The Project Budget Analysis report compares each project's budget with the time and expenses tracked against it, broken down by timesheet category or person, and by expense category. It runs for many projects at once, so you can see which ones are going over.
Amounts are worked out at billable rates. To see costs and margin instead, use the Project Profitability report. To set budgets, see entering a project budget.
Open the report
Go to Reports in the left menu. On the Standard tab, find Project Budget Analysis under Project Management, or type "budget" in Search.
Choose at least one Customer in the panel on the right, then click Preview. Until you choose a customer, the report only says "Please select one or more customers".
Choose what to include
- Customer: required, so it's marked with an asterisk. Only customers with at least one project are listed.
- Project: only these projects of the chosen customers. Leave it empty to include all of them.
- Hide Details: show one line per project, with its totals, and hide the category, person and expense lines.
- Project Archive Status: Active, Archived or both. Only active projects are included by default. The Project list also shows archived projects, so tick Archived to report on one.
- Timesheet Status: only count time in these statuses. Invoiced time counts as Invoiced, not under its approval status. Leave it empty to count every status, including drafts and rejected time.
- Expense Approval Status: only count expenses in these statuses. Leave it empty to count every expense.
There's no date range: the report always covers all the time and expenses on each project. If it says No data found, none of the chosen customers' projects match your Project and Project Archive Status choices.
Read the report
Projects are listed from A to Z, with the customer in brackets under each name. The project's line holds its totals. Under it are up to two groups, each with a subtotal line: the timesheet categories or project members (see below), then the Expense Budget, with a line for each expense category on the project. Lines are in alphabetical order, and a person with Disabled Project Access is marked (Disabled).
Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
Project | The project, then each category, person or expense category. |
Billable Rate | The hourly rate from the project settings: the category's Rate Amount, the person's Billable Rate or the project's hourly rate. |
Budget Hours | The hours budget. |
Budget Amount | Budget hours × billable rate, the Total Project Fees budget, or an expense category's Budget Amount. |
Actual Hours | All the time tracked, billable or not. |
Actual Amount | Billable hours × billable rate, or the expenses spent. |
Budget Variance (Hours) | Budget hours minus actual hours. |
Budget Variance (Amount) | Budget amount minus actual amount. |
A negative variance, where the budget is exceeded, is shown in red. Hours are decimal hours, for example 7.50, without timesheet rounding.
How each budget type is compared
The project's Budget Type and Billing Method, on the Billing & Budget tab of its settings, decide which lines appear and which columns are filled in.
Budget Type | Lines under the project | What's compared |
|---|---|---|
Category Hours | Each timesheet category on the project | Each category's Budget Hours with the time tracked in it, and its budget hours × rate with its billable hours × rate. |
Person Hours | Each project member | Each person's Budget Hours with the time they tracked, and their budget hours × rate with their billable hours × rate. |
Total Project Hours | Categories with Category Hourly Rate, people with Person Hourly Rate, otherwise none | The project's budget hours with all the time tracked. With Project Hourly Rate, also the budget hours × rate with the billable hours × rate. With other billing methods, the amount variance covers expenses only. |
Total Project Fees | As for Total Project Hours | The total budget with the actual amount. Hours aren't compared. |
No Budget | As for Total Project Hours | Nothing for time. The time budget is zero, so the variances show what was tracked as negative numbers. |
For Total Project Hours and Total Project Fees, the category and person lines show only the actual hours and amounts. Expense budgets are compared for every budget type: each expense category's Budget Amount with the expenses in it. On the project's line, expense budgets are added to Budget Amount, and expenses to Actual Amount.
Time is only valued when its rate matches how the lines are split. With Not Billable or Do not apply hourly rate, the time amounts are zero. The same happens with a Category Hours budget billed at Person Hourly Rate, or a Person Hours budget billed at Category Hourly Rate.
Good to know
- Currency: each project is shown in its customer's currency. Expenses are counted before tax and converted with the customer exchange rate saved on each expense: see how Avaza converts expenses. There's no grand total, so currencies are never mixed.
- Rates: amounts use the project's current rates, not the rates saved on each time entry. If a rate changes, past time is valued at the new rate here. See cost rates and billable rates.
- Expense categories: an expense only counts when its category is listed under Expense Categories on the project's Categories tab. Then every expense in it counts, billable or not. Add missing categories there, with a Budget Amount if you have one.
- Budget options: the report ignores the budget options on the Billing & Budget tab, such as Include Expense Amount or Only deduct billable hours from the budget. So its figures can differ from the Budget, Spent and Remaining columns on All Projects and from budget alerts.
- What's left out: fixed amounts, supplier bills and invoices. For those, or for a date range, use the Project Summary report.
Save, schedule or export
Save the report with your choices so you can run it again in one click: see saving and sharing reports. On a paid plan, you can also schedule it for email delivery, for example as a weekly budget check. Any report can be exported.
Who can see it
Administrators, Finance Managers and Portfolio Managers can run this report, and it covers every project in the account. Project Managers don't see it. They can use the Project Summary and Project Profitability reports for the projects they're a member of. If the Projects module is switched off for your account, the report is hidden.