Reviewing your Project Budget

• Overview of the Budget page
• Reviewing your Budget details
• Reviewing your Rates and Internal Cost
• Reviewing your Budget Expenses

Overview of the Budget page

Quick Access: Click on a project > Select the Budget tab.

Only Admins, Controllers, and Managers can view the budget page of a project by default. Coordinators and collaborators will not be able to view the page and Managers will only be able to view the revenue information.

The budget page is the financial hub of any project in Forecast. Within it, it is possible to review all the financial information necessary to stay on top of a project's budget and deliver it without any financial backlashes.

To assist with this objective, the budget page provides multiple and diverse tabs that cover all necessary financial information. Below, the article covers all of these tabs, starting with the Details tab and then explaining the Rates and Internal Cost tab as well as the Expenses tab.

 

 

Reviewing your Budget details

Below the project totals table, users will find the details table displaying financial information across  Actuals, Plan, Forecasted to complete, and Total at completion. The data in each category is grouped by Billable time and Expenses, Cost, and Profit. All tables are further expandable into phases and roles, allowing for a more granular view of the project financials.

The flexibility in the budget's granularity allows project managers to display as much and as little financial data as needed, allowing them to track the budget at a holistic or granular level. 

Just like in the chart section of the budget, you can choose to group the financial information either by months or days - depending on the current duration of your project.

Users can also opt to focus on specific parts of the project financials, namely on Time & Expenses, Expense Details, and Invoice Plan.

• Time & Expenses - displays the work and also factors in billable expenses. 
• Expense Details - displays the expense items in their respective Phases and dates. To read more about adding an expense item, take a look at Submitting your expenses.
• Invoice Plan - displays invoiced items. To read more about creating an invoice, take a look at Creating invoices for your customers.

Money view

Scrolling past project totals are the Project Details, which display the financial information across  Actuals, Plan, Remaining, and Forecast. Each of these categories is further broken down into Billable Time and Expenses, Cost, and Profit. Hovering over each will trigger a tooltip informing the user about the calculation used to get the displayed amount.

• Planned
  • Billable Time and Expenses: all billable estimate hours x role rate + price on all planned expenses.
  • Cost: task estimate x internal cost + cost on all planned expenses.
  • Profit: planned billable time x planned cost.
• Actual
  • Billable Time and Expenses: all billable time registrations x role rate + price on all planned past  expenses.
  • Cost: all time registrations x internal cost + cost on past expenses.
  • Profit: actual billable time and expenses spent to date + actual cost.
• Forecast to complete
  • Billable Time and Expenses: all remaining billable hours x role rate + price on future expenses.
  • Cost: remaining task estimate x internal cost + cost on planned future expenses.
  • Profit: forecast billable time and expenses to complete + forecast cost to complete.
• Total at completion
  • Billable Time and Expenses: actual billable time and expenses spent to date + forecast billable time and expenses to complete.
  • Cost: actuals cost + forecast cost to complete.
  • Profit: total billable time at completion + total cost at completion.

The flexibility on the budget's granularity allows project managers to display as much and as little financial data as needed, allowing for the tracking of the project budget at a holistic or granular level. 

Similarly to the chart section of the budget, financial information under the time view can be grouped either by months or days - depending on the duration of the project.

 

Time view

Project Details under 'Time View' display time across Actuals, Plan, Remaining, and Forecast. All of these can be shown or hidden with the eye icon.

Within the time view, the budget details are split up into four(4) different groups. Hovering over each will trigger a tooltip informing the user about the calculation used to get the displayed amount. The groups are as follows:

• Actual: all time registrations.
• Planned: total estimated hours.
• Remaining: all remaining hours.
• Forecast: actuals + remaining.

All tables are expandable and break down the financial information by: 

• Phase
• Role

Similarly to the chart section of the budget, financial information under the time view can be grouped either by months or days - depending on the duration of the project.

Reviewing your Rates and Internal Cost (Pro and Plus only)

The rates and internal cost tab shows all of the roles and their rates that are associated with the project in question as well as team members assigned to the project and their internal hourly cost. The page has two sections.

 

The second section is about team members. From this section, it is possible to view the team members assigned to the project as well as their role and their internal hourly cost. 

 

 

 

It is also possible from here to change the internal hourly cost of a team member. Please be advised that doing so affects that team member's internal hourly cost for all projects and not just the one you are changing it from.  See About Internal Hourly Cost and how it works for further information.

 

The expenses tab is the final tab available on the budget page and it is completely focused on any expenses that have been created for the project. To learn how to create expense categories, see Defining your expense categories. 

 

Its objective is twofold; it primarily serves as a hub where expense totals can be reviewed but it also serves as a page where new expenses may be added. The page is separated into two sections.