A project budget lets you compare the work done on a project with what you planned: an amount, such as a fixed price of USD 12,000, or a number of hours. Avaza then shows how much of the budget is spent and what's left, and can email you when a project gets close to its limit.
Choose a budget type
Each project has one budget type.
Budget Type | Use it when | Where you enter the budget |
|---|---|---|
Total Project Fees | The project has a fixed price or a total amount, for example USD 12,000. | Next to Budget Type, in the customer's currency |
Total Project Hours | You budget the project as hours, for example 120 hours. | Next to Budget Type |
Person Hours | Each person has their own hours, for example 10 hours for Sofia Alvarez and 15 for Marcus Lee. | Budget Hours for each person on the Members tab |
Category Hours | The work splits into activities with a set number of hours each, for example 10 hours of development, 5 of design and 2 of testing. | Budget Hours for each timesheet category on the Categories tab |
No Budget | You don't track a budget. | Nothing to enter |
Enter the budget
Open the project, click the ⋮ menu next to its name and choose Project Settings.
Go to the Billing & Budget tab and choose the Budget Type.
For Total Project Fees, enter the amount. For Total Project Hours, enter the hours.
For Person Hours or Category Hours, follow the link under Budget Type to the Members or Categories tab. Click each person or timesheet category and enter their Budget Hours. A number on the tab shows how many still need one.
Click Save changes.
Administrators and Finance Managers can change the budget on any project, and Portfolio Managers on any project they're a member of. A Project Manager can change it on projects where their membership has Can Manage this Project's Settings ticked. See project settings.
To budget expenses too, open the Categories tab, click an expense category under Expense Categories and enter its Budget Amount. Expense category budgets are tracked separately: they appear in the Project Summary report and the project's expense widget, but aren't added to the project budget. The Project Dashboard report can add them to a Total Project Fees budget, with Include Expense Budget, and the Project Budget Analysis report adds them to each project's total Budget Amount.
Get an alert before you go over
On the Billing & Budget tab, tick Budget alert to email the right people when spending passes a percentage of the budget, such as 80%. The same panel holds the options that decide what counts towards the budget:
- Include timesheets based on their: Billable Rate or Cost Rate (for Total Project Fees): time counts at its billable value or at its cost.
- Include Expense Amount (for Total Project Fees): expenses count towards the budget as well as time.
- Only deduct billable hours from the budget (for hours budgets): non-billable time doesn't use up the budget.
These options apply even when alerts are off. Alerts also need to be switched on for your account. See project budget alerts for the setup and who receives them.
Track the budget
- All Projects: add the Budget, Spent and Remaining columns to compare every project, and use the Over budget filter. See budget, billing and financial columns.
- Reports: the Project Summary and Project Profitability reports compare one project's budget with its time and costs, and the Project Dashboard report compares many. The Project Budget Analysis report also compares many projects' budgets with the time and expenses tracked, broken down by timesheet category or person and by expense category. For Person Hours and Category Hours budgets billed at the matching hourly rate, the Project Earnings and Remaining Value report shows what the remaining hours are worth.
- The project's Summary view: the Accumulated Project Time / Cost widget shows the budget, what's spent and what's left, with lines on the chart for the budget and the Budget Threshold. If it isn't there, click Add Widget.
Time counts at the rates saved on each entry, so set people's cost and billable rates before they log time. See cost rates and billable rates.