Project budget
Derive the budget from the contract BOQ at cost, see which lines it could not price, compare it with the contract and with actual cost, and revise it with a reason.
The budget is what you plan to spend on the job. It is kept as its own BOQ document — the same lines as the contract BOQ, priced at your cost instead of the client's rate — so the people who work from the client BOQ never see your costs.
📷 Screenshot spot — the Budget tab of an awarded project: the Budget panel with Budget BOQ, Budget cost, Contract (revised), Planned margin and No phase, the Budget history list beside it, and the KPI strip and Margin panel below
Save as static/img/screenshots/projects-budget.png and replace this box with 
Who sees the budget
| Who | What they can do |
|---|---|
| Company Admin | Create and revise the budget; read everything on the tab. |
| Project Manager, Accountant | Read the budget, margin and cost on the projects they are on. |
| QS / Estimator and the site roles | No Budget tab. They price and build the work; the margin is kept separate. |
Only the Company Admin can create or revise a budget. A Project Manager who could rewrite their own budget could never overrun it.
Create the budget
You need a priced BOQ first — normally the contract BOQ that arrived with the award.
- Open the project and go to the Budget tab.
- Click Create budget.
- Leave Source BOQ blank to use the contract BOQ. If the project has no contract BOQ, the field says so — choose one of the project's priced BOQs instead.
- Optionally give it a Name. Left blank, it is named after the source BOQ with "— budget" added.
- Click Derive budget.
The Budget panel now shows the Budget BOQ number (click it to open the budget line by line), Budget cost, Contract (revised), Planned margin with its percentage, and No phase — the part of the budget not filed against any phase. The project's Budget cost in the header updates at the same time.
How the budget rate is worked out
Each line takes its cost from the line's rate analysis — the five cost parts and nothing else:
budget rate = (material + labour + equipment + subcontract + overhead) ÷ output quantity
Example, for PCC with a rate analysis per cum:
| Part | ₹ per cum |
|---|---|
| Material | 3,800 |
| Labour | 900 |
| Equipment | 300 |
| Subcontract | 0 |
| Overhead | 250 |
| Budget rate | 5,250 |
| Profit (left out of the budget) | 525 |
| Client rate in the BOQ | 5,775 |
For 100 cum the contract carries ₹5,77,500 and the budget ₹5,25,000, so the planned margin on that line is ₹52,500.
Overhead stays in because it is money that leaves the bank. Profit is left out because it is not paid to anybody. If the budget carried the profit, contract minus budget would come out at zero on every job and every cost report would show you breaking even.
Lines the budget could not price
A BOQ line priced by hand has a selling rate but no cost breakdown, so there is nothing to build a cost from. The app does not guess. Such lines go into the budget at zero, and the Budget panel names them:
3 lines still at a zero cost rate: 2.4, 2.7, 5.1. The budget is partial until they are priced.
The same list is written into the project's Timeline when the budget is derived. Headings and rate-only lines are not gaps and are not listed.
To close the gap, either price those lines in the budget BOQ (click its number), or add rate analyses to the source lines and revise the budget.
Revise the budget
- On the Budget tab, click Revise budget.
- Choose the Source BOQ and Name as before.
- Fill Reason (required — this replaces the current budget).
- Click Replace budget.
The new budget becomes the project's budget and its total becomes the project's budget cost. The old one is never deleted: it stays in Budget history, faded, and is marked Superseded if it had been approved. "What did we think this would cost in March?" stays answerable.
A revision replaces the whole budget from the source BOQ. Lines you priced by hand in the old budget BOQ are not carried across — price them again, or add rate analyses first.
Read the Budget tab
| Panel | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| KPI strip | Contract, Budget cost, Actual cost (with the % certified) and Forecast cost, with how the forecast was worked out. |
| Margin | Budget — what you planned to make. Forecast — what you now expect to make. Earned — what you have made so far. Red when negative or overrunning. |
| Exposure | Committed (ordered, not yet consumed), Actual (consumed) and Total. |
| Revenue | Recognised — counted only when the client certifies a bill — and Progress. |
| Cost by head | Actual cost under material, labour, equipment, subcontract, overhead and other expense. |
| Budget vs actual, by phase | Budget and actual cost per phase. Only phases with a budget or a cost appear; budget lines without a phase show as "(no phase)". |
| Execution status | Every contract BOQ line: Contract, Executed, Billed, Certified and Balance quantity, and Balance value. Variation lines carry a VO tag. |
Click View cost ledger → to see every cost entry behind these figures — see Costs. How the forecast and margins are calculated is explained on Project financials.
A healthy budget margin with a negative forecast margin is a job in trouble that a budget report alone will not show. Read the two together.
Tips
- Derive the budget the day the contract BOQ arrives — "No budget yet" is normal for a job awarded that morning, not for one a month old.
- The BOQ screens have no phase field, so most budgets show their whole value under No phase. By-phase rows then mostly show actual cost booked to phases from the muster and equipment logs.
- Give every BOQ line a rate analysis before you derive. It is far quicker than pricing zero lines afterwards.
Related
- Rate analysis — where each line's cost comes from.
- Costs — the cost ledger the actual figures are read from.
- Change orders — approved variations raise the contract value the margin is measured against.
- Cost overrun — the AI agent that watches budget against actual for you.