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A budget is the ceiling for a project. It is either a number of hours or an amount of money. Once it is set, the project’s Overview shows how much you have used, what the job is forecast to cost, and whether it is still healthy.

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What budgets give you

A ceiling you can see

A bar showing percent spent against percent complete, so overspending is visible before the invoice.

A forecast

What the project will cost by the time the remaining estimated work is done – not just what it has cost so far.

Alerts

Automatic notifications at 50%, 75%, 90% and 100%, plus a warning when the forecast breaks the budget.

Margin

Revenue minus cost, so you know whether the engagement makes money.

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Budget vs estimate

These are the two numbers people confuse most. They work together. Estimates tell the forecast how much work is left; the budget is what that forecast is measured against. Full detail on budget vs estimate.

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Where budgets live

There is no top-level Budgets page. A budget belongs to one project, so it lives inside that project.

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The pieces

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Budget kind

Every budget is either hours or money.
  • An hours budget carries no currency. It measures logged time.
  • A money budget carries a currency – your workspace base currency. It measures approved labour cost.
You pick one. See hours vs money budgets.

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Periodicity

A budget either runs once or resets every month.
  • One-time – a single pool for the life of the project.
  • Monthly – a recurring retainer. The pool refills at the start of each calendar month, in your workspace timezone.
The Resets control only appears when the project’s billing method is Retainer. See recurring retainers.

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Margin floor

An optional percentage between 0 and 100. If the forecast margin falls below it, an alert fires. Leave it blank to skip margin-floor alerts.

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Task caps

An individual task can carry a cap – “this task should not exceed 8 hours”. Caps are informational. They never reduce the project’s budget. See task-level caps.

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Example

Northwind Studio runs four projects with four different shapes. A project with no budget still tracks time and still invoices. It shows No budget set in the Financials panel, and no utilisation, forecast or health.

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What health means

Once a budget exists, the project shows a health chip. Health is derived, never set by hand. You cannot mark a red project green. Fix the underlying number instead. Red beats amber, and amber beats green.
“Spend leads progress by 25 points” catches the dangerous case early. A project at 60% utilisation and 30% completion is only 60% spent, but it is burning twice as fast as it is delivering.

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Plan and app requirements

Those last two are separate. The profitability feature gates exactly one thing: setting a cost rate. It is not a blanket lock on margin. On Free:
  • cost, revenue and margin already recorded stay readable
  • billing rates stay free to set
  • a new cost rate cannot be set, so margin stops being maintained
Who may see cost and margin is a capability question – time.viewCost and rate.viewCost – never a plan question. Keep the two ideas apart. See plans and features.

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Permissions

The Budget section in project Settings is hidden entirely without budget.manage. A Project Manager may legitimately run a project without seeing its money, so the two gates are genuinely different. Full detail on budget permissions.

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Common questions

The Budget section holds one budget per project. Pick the unit that matches how you sold the work.
No. A money budget measures approved labour cost. Expenses are tracked separately on the Expenses source. See expenses overview.
It depends on the budget kind. A money budget counts approved cost only. An hours budget counts all logged time, whatever its approval state. See how budgets work.
Nothing is blocked. People keep tracking time. The health chip turns red, an alert fires, and the project managers are emailed with three options: increase the budget, approve the overage, or pause the work.
No. A budget belongs to one project. A client with several projects has several budgets, and the client view rolls them up.
Your workspace base currency. The Amount field is labelled with it, for example Total amount (USD).

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Troubleshooting

How budgets work

Utilisation, forecast and health in detail.

Set a project budget

Every field on the Budget form.

Hours vs money budgets

Which unit to choose, with worked examples.

Budget alerts

The 50/75/90/100 ladder and who gets told.

Profitability and margin

Revenue minus cost, explained.

Budget vs estimate

The distinction to get right first.