Budget Settings

Project administrators can access the settings for Cost Management from the Settings tool in the left navigation. This article focuses on the Budget settings:

Budget Code Format

Create your budget code format by following the guidelines in the Budget Code Setup article. Define the budget code segments before importing a budget into Cost Management.

See the Budget Code Setup article to learn how to:

Budget Name Format

Select one or more budget segment descriptions as the default name of new budgets.

When you rename budget segments, delete them, or change the order in the Budget Code Segments setting, the default names will also change.

Budget Overview Columns

Project administrators can manage the name, group, and order of existing columns. They can also create custom columns based on project values or other columns.

To manage existing columns and create custom calculated budget columns, click Manage.

To change where existing columns appear (group and position), rename them and control which appear by default. Select the column name and choose the desired option beneath the list view.

To learn more about managing custom columns, see the Create Custom Columns article.

Lock the Budget

Once the original budget setup is finalized, select the Lock Budget button to lock it.

Important: Only account administrators are allowed to fully lock the budget. Project administrators can set the budget to 'Original budget locked,' but they can't change the lock once it is set.

After a budget is locked, the quantities, units, unit costs, and ratios of the forecast are also locked. However, with the Forecast tool, you can still:

Tip: As an account administrator, you can also lock the budget with integration. See the Lock Fields and Actions with an Integrated ERP System article to learn what else can be locked and how it affects Cost Management's workflows.

Allow Internal Budget Transfer

Turn on to enable members to make an internal budget transfer from the budget summary view.

Toggle on Approval Workflow to create a workflow for budget transferring. Learn more about setting up Approval Workflows.

Learn more about internal budget transfers which you can do in the Budget tool, from forecast adjustments, or in the Change Order tool for PCOs and SCOs.

Schedule Budget Snapshots

Set up automatic snapshots to capture budget data at regular intervals. You can configure the frequency, day, time, and duration for which snapshots should be taken:

  1. Choose between weekly or monthly snapshots.
  2. Specify the day of the week for weekly snapshots. For monthly schedules, snapshots occur only once per month.
  3. For monthly schedules, define the specific instance of the day within the month (for example, first, second, or last). The default value is first. For example, selecting second Tuesday schedules the snapshot for the second Tuesday of each month.

Budget snapshot setting

When configuring snapshots, you’ll receive an estimate of how many snapshots will be generated within the specified time frame.

Note: Only one budget snapshot schedule can be active at a time.

To delete a schedule, click Edit schedule, and then select Remove schedule.

Snapshots are accessible in the Budget tool, where you can filter between manually and automatically created snapshots. Learn more about Budget Snapshots.

Budget Forecast

Budget forecast allows you to forecast both revenue and costs, providing visibility into projected fees by calculating the difference between forecasted budget revenue and forecasted costs. This enables general contractors to manage scenarios where time-related resources may change (such as increased hours) without exceeding the Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP), requiring either change order transfers or internal budget transfers.

Turn on to show budget forecast columns and allow budget forecast adjustments. Recommended when using a cost plus main contract.

If the toggle is on:

Note: This setting cannot be turned off once Forecast Final Budget is selected as the distribution curve in the cash flow settings. See Forecast Settings to learn more.

Related articles:

Date Range Based Resources

If budget forecast is on, you can configure the billing and actual cost frequency so that Qty Elapsed updates on the same schedule. If the revenue forecast is off, there is an option to configure the actual cost frequency only. In both scenarios, this setting cannot be changed once any date range based resource has been distributed in cash flow.

Qty Elapsed represents the count of completed periods (weeks or months) based on your frequency settings. The system determines this by:

  1. Calculating the arrival date for each period based on your settings:

    • Monthly frequency: Last calendar day of the month + offset workdays
    • Weekly frequency: Last workday of the week + offset workdays

  2. Counting completed periods: If the current date is on or after the arrival date for a period, that period counts toward the Qty Elapsed total.

  3. Respecting workday settings: The calculation follows your project's defined workdays.

Offset = 0 Offset > 0
Monthly frequency Qty Elapsed for budget or cost forecast updates monthly, on the last calendar day of the month Qty Elapsed for budget or cost forecast updates monthly, {Offset} workdays after the last calendar day of each month
Weekly frequency Qty Elapsed for budget or cost forecast updates weekly, on the last workday of the week Qty Elapsed for budget or cost forecast updates weekly, {Offset} workdays after the last workday of each week

In the budget bottom flyout, the Billing Frequency and Actual Cost Frequency columns indicate the frequency settings. All resources will share the same frequency configuration.

See Date Range Based Forecasting to learn how to use these settings to create and manage date range resources.

Main Contract Schedule of Values

Show change orders in the main contract as line items or a column. Individuals can toggle this view in the main contract, but this selection sets the default view. See the Main Contract article for more information.

You can toggle this view for:

To do so:

  1. Expand the Main Contract Schedule of Values section.
  2. Select As Line Items or As a Column using the radio button.

Main Contract Types

A main contract is the primary contractual agreement entered into directly, for example, between an owner and a main contractor. When creating a new main contract, you can choose your main contract type from the predefined options or add one in the settings to fit your company's needs.

Choose from the presented options:

Tip: System defaults cannot be deleted. You can deactivate them, so they do not show up in the user interface.

To add a main contract type, click Add in the upper left corner of the Main Contract Types.

To assign a contract type to a line item by a drop-down list:

  1. Go to the Budget tool.

  2. Switch to the Main Contract tab.

  3. Enter the edit mode .

  4. Choose the contract type in the Type column.

To learn how to create a contract, see the Work with Contracts article.

Budget Payment Application Approval Workflows

Project administrators can create custom approval workflows for budget payment applications. This allows you to automate the routing of documents for internal review and keep the consistency and transparency of company-defined processes across projects. Learn more about approval workflows.

Tip: You can also create approval workflows for cost-related items.

Document Templates

Create standard main contract and budget payment application template formats using fields that automatically populate with data. See the Document Templates in Cost Management article for more information.

Dates for Main Contract and Budget Payment Application

You can define a default value for dates and choose to have them displayed on the home page. This will help you manage the schedule in Cost Management. To do so, open the More menu and click Edit.

Note: Items without the More menu can't be displayed on the home page and can't be edited.

If applicable, you can choose the default value for the date. Use the relative date option for cases where an activity is relative to the date of another activity (for example, creating a procurement schedule). The relative date option is only available for editable system-generated dates and custom dates.

Tip: You can create relative dates for custom attributes and custom columns.

Available document variable examples are shown by clicking Show More. You can use those to prepare a document templates.

Custom Attributes

Create custom attributes for the details panels within budget items, main contract items, and budget payment applications in Cost Management. See Create Custom Attributes for more information.

Default Email Message

Customize the default email message for budget payment applications submitted for review.

Parent page: Manage Cost Management Settings