Project budgets
Overview
A budget answers the question: how much may this project cost, and how much of that is used up? Consumption comes from booked time and costs — the budget keeps count, it does not block.
That is a deliberate decision: a budget that prevents bookings leads to time no longer being recorded at all. A budget that warns leads to a conversation.
Core tasks
Set a budget. You define the amount or the number of hours per project.
Track consumption. The list shows budget, consumption and remainder — and the ratio, which shows the trend faster than absolute numbers.
Get warned in time. When a threshold is exceeded you are notified, instead of finding out at the month-end close.
Fields in detail
| Field | Required | Values / format | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
Name name | yes | text | What the budget is called. |
Level level | yes | customer, project, task, contract | What the budget hangs on. The level determines which effort runs against it. |
Target targetId | yes | the respective record | Which customer, project, task or contract. |
Unit unit | yes | hours or money | What is counted in. |
Amount amount / Hours hours | yes | 0 or more | The size of the budget, matching the unit. |
Period period | yes | once, monthly, quarterly, yearly | Whether the budget applies once or renews. With a running budget each period starts full again. |
Cap capMode | yes | hard cap, warn, soft | What happens on overrun. Hard cap prevents further bookings — effective, but it stops the work; warn only reports. |
Warning thresholds warnThresholds | no | percentages | At what consumption to warn, say at 80% and 100%. |
Warn on remainder warnRemaining | no | 0 or more | Additionally warn when only this much is left. On small budgets more telling than a percentage. |
Parent budget parentBudgetId | no | an existing budget | Builds a hierarchy: a project budget can be part of a customer budget. Consumption then rolls up — the way to run an annual frame across several projects. |
Brand brandId | no | one of your brands | For which brand. |
Active active | no | yes/no | Whether the budget is monitored. |
Settings & permissions
- Read:
projects.budget.view - Manage:
projects.budget.manage
Module flag: module.budget. Consumption comes from time tracking and project costs — without those modules the budget remains a plain target.
FAQ & troubleshooting
Consumption is lower than expected. Check whether all time has been booked. What is not recorded cannot be consumed.
The budget shows a remainder although the project is finished. A budget does not expire automatically. Close the project so it leaves the open list.