The billing entity is shown. When the client has a rate card, the dialog says Rate card [name] applies.
4. Choose Create draft.

A project budget takes its client from the project. An internal budget has no client and can only hold non-billable lines. The budget gets its number at creation and opens as a draft.

Note

A project that already carries a single budget figure keeps it until you convert it. On the project’s Money tab choose Convert to a budget to turn the figure into a budget with one fixed “Project fee” line, or keep the single figure. Once a project has a budget, the figure on the project is managed by the budget and can no longer be edited by hand.

Lines and sections

The Lines tab is where the budget is built. Use Add line, Add section or From catalogue (⌘K) at the bottom of the table, or the plus on a section row. Drafts save each edit directly.

Each line has:

Field	Meaning
Activity code	What kind of work or purchase the line is
Billing type	Time and materials, Fixed, Non-billable, Percentage (of a section or the budget) or Expense pass-through
Quantity and unit	Hours, days or items
Rate	The price per unit. Role-priced lines take the rate from the client’s rate card when created and keep it until you Reprice
Discount	A percentage or an amount, using the same tax entry basis as the price
Cap	The most that can be used on a time and materials line
Estimated hours and estimated cost	Used for the forecast and the margin
Tracks time, tracks expenses, bookable	Whether work can land on the line and whether it can be booked in the resource plan
Warn at and on overrun	Line-level overrides of the organisation defaults

A budget converted from a tax-inclusive quote keeps prices and fixed discounts including the recorded quote tax. Sold amounts and billing schedule amounts exclude tax. The notice above the lines identifies this pricing basis. A later change to a tax rate does not change those recorded budget amounts.

Expand a line with Show description to choose its Tax treatment. A Recorded tax option shows the rate used by that line, even if the current tax treatment has changed or been archived. A missing older treatment without a recorded rate is labelled Unavailable tax treatment. New lines without a selected treatment have no tax extracted from their price. Changing the treatment changes net sold; an active budget requires a change order. Role prices still come from the rate card before tax and are displayed using the budget’s entry basis. New time and bookings use the net unit rate, rounded to the currency’s smallest unit.

Sold on a percentage line is worked out from the other lines in its section (or the budget), never from other percentage lines. Section subtotals and the budget’s sold, used, committed, forecast, invoiced, cost and margin sit in the strip above the table. Each figure has a link mark that opens the rows behind it.

Lines with a rate card role show the role beneath them. If the card’s rate has changed since the line was priced, the line says so, and Reprice in the More menu updates every role-priced line to the current card.

To change the order of lines, use Move line up and Move line down in the row actions, or Alt+Up and Alt+Down with the row focused. A line moves within its own section, and the new order is saved straight away. Every editable cell is reachable with Tab; Enter moves down the same column, Escape cancels the edit, Cmd+Enter adds a line below, Cmd+D duplicates and Cmd+Backspace deletes. Editors made of more than one control, such as a percentage and its base or a discount and its percent or amount switch, stay open while you move between their own controls and save when you leave the cell.

Activate

The Ready to activate? panel on the right lists what is missing:

• at least one line;
• a price on every time and materials and fixed line (Fix lines jumps to the first unpriced one);
• the rate card confirmed for the project, when the project is waiting on that (Confirm on activate does it as part of activation);
• a billing schedule that balances, when any schedule items exist; and
• required custom fields set.

Choose Activate. Activation numbers the budget as version 1, makes it the project’s primary budget if the project has none, and from then on time and bookings count against it. A project whose primary budget is still a draft cannot itself be activated.

Billing schedule

The Schedule tab plans how the sold amount will be invoiced: deposits, milestones, intervals, a final amount and retention, each as an amount or a percentage of the schedule base (the fixed and percentage lines). Add item adds one; Apply pattern fills a common shape such as a deposit and a final amount. The tab shows how much is allocated and what is unallocated. Once any items exist, the schedule must balance before activation. An item whose trigger has fired becomes ready to bill and appears in Uninvoiced work and in the invoice composer.

Edit on a scheduled or ready item changes its kind, label, amount or percentage, trigger, date and milestone, and clears the review flag a change order left on it. Skip marks an item as one that will not be invoiced. A skipped item stays in the schedule and still counts in the balance, so the allocation still adds up. Items that have been drafted or invoiced cannot be edited or skipped.

Map tasks so time counts

Time counts against a budget through the task it was logged on. New tasks on a project with an active budget take a line automatically: the line for the assignee’s rate card role, or the single time and materials line when there is only one. Tasks that match neither stay unmapped.

• The project’s Money tab warns when tasks have no line. Map tasks opens a panel listing those tasks, each with its own Budget line picker, and a Map all remaining to picker that puts every listed task on one line. Rows leave the list as you map them.
• The Tasks panel on the budget shows how many tasks are mapped. Map them opens the Money tab with that panel already open.
• Every task has a Budget line field in its details, next to the priority, showing the budget and the hours used on that line so far.
• The task table’s Budget line column shows by default once Finance is on and maps one task at a time. Open the task table in the mapping panel takes you there with the column visible.

A task can only be mapped to a line that funds its project: the project’s own budget, or a retainer budget of the same client. Time entries take the line of their task, including time recorded when a task is completed, and bookings in the resource plan take it for the forecast.

Used, burn and thresholds

The Work tab lists the approved and pending time on each line. Used is worked out per line from its burn basis:

• Rate: the billable minutes at the rate recorded when approved;
• Hours: sold multiplied by the share of estimated hours used, so 12 hours on a 10 hour line shows 120%; or
• Cost: the cost figure.

Approved billable expenses and supplier bills also add their client charge to used. All approved purchases add cost. Percentage fees follow the combined time and purchase base; submitted expenses contribute to pending burn. Later dated work does not redistribute earlier hour-burn or percentage-fee pennies.

Entries with no usable rate, currency evidence or required estimate are counted as unvalued rather than as zero. Approved cost and currency values stay recorded when rates change. Percentage lines follow their base lines’ used amounts and retain the hours and cost recorded directly against them.

When a line or the budget passes a warning threshold, the owner is told once per version. When a capped line reaches its cap, the owner is told once. The forecast warns when used plus confirmed bookings would go past sold. What happens once a line is fully used depends on the On overrun setting: warn and keep tracking, block new time, or block approval until a change order lands.

Change orders

On an active budget, any edit that changes sold or a cap (quantity, price, discount, markup, cap, percentage, activity code, adding or removing a line) opens a Change order rather than saving directly. Descriptions, estimates, tracking flags and thresholds still save directly.

1. Make the edits. The Change order v[n] bar above the table shows the delta and how many lines changed, with Review changes to see before and after. Discard throws the change order away.
2. Choose Request approval, enter a Reason and choose Submit. The reason is saved on the change order and is shown to the approver and to the client.

If no approval policy matches, the change order applies immediately. If one does, the bar says Needs approval from Finance (and the threshold that triggered it), the change order waits under Approvals, and Withdraw takes it back. Editing the lines again while approval is pending invalidates that approval, and the approvers are told.

Once it is approved, the bar shows Apply change order. Where the organisation applies approved change orders automatically, this has already happened; otherwise choose it to write the new version onto the budget. If the lines moved after approval, applying says the approval no longer matches, the budget is refreshed and approval is requested again. Applying makes a new version and flags any schedule items entered as amounts for review.

You can prepare, edit or withdraw a change order while the accounting period is closed. Applying it requires an open period. If the budget moves to another project or billing entity during your action, refresh the budget and retry. Your unsuccessful action makes no changes.

The Versions tab lists every version with who made it, the reason, and the before and after of each line. Only one change order can be open at a time.

Time approval on a budget

The Time approval block in the details rail decides who approves time logged against the budget:

• Inherit the organisation default, Approve on submit, or Needs approval.
• Any one approver or All must approve.
• Approvers: the budget owner, the project owner, named people or a group.
• Rounding of billable time, when the budget differs from the organisation.

When a person submits their week, the entries on this budget form one approval request for these approvers. See Time Tracking. The Work tab shows each submitted segment with Approve and Reject, and the burn bar shows pending time as a hatched segment beside used.

Deliver, close, cancel and reopen

From the More menu on an active budget:

• Deliver marks the work done. If time is still waiting for approval, give a reason.
• Close needs invoicing to be complete, or a reason saying there is nothing more to invoice.
• Cancel with reason is only possible while nothing has been invoiced. The project’s next active budget becomes primary, or the project returns to its single figure.
• Reopen returns a closed budget to delivered.
• Set as primary chooses which of a project’s budgets is the one its figures come from.
• Save as template copies sections, lines, percentage schedule patterns and thresholds for next time. It retains quantities, fixed prices, discounts, caps, estimated costs, currency, billing entity and tax pricing basis. Role-priced lines use the effective rate card when the next budget is created.
• Discard draft removes a draft. Its number is kept in the numbering audit as discarded.

Reuse a saved template

Open Finance settings > Budget templates, preview the template and choose New budget from this. The new budget dialog selects it for you. Enter the budget name and client, then create the draft. A template saved from a budget retains its currency and billing entity; those fields are fixed in this dialog. Review the prices and tax treatment in the new draft before activating it.

If a rate card role is no longer active, creation stops without leaving a partial budget. Update the template’s role first. You can ask Ru to help inspect or update a template. Editing sections or line names keeps their stored pricing terms. Older templates with prices but no recorded currency cannot create a new budget until you adopt a reviewed pricing basis. New templates use the default billing entity and currency, with entered prices excluding tax.

The budgets list

Finance > Budgets has views for Active, Needs attention, Draft, Delivered, Closed and Internal, grouped by client or owner, with a search and a filter on any select or multi-select custom field on budgets. Each row shows the status, sold, used, the burn bar and the margin, and a margin below the target is flagged. Budgets you cannot see prices on show hours instead.

The list is paged. The footer says which rows you are looking at, how many budgets match in total, and the totals for the page in hand, with arrows to move between pages. The search and the custom field filter are applied by the server, so the count and the pages stay true across the whole list.

The Activity tab

Every change to a budget is recorded: lines, thresholds crossed, change orders and their approvals, and lifecycle changes. The Activity tab lists them with filters for Changes, Thresholds and Approvals.

Next step

Set up who approves change orders: Approvals, or see where a budget is heading in the Forecast. A budget often starts life as a Quote, and an alternative you are still weighing up belongs in Scenarios.

Help from Ru

Ask Ru to explain this workflow, inspect records you can access, or carry out supported steps when you authorise them. Your permissions and approval rules still apply. See Finance with Ru.

Actual cost includes received but unbilled purchase order work. A supplier bill replaces that receipt cost on its bill date. Cost-basis and non-billable lines use actual cost for burn, including these receipt movements. Self-billed work replaces time cost on the bill date; a void restores it on the selected void date. See Self-billing.

Review an older quote conversion

You need permission to manage the budget and see its prices. If an older quote conversion has no recorded pricing basis, its budget page shows Review recorded quote pricing.

1. Select Review quote pricing.
2. Compare the current net sold amount with the recorded quote amount and review the proposed lines and quantities.
3. Enter a reason.
4. For an untouched draft, select Adopt recorded pricing. For an active budget, select Open pricing correction, then review and submit it in Versions.

An active-budget correction follows normal approval and client acceptance rules. It cannot reduce the budget below invoiced or recognised amounts. Raise the appropriate credits or corrections first. Issued documents and earlier budget versions stay unchanged. Review the billing schedule after adoption.

If the accepted evidence is missing or the budget’s scope no longer matches, reconcile that scope before adopting. If the review changes, review it again.

Adopt pricing for an older template

Open Finance settings > Budget templates, select Preview, then choose Adopt pricing from a budget. You need permission to manage templates and the source budget.

1. Search for a source budget and select it.
2. Select Review template pricing. The source and template must have matching line order, activity codes, units and section groups.
3. Review the currency, quantities, entered prices, discounts and caps. Role prices refresh from the effective rate card when a new budget is made.
4. Enter a reason and select Adopt template pricing.

Existing budgets made from the template stay unchanged. If the source budget needs its own quote-pricing review, complete that first. You can ask Ru to help review or adopt pricing using the same permissions and review requirements.

Review where a figure comes from

Select a figure’s source detail control to open its drawer. Sold, used, cost, invoiced, committed, forecast, remaining, margin and hours each show the sources for that figure. Group entries by line, person or week. Open an available invoice, supplier bill or expense link to inspect the record.

Cost includes recorded purchase costs, overhead and internal credits or their dated reversals. Invoiced reflects issued invoices and credit notes. Commitments show remaining purchase-order amounts. Forecast shows its price, used and future booking inputs. Unknown values remain unknown. Your price, cost and profit permissions still control what you can inspect. Select Ask Ru to discuss the budget in chat.

Individual cost sources need cost access. If you can view margin without cost, the margin drawer shows the total and its explanation without revealing those cost entries.