Project financials
Read a project's contract, budget, cost, progress, forecast and margin on one screen, with budget against actual by phase and the balance of work line by line.
Project financials sit on the Budget tab, below the budget itself. Nothing on this screen is typed in or stored: every figure is worked out when you open it, from the cost ledger, the certified RA bills and the contract BOQ. The same progress and forecast margin also appear in the strip at the top of every project tab.
📷 Screenshot spot — the Budget tab below the budget panel: the Contract / Budget cost / Actual cost / Forecast strip, and the Margin, Exposure and Revenue panels
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The headline figures
| Figure | What it is |
|---|---|
| Contract | The revised contract value — the award plus approved variations. |
| Budget cost | The revised budget, including the cost of approved variations. |
| Actual cost | Cost the job has used, from the cost ledger. Underneath: how much of the job is certified. |
| Forecast | What the job is now expected to cost in total. Underneath: the method used. It turns red when the forecast passes the contract value. |
Progress
Progress is measured by value, from what the client has certified:
certified quantity × rate, summed over the contract BOQ, ÷ contract quantity × rate, summed the same way.
Fifty finished lines worth ₹2,000 each are not half of a hundred-line BOQ whose other fifty lines are the ₹2 crore structure, so counting lines would mislead. Using the client's certified quantity, not a site estimate, means progress is a figure the client has already agreed to. It never shows more than 100%.
The forecast and its basis
Two forecasts are worked out every time:
- remaining at budget — actual cost so far, plus the budget for the work still to do. It assumes today's overrun was a one-off.
- current performance — actual cost ÷ progress. It assumes the job keeps performing the way it has so far.
Below 10% certified progress the screen shows remaining at budget; from 10% on it shows current performance. Before anything is certified it shows not started, and the forecast is the full budget plus anything already spent.
Example: budget ₹4,00,00,000, actual cost ₹30,00,000, progress 6%. Remaining at budget gives ₹30,00,000 + 94% of the budget = ₹4,06,00,000. Current performance would give ₹30,00,000 ÷ 6% = ₹5,00,00,000. At 6% the screen shows ₹4,06,00,000, labelled remaining at budget.
Actual ÷ progress means nothing early in a job: a ₹10,000 mobilisation overrun on a job 2% done forecasts a ₹5,00,000 overrun on the whole contract, and a report that says that once teaches people to ignore it. Actual plus remaining budget is the honest answer early but complacent late, because it assumes every overrun so far was the last. A forecast quoted without its method is a number somebody will take out of context.
The screen shows only the forecast the rule picks, with its method underneath. The other one is not displayed.
Margin, exposure and revenue
Margin shows three figures that answer three different questions:
| Margin | Worked out as | It tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Budget | contract − budget | what you planned to make |
| Forecast | contract − forecast | what you now expect to make |
| Earned | revenue recognised − actual cost | what you have made so far |
A healthy budget margin next to a negative forecast margin is a job in trouble that the budget alone would not show.
Exposure shows Committed (ordered, not yet consumed), Actual (consumed) and Total — everything already spoken for.
Revenue shows Recognised — the certified amount of every certified bill, recognised at certification and nowhere else — and Progress.
Budget against actual
- Cost by head shows actual cost and each head's share. It has no budget column: the budget holds one cost rate per BOQ line, not a split into material, labour and the rest, so a budget per head would be invented.
- Budget vs actual, by phase shows Budget, Actual and Variance for each phase. Variance is budget − actual: positive is under budget, and over-budget phases show in red. Phases with neither a budget nor a cost are left out. Budget lines and costs that carry no phase are grouped together as "(no phase)".
Execution status
Execution status answers "how much of this job is left", line by line: Item, Description, Unit, Contract, Executed (last measured on a bill), Billed (last submitted), Certified, Balance and Balance value. Lines added by a variation carry a VO tag. The table shows the first 200 lines of the contract BOQ.
Who can see it
The Company Admin, and Project Managers and Accountants on the project's team. A QS / Estimator does not see it — the role prices the work, and the margin is kept separate. Site roles do not see the Budget tab at all. A team member ticked Sees financials whose role does not see cost gets the Contract and Budget cost figures in the project's header strip, but not this screen.
Cost Overrun Watch reads the budget, the ledger and progress, works out the variance and forecast, and explains in plain English which cost lines are driving an overrun. It creates nothing.
Related
- Budget — create or revise the budget these figures are measured against.
- Cost ledger — every entry behind the actual and committed figures.
- RA bills — certification drives both progress and recognised revenue.
- Change orders — approved variations move the contract and the budget.