Budget items

A budget item is a single cost or revenue in the project budget, such as “Licences”, “Training” or “Client payment”. Items can be grouped under group items, which add up the values of the items below them. Each item has a panel with its details, forecasts, actuals, attachments, comments and change history.

Items are on the project’s Budget tab (see Project budget). Users with the Budget project permission at the View level browse items, and users at the Admin level add, change and delete them (see Project permissions).

Adding an item

1. Open the Budget tab in the project, the List or By period view.
2. Click New cost or, after clicking the arrow next to that button, New revenue. A new row appears in the list with the name field in edit mode.
3. Enter the name and press Enter, or click outside the field.

After saving with Enter, another empty row of the same type appears below, so you can type items one after another. An empty name does not create an item: the row disappears. A new item goes below the selected list row, or to the end of the list when nothing is selected.

An item can also be added in a chosen place: the row menu (right-click or the three-dot icon) has the Add cost and Add revenue options with the Above, Below and Sub-item submenu. The item is ready for further editing in the panel (see Item panel).

The add buttons and edit menus are visible to users with the Admin permission for the budget.

Structure and order of items

Items are arranged in a tree. An item that has sub-items is a group item: it has no amounts, dates, forecasts or actuals of its own, and its values are the sum of the items below it. In the amount columns of a group item you then see the hint The value is the sum of the child items and cannot be edited. A group can contain costs, revenue, or both.

• Adding a sub-item — the Sub-item option in the row menu (see Adding an item).
• Moving — dragging a row by the handle on the left changes its order or moves it under another item. An item cannot be moved into itself or into its own sub-item.
• Color — the Color option in the row menu colors the row.

Note: when the first sub-item goes into a regular item of the same type, the parent’s values (amounts, forecasts, actuals, schedule link, attributes and color) move to the new sub-item, and the parent becomes a group item. When the sub-item has a different type from the parent, the parent’s forecasts are deleted and its own values are cleared. Actuals mapping rules that point to the parent are removed.

A group item cannot be changed to cost or revenue. Every move is recorded in the item history.

Cloning and changing the type

Cloning

Cloning creates a copy of an item, which speeds up entering similar costs or revenue.

1. Open the item menu: right-click or the three-dot icon on the row, or the menu in the item panel.
2. Choose Clone Cost (Clone revenue) — in the panel, Clone.

The copy appears right below the original, with the name and a copy suffix. The copy keeps the type, amounts, forecasts, schedule link, attributes, description, attachments and color. The copy does not take over actuals, the baseline, comments or change history. Cloning a group item creates an empty group item with no sub-items.

Changing the type

The Change to revenue and Change to cost options in the item menu change its type. Actuals assigned to the item are detached in the process (they go to the Unassigned row), because the type of an actual must match the type of the item. The change of type is recorded in the item history. The type of a group item cannot be changed.

Item panel

The panel opens when you click an item name, or with the Show details option in the row menu. The header shows the project and the path of parent items. The panel contains:

• the name, changed in place (it cannot be empty),
• the Actual, Forecast and Total amounts, and, when a budget baseline has been approved in the project, also Progress, Difference and Baseline (see Forecast, Actual, Baseline and difference),
• a section with the Forecast and Actual tabs: the item’s entries over time, which can be narrowed with a date range (see Budget forecasts and Budget actuals). In a group item the section is read-only,
• the Schedule field with the linked schedule element and its dates (see Linking forecasts to the schedule),
• item attributes (see Budget item attributes),
• a description with text formatting and attachments (the paperclip: a file, a link or an existing project file),
• the Comments (with mentions) and History tabs — the list of item changes with date and author.

The panel menu (the three-dot icon) has the options: Copy link, Clone, Change to cost or Change to revenue, Assign to schedule, Add actual, Shift forecasts in time, Zero out past forecasts and Delete.

Editing in the list

• Name — the Rename option in the row menu, or a click on the name.
• Forecast — clicking the amount of an item that has one forecast or none changes that forecast or adds the first one (clearing the amount deletes it). With several forecasts the amount is a sum and is locked (The value is a sum of several entries and cannot be edited.).
• Amount and Actual are sums, and Start date and End date come from forecasts and actuals, so they are not edited directly.
• Attributes — clicking a cell opens an editor that matches the attribute type.

Amounts are entered as positive numbers; the sign follows the item type. Changes are saved at once and recorded in the history. Users with the Admin permission for the budget can edit; others see the panel read-only.

Budget views

The Budget tab has three views, switched on the right of the bar: List, By period and Actuals. The Actuals view is described in Budget actuals.

List

A tree of items with columns. By default you see End date, Amount, Forecast and Actual. The Columns button adds and hides columns (Start date, Progress, Difference and Difference [%], item attributes, and after a budget baseline is approved also Baseline) and sets their order. The Total row gathers the values of the whole budget, and Unassigned shows actuals with no item. The Export button saves the list to a file.

By period

Item amounts split into periods. The scale switch has Month, Quarter and Year. The Rows button chooses which series are shown for each item: Forecast, Actual, Baseline and the difference in amount and in percent. Period amounts can be edited directly, like a forecast in the list. The Export button saves the view to a file.

Filter

The Filter button (the List and By period views) narrows items by name, type (costs, revenue), the range of start and end dates, and attribute values. Closing the filter bar clears the filter.

The browser remembers column and series settings, the scale and the filter separately for each project and each user, so they do not change the view for other people.

Importing items

Import loads many items at once from a project template or a file. The options are in the Settings menu above the budget, under Import budget items; users with the Admin permission for the budget can see them.

From a template

1. Choose From template. The Budget import wizard opens.
2. Choose a project template and enter the start date. Item dates are recalculated relative to that date.
3. Click Next, check the preview in the Budget preview step and confirm.

The list contains only templates assigned to the project’s workspaces (see Workspaces and template permissions).

From Microsoft Excel

1. Choose From Microsoft Excel.
2. Upload the file (supported formats: .xlsx and .csv, up to 10 MB). You can download a template (Download template); the template file contains sample items that must be deleted before the import.
3. Click Next and assign the file columns to fields: Name, WBS, Description, Forecast, Actual, item attributes or Skip. For amount columns you give the date format.
4. Confirm the import.

The name column is required (Name column is missing), columns cannot repeat (Column appears more than once), and forecast and actual amounts in one row must have the same sign (All forecast and actual amounts in a row must have the same sign.). The item type follows the sign: if the file has positive and negative amounts, positive ones become revenue and negative ones costs; if there are only negative ones, all are costs; if only positive ones, the window asks whether to import them as costs (Imports costs) or as revenue (Imports revenues).

Items from an import have a history entry saying they were created from a template or from an imported file.

Deleting an item

1. Open the item menu in the budget list (right-click or the three-dot icon) or the menu in the item panel.
2. Choose Delete.
3. Confirm in the Delete budget item window.

Deleting an item also removes its sub-items, all its forecasts, its change history and any actuals mapping rules that point to it. The parent item and the project totals are recalculated automatically.

Note: deleting cannot be undone. Anyone who still has the deleted item open will see This budget item has been deleted.

Budget item attributes

Budget items can be described with custom attributes, similar to projects. An organization administrator defines item attributes in the main menu: System settings, the Budget tab, the Budget items card, the Budget attributes section, the New attribute button. The attribute order in the list is set by dragging, and the Type filter narrows the list of attributes by type.

Supported attribute types: short and long text, single-choice and multiple-selection list, number, date, link, and a function field (calculations on dates or numbers, for example the gross amount as the net amount multiplied by VAT).

In a project, attributes are visible in the item panel and as columns of the budget list (the Columns button). Values are edited in the list or in the panel. A group item has no attributes. An item takes over the attribute values from its parent when it becomes its first sub-item (see Structure and order of items). Budget attributes can be used to filter items and in budget reports.

Actual attributes, separate fields that describe an actual, are defined in the same tab, on the Actuals card (see Budget actual attributes). The same Budget items card is also where you set Decimal places and Amount display (see Currency and decimal places).