Budget
See your project's planned versus actual spend in one place — pulled live from Estimation, Bills, and Change Orders.
What is the Budget Module?
The Budget module is the financial control tower for your project. It pulls numbers from the places they're already being captured — Estimation, Bills, and Change Orders — and shows them side by side so you always know where you stand against the original plan.
You don't enter anything in Budget directly. Instead, you keep working in the modules you already use, and Budget re-aggregates the latest data every time you open it.
Budget lives inside each project. Open any project from your dashboard and select Budget from the sidebar to get started. If the project has no estimate yet, Budget will prompt you to start there first.
Where the Numbers Come From
Click "Budget" to expand · Then click any source to see details
- Original is what you planned to spend, pulled from the Estimation module's cost-code structure.
- Actual is what you've actually spent, pulled from Bills — paid and pending — with each bill line rolled up by its cost code.
- Scope Changes are added from the Change Orders module as their own section, so you can see what's shifted since the original plan.
- Live Metrics (variance, projected cost, cost to complete) are calculated on the fly from those three sources.
Bills without a cost code roll up into an unallocated bucket, and estimation items without a cost code appear under Uncategorised — both are easy to spot and tag later.
Connected Modules
Budget is a roll-up view, not an input form. Every number in the table is driven by another module — change something there, and the Budget updates the next time you open it.
Click the root to expand · Then click any module to see how it connects
Each connection is deliberate:
- Estimation defines the plan — no estimate means no Budget
- Bills are the source of truth for actual spend
- Invoices (paid bills) drive the Paid Invoices column
- Change Orders appear as their own section to keep scope changes visible
- Cost Codes are the glue — they decide how every line lands in the Budget
Cost Lines in the Budget
Every row in the Budget is a cost line — a single cost code (or allowance, or change order) with its own Original, Actual, and variance numbers. What makes the Budget powerful is that a single row aggregates everything tagged with that cost code:
- The estimated amount for that code from the Estimation module
- Every bill line you've coded against it (paid or pending)
- Progress roll-up from child codes if they exist in a parent/child hierarchy
When a cost code has children, click the expand arrow to drill from the parent line down to each child. Subtotals roll up automatically.
Tagging matters. The more consistently your estimate lines and bill lines carry cost codes, the more useful the Budget becomes. Lines without a code still appear — but in the Unallocated (bills) or Uncategorised (estimate) buckets, where they're harder to compare against a plan.
Budget Columns Explained
Every row in the Budget table shows the same set of columns:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Name | Cost code or category |
| Original | Planned amount from the estimate |
| Actual | Amount spent so far (from paid and partially paid bills) |
| Difference | Original − Actual — green if under budget, red if over |
| Projected Cost | The higher of Original or Actual — your forecast of final spend |
| Completed % | Circular progress indicator — how much of the original budget has been used |
| Cost to Complete | Projected Cost − Actual — what's left to spend |
| Pending Bills | Bills received but not yet paid |
| Paid Invoices | Bills that have been fully or partially paid |
Budget Sections
The Budget table is grouped into four sections — each expandable and collapsible:
| Section | What it contains |
|---|---|
| Estimate | Cost categories from the estimate, grouped by cost code hierarchy |
| Allowances | Provisional sums from the estimate, separated out |
| Change Orders | Approved change orders that have shifted project scope |
| Grand Total | Project-wide roll-up of everything above |
Click the arrow on any section to expand or collapse it. Use Expand All / Collapse All in the toolbar to toggle every section at once.
Filtering and Search
The toolbar above the table keeps large budgets manageable:
- Search — match by cost code name or category
- Section filter — show or hide Estimate, Allowances, or Change Orders independently
- Clear filters — reset everything in one click
A persistent summary bar at the bottom of the page shows the Original Budget, Actual Cost, Pending Bills, Paid Invoices, and Projected Total — so the headline numbers are always in view no matter how deep you've drilled.
Reading Variance and Forecast
Variance (the Difference column) is the simple health check — anywhere it turns red, you're spending more than you planned.
Projected Cost is the forecast: by taking the higher of Original or Actual, it assumes any over-spend now will continue. If you're halfway through and already over, the Projected number is what the final bill is likely to look like — well before the project finishes.
Cost to Complete tells you how much more you can expect to spend. If it's bigger than what's left in your cash flow, that's an early warning to revisit pricing, change orders, or scope.