Budget management on projects is a way to keep track of the predetermined budget you and your customer have agreed upon. By allocating resources and estimating time on tasks & meetings, you'll know if you are going over budget. This way you can communicate transparently with your customer so both parties remain happy. This article focuses on some use cases based on a different billing method of your phases in the project.


If you want to learn more about what budget spent means on a project, we advise you to read this article.


Example 1: Billing method of phases is based on ‘fixed price’

  1. Create a project with the invoicing preferences based on ‘price per user’

  2. Fill out a budget for the project e.g. €5000.

  3. Create 2 phases with ‘fixed price’ as billing method

    • Phase 1 = €3000 budget

    • Phase 2 = €2000 budget

  4. Navigate to the tab Project info in the header of your project. You'll find the widget 'Budget' spent here.

  5. The budget spent will be €0,00 / €5000 for the complete project. The profit will already be €5000 because you are working with a fixed price/billable amount of €5000.

  6. Add a task to the first phase with a duration of 3 hours. 

    • Track time for 2 hours on the task.

  7. Add an external cost of €3000 (sale price of the product) to the second phase.

  8. The forecast bar and the tab ‘phase budgets’ will show the following:


  • Forecast for Phase 1 displays €600 because task duration (3h) * external hourly rate user (€200)

  • Spent budget for Phase 1 is €400 because you tracked 2 hours of time: task duration (2h) * external hourly rate user (€200)

  • Spent budget for Phase 2 displays €3000 while the provided budget is €2000, this phase is over budget (in red).

  • In total however you’ve only spent €3400 / €5000 budget, so the budget usage is on track.

    • The profit will be €4860 because of the costs (€140) you’ve made (internal cost of the user (€70) that tracked 2 hours of time).

Example 2: Billing method of phases is based on ‘time and material’

  1. Create a project with the invoicing preferences based on ‘price per user’

  2. Fill out a budget for the project e.g. €5 000.

  3. Create 3 phases with ‘time & material’ as billing method:

    • First phase with €1 000 budget

    • Second phase with €1 500 budget

    • Third phase with €2 500 budget

  4. Add tasks to the phases:

    • Add a task to the first phase with a duration of 5 hours.

    • Add a task to the second phase with a duration of 10 hours.

    • Add task to the third phase with a duration of 15 hours.

  5. Track time on the tasks:

    • First phase: track 4 hours time of the provided 5 hours.

    • Second phase: track 7 hours of the provided 10 hours.

    • Third phase: track 20 hours of the provided 15 hours.

  6. You’ll find the following budget spent overview on your Project info page:


  • Phase 1 is on track (green) because it won’t go over budget: 

    • €800 is already spent because 4 hours were tracked (external cost of €200 * 4 hours)

    • 1 hour of time tracking (€200) is still remaining

    • Forecast €1000: €800 spent + €200 forecasted

  • Phase 2 is at risk (yellow) because it will go over budget if the remaining hours of the task are tracked:

    • €1400 is already spent because 7 hours were tracked (external cost of €200 * 7 hours) 

    • 3 hours of time tracking remaining (€600).

    • Forecast €2000: €1400 spent + €600 forecasted

  • Phase 3 is already over budget (red):

    • €4000 is already spent because 20 hours were tracked (external cost of €200 * 20 hours)

    • 5 hours more time tracking was done (€1000): 20 hours instead of the task duration of 15 hours 

    • Forecast €4000: €1500 more than provided (€2500) was spent. 

      • Light red colour = €2500 was provided but with task duration of 15 hours the phase was already at risk to go over budget to begin with: €200 (external cost) * 15 (hours) = €3000

      • Darker red colour = the extra €1000 euro spent because of the 5 hours time tracking