Budget management

A project's Budget screen lets you build, track and analyze a project's full budget: both costs and revenues, in currency or man-days, with monitoring of the gap between what was planned and what is delivered.

You reach it from the Budget menu in the project sidebar.

Overview

A project budget is organized into lines (or envelopes), each matching a category. Each line is typed:

• Expense — a cost (resources, services, purchases…)
• Income — a revenue (customer billing…)

Two display modes are available:

• Hierarchical — lines grouped under a parent envelope
• Flat — all lines at the same level

And two entry units, switchable via the selector at the top:

• Currency (€, $, £, CHF, xof…)
• M.D — man-days

Adding and editing a budget

To add a line, click "+ Budget" at the top left of the budget screen.

When you assign a resource to a task, you can specify which budget the allocation is charged to. FoxPlan then automatically integrates the planned and actual values into the matching lines (see Costs from resources).

You can also manually add envelopes in currency or man-days via the "+" button next to Planned or Actual.

Fields of a budget line

When editing a line (or a cost), you fill in, depending on the case:

Field	Description
Title / Name	Line label
Type	Expense or Income
Envelope	Parent grouping of the line
Parent task	Project task the line is attached to
Planned / Actual amount	Expected then observed values
Cost / Revenue	Cost or revenue amount
Resource cost	Computed automatically from allocations
Billable cost / Billable revenue	For customer billing
Daily rate	Daily rate applied (M.D → currency)
Currency + Exchange rate	For foreign-currency lines
Customer / supplier name	Third party involved
Supplier expenses	External costs
Internal / third-party reference	Reference numbers (PO, invoice…)
Attachment	Supporting document
Event	Associated milestone or event

Budget versions

FoxPlan tracks each line across several versions (or scenarios), which lets you compare planned vs actual:

Version	Costs	Revenues	Margin
Approved budget	Approved costs	Approved revenues	Budgeted margin
Forecast budget	Forecast costs	Forecast revenues	Forecast margin
Planned budget	Planned costs	Planned revenues	Planned margin
Actual budget	Actual costs	Actual revenues	Actual margin

A version's margin is the gap between its revenues and its costs. Comparing the forecast margin to the actual margin highlights the project's financial drift.

Quick read

• Approved = the validated reference budget
• Forecast = the to-date projection (re-forecast)
• Planned = what the resource planning implies
• Actual = what was actually spent / billed

Costs from resources

The resource cost does not have to be entered manually: it derives from planning.

• The planned cost comes from the resources' planned allocations on the tasks charged to the budget.
• The actual cost comes from time entries / actuals.
• The amount is computed via the resource's daily rate × the number of man-days.

You can also analyze the cost by resource or the cost by state, as well as the matching revenues.

Budget line statuses

Each line (or version) can carry a status, useful for steering and locking:

Status	Meaning
Open	Free entry
Ongoing	Being processed
Pending	To be validated
Approved	Validated
Baseline	Frozen reference for comparison
Closed	Closed
Archived	Archived

Draft mode

The draft lets you work on a copy of the budget table without saving changes — ideal to simulate a scenario or prepare a one-off export.

• Open a draft: you switch to the copy; changes are no longer persisted.
• Close the draft: you return to the real data.

caution

As long as a draft is open, no change is saved to the real budget. Close the draft to return to normal mode.

Configuring budget entry display

Entry configuration happens at the project definition level, Budget tab. It lets you show only the elements relevant to your project.

FoxPlan handles costs and/or revenues, each trackable as:

• Approved budget
• Forecast
• Planned
• Actual

Checking / unchecking these elements simplifies the display: for example, disabling Revenues for a cost-only project, or removing Planned if you only track actuals.

Configuring budget management (workspace)

Global configuration happens in Settings → Workspace → Budget tab:

• Default currency
• Budget cutoff dates
• Number of decimals
• Creation / duplication of budget versions
• Available budget line statuses

Remember to save after each change.

Analyzing a budget (pivot table)

Budget analysis at project or portfolio level is available through a built-in pivot table.

1. Select Analysis at the top of the screen
2. Available fields appear at the top: drag them into the table (rows / columns / values)
3. Filter each field via the three-line icon
4. Export the result to Excel

Depending on license

Some advanced budget analyses may be part of the Pro version.

See also

• Project management — planning and resource allocation that feed the costs
• Project members — who can edit the budget depending on their role