Set a budget for a job

This guide shows you how to add a budget to a job. Setting a budget helps you monitor profitability in real time and gives you an early warning before a job goes over.

A budget sets a limit for a job, which you can track against as your team logs time and expenses. This visibility helps you manage your resources effectively and protect your profit margins.

Before you start

• You need permissions that allow you to view and edit jobs.
• Job Budgets are available on our Pro and Ultra plans.

Set a job budget

You can set a budget when you first create a job or add one to an existing job later.

1. From the main navigation, open Jobs.
2. Select the job you want to add a budget to.
3. Find the Budget panel on the job's main page and select Add Budget.
4. Choose your Budget Type. The best type depends on what you need to control.

Budget Type	What it tracks	When to use it
Total Job Fee	Billable value of time and all costs	Fixed-fee jobs where you need to protect your overall profit margin.
Total Job Hours	Total hours logged by all staff	Jobs sold as a block of hours or when you need to manage team capacity.
Total Job Costs	Expenses like materials and disbursements	Jobs where material costs are high and must be controlled separately from labor.
Hours by Staff Member	Individual hours logged per staff member	Jobs where specific team members have limited availability or different roles.

1. Enter the budget amount or hours in the Budget field.
2. (Optional) Set up alerts to get notified as the budget is used. Check the box for Send email notification when budget reaches. You can enter multiple thresholds separated by commas, like 80, 100, 125.
3. Select Save Budget.

💡 Tip: The Project Manager on the job and any staff member with full administrative permissions will receive budget notifications by default. You can add other recipients in the notification settings.

Monitor budget progress

Once a budget is set, you can easily track how the job is performing against it.

1. Navigate to the job you want to review.
2. The Budget panel shows you progress at a glance. A progress bar gives you a quick visual status of the budget.
3. You will see the amount used, the total budget, and the amount remaining. The "used" amount is calculated from the billable value of all time entries and any costs logged against the job.

ℹ️ Good to know: Budgets provide visibility and alerts, but they do not prevent staff members from logging time or costs once a limit is reached. This ensures that all work is recorded, even if it goes over budget, so you can decide how to bill for it.

Good to know

• Budgets you set are for internal tracking only. They are not visible to your client on quotes or invoices.
• Changing a staff member's billable rate will affect all future budget calculations for their logged time. Past calculations based on their old rate are not changed.
• The budget calculation includes all time entries and costs, whether they have been invoiced or not.
• If you do not set a budget, the budget panel will still show you the total billable value of the work-in-progress on the job.

What's next

• Create a job
• Track time
• Log and manage job costs
• Run a Job Profitability report