What is the Budget Feature? #
Projectmates Budget tool is more than a spreadsheet to be maintained, it is a dynamic, collaborative, automated feature that provides live financial data throughout a project. Users can create standardized outlines for budgets based on project type and scope that can be linked to commitments to provide a live look ahead on project spending. Relevant team members can easily view early estimates side by side with total estimated costs all from one central location with no manual calculations required.
Budget Navigation #
The Projectmates budget is located within the Cost Tracking section of the project. The budget can be accessed by,
- Opening up the project and clicking on the Cost Tracking tab.
- Select the option for budget. If a project contains more than one budget you will need to click on the specific budget you want to open.
The budget data is organized into three levels.
Level One: Groups
These are high level roll ups of more granular data and can be identified as the bolded blue sections of the budget.
Level Two: Line Items
These are more specific role ups of project elements that make up a group. Line items are also displayed in blue, but are not bolded and reside below the group that they fall under.
Level Three: Sub Items
This is where the dollar values come into play. To view Sub Items, click on the line item that fall under.
The budget is composed of 5 tabs. Each tab will display different sets of budget data. The tabs are located to the left of the budget.
Budget: The budget tab will automatically load whenever you first open the budget and is composed of five columns designed to track what you plan to spend
Column D | Preliminary Budget: Provides a space for early budget estimates on a project.
Column E | Approved Budget: Houses more formal budget numbers and will be factored into future budget calculations.
Column F | Budget Transfers: Provides a space to track the movement of funds without directly changing the data in column E.
Column H | Total Budget: Summarizes the dollar values from columns E and F for a total budget value.
Cost: The cost tab tracks what you agree to spend on a project. Once commitments are created and linked to the budget, most of the data in this section will populate automatically.
Column I | Commitments: Tracks the dollar value of the original commitment associated with the budget subitem.
Column J | Approved COs: Houses the total value of all fully approved change orders for the section.
Column K | Total Cost: Summarizes the current total values from column I and J to provide users with the total approved amounts at present.
Column L | Pending COs: Houses the value of change orders that are still in the process of being approved. If fully approved that value will automatically transfer to column J. If rejected that value will not display in the budget.
Column M | Anticipated Cost: Summarizes columns K and L to provide a look ahead at how the budget could be impacted following the approval of pending items.
Column N | Cost Per SqFt: Utilizes the square footage of the project and the current anticipated cost to provide the current cost per square foot.
Variance: The Variance tab provides some new information based on the data outlined in the previous tabs.
Column O | Over / Under: Houses the difference between the total budget and the current total cost.
Column P | Anticipated Over / Under: House the difference between the total budget and the current anticipated cost.
Column S | Invoices to Date: Tracks the dollar value of the invoices that have been created against linked commitment thus far.
Actuals: The Actuals tab functions similarly to the variance. Not a lot of new data is displayed, but existing data is restructured to provide updates.
Column T | % S/M: Calculates the what’s been invoiced and displays it as a percentage of the current anticipated cost.
Custom: The fifth tab is a custom tab composed of 6 available columns that clients can format as they wish. Some columns may pull from the previously outlined columns and some may need to be entered manually.
Adding Budget Items Through UI #
The Projectmates budget can be fully built out directly in the system. Though many projects have a starting template, below are the steps to build out or add to a budget.
Adding a new budget group and/or line item
- Open the budget and click on the Line Item button in the upper right-hand corner.
- If creating a new group, type in the group name. If not, select the name of an existing group from the drop down.
- Fill in columns C and D which are required fields.
- Click Save.
Adding a new subitem
- Locate the line item that the sub item will fall under. (If a new line item is needed, follow the steps outlined above first).
- Click on the ellipses to the left of the line-item name.
- Select the option to add Sub-Line Item.
- Fill in the sub item name and section. Dollar values can also be added in at this point.
- Click Save to commit your changes or Save and Add New to create another sub item under that same line item.
Importing Budget Items From Excel #
- Open up the budget that you are looking to edit
- Click on the More button located in the upper right-hand corner
- Click Import/Export Data
- The new window provides two options
- Template: this is a blank excel template that allows you to start from scratch
- Export: this will export out the current budget setup into the excel template
Column A | Group Detail
Columns B, C, and D | Line Item Details
Columns E, F, and G | Sub Item Details
Group and Line Item detail will repeat based on the number of subitems present.
- Fill in the blue required fields. Dollar values can also be added at this time to the right of the budget structure columns.
- Save your excel sheet so that you can find it easily when you go to import.
- In the same window that you downloaded the template from, click on the blue Select button to grab your file.
- Click Import.
Important: Do not check the box to Delete existing data unless true. The budget import will merge to update existing data and create new data where needed. Deleting the existing data will break existing links between the budget and existing financials.
Creating Cost Items From the Budget #
As previously outlined, Projectmates cost tracking tools are designed to link back to the budget in order to provide live cost analysis throughout a project. Bid Packages, Contracts, Purchase Orders, and Invoices can all be created directly from the budget.
Though the scenarios for each will differ, the steps to creating from the budget will be the same.
- Open the budget and locate the items that you want to create you item from
- Check the box next to the line item(s) that you want to include.
- All subitems will be included initially, but unnecessary items can be removed later.
- If an item is already linked to a cost tracking item, then it will not be available for you to select.
- At the top of the budget click on the option for create and select an option from the drop down
- Give your item a name in the window that appears. Once named, hit Go to proceed to the next step.
- At this point you will be working in the form associated with the module you selected.
Note: The item created may contain dollar values if the corresponding section of the budget was filled in.
Ex: if dollar values already exist in column I and you are creating a contract or PO, then those dollar values will be included in the commitment, but can be edited on the items tab.
Budget Setup #
The majority of budget setup is preconfigured at the site level so that you can hit the ground running, but there are a couple of elements that can be set up at the project level for your budget. The Cost Per Square Foot and Custom Columns.
Navigation
- Open up the budget that you are looking to setup.
- Click on the Settings and Approvals located in the upper left-hand side, located above the Budget tab.
Budget Custom Columns
The custom columns are set up in 3 columns.
- Column Name
- Column Formula
- Formula Options
Any items displaying in bold have been configured at the site level and cannot be changed within the project.
Column Name and Formula can be typed in manually.
Adding a formula will allow the field to auto populate based on the formula detail. This field can also be left blank in the setup area. This means that field will need to be entered in manually or added via the excel import tool.
Column Formula can be populated two ways.
Option 1: Type the formula into the text box manually.
- Formulas should be entered in using { }
- Formulas can reference data from the preconfigured columns using a number between 1 and 10.
- Formulas can also reference other custom columns as long as the column precede the column referencing it.
- Ex: Column AC can reference the result of columns AA and AB, but cannot reference Columns AD, AE, and AF.
Option 2: Utilize the Select Formula Options drop down
- Click on the drop down and select the column that you want to reference.
- If creating a formula continue the pull data points from the drop down.
- This will auto format to summarize the data points, but you can manually adjust the formula to subtract (-) or multiple (*) the values.
Cost Per Square Foot
The square footage of a project can be entered in on the same page as the custom columns at the bottom of the list.
The value entered here will automatically be referenced in column N for cost per sqft. This value is calculated by Anticipated Cost (M) / Cost Per Sq Ft (N)
Earned Value #
The Projectmates budget is not only linked to cost tracking items, but can also be linked to the project schedule. All these tools working together allows the system to provide a comprehensive EVA tool.
To Access
- Open the budget that you want to review.
- Beneath the budget tabs on the left-hand side are four EVA views.
Setup
The EVA tool depends on five values to provide measurable results: Start Date, End Date, Actual % Complete, Anticipated Cost and Actuals. If any of these values are inaccurate, results will be skewed.
Option 1: Link to Schedule
Connecting schedule tasks to budget subitems automatically updates the Start Date, End Date and Actual % Complete based on the linked schedule tasks. Multiple schedule tasks can be connected to single budget subitem.
Schedule links are established in the schedule tool.
Option 2: Manually enter start and finish dates
All budget subitems have a field for Start and End dates.
- Open the subitem that you want to edit.
- Select the dates that you want to associate with the sub item.
Cashflow Forecasting #
Projectmates’ Cashflow Forecast app uses a “cash-out” forecasting model that considers existing invoice data, making predictions of your future cost requirements more realistic and accurate.
Access
- Open the budget that you want to analyze
- Click on the Cashflow Forecast option located beneath the budget and EVA tabs.
Projectmates calculates the cashflow forecast for each budget sub-item using its Anticipated Cost (column M), Actual Cost (column S), and start and finish dates.
Setup #
Date Range:
Forecasts are added up by line item and group and can display by month-, quarter-, semi-annual-, and year-long intervals.
- Click on the Change Date Range button at the top of the page.
Projectmates has 9 pre-configured cash flow views already set up or users can manually enter information to generate a custom cashflow. Both options are outlined below.
Option 1:
- Check the box next to the items you want to analyze.
- Click Cashflow Forecast at the top of the screen.
- Select from the pre-configured options.
Option 2:
- Hover over the subitem that you want to edit and click on the edit icon that appears.
- Manually enter in the dollar values for the current date range.
- Click Save.
Management #
The forecasting tool will hold onto the view that was setup until that view is edited. In order to maintain historical versions of a projects forecast users will need to utilize the Saved Files tool.
To Save
- Click on the option for More in the upper right hand corner.
- Select the option to Save to Files.
- Give the forecast a name and click Save.
To Access
- Click on the option for More in the upper right-hand corner.
- Select the option for Saved Files.
- Click on the file name to download the saved view in excel.
