Scoro’s project view includes a separate Budget insights section to help you understand budget burn and the overall financial health of the project. This article will focus on the budget charts included in that section. If you want to learn more about the Quoted vs actual table, you can read about it here.
How to view to budget charts
To view budget charts, enable the Budget insights toggle in the project view. This will open up a separate section that includes the 'Quoted vs actual' table and relevant budget charts.
You can find two charts in this section:
- Budget burn, which is visible for all types of projects
- Budget breakdown, which is visible only if you use role prices as the revenue calculation method in your Project
Both charts are dynamic and updated in real-time to reflect any changes you make. If you hover over the legend at the bottom of the chart, Scoro will highlight the respective line or bar on the graph for easier reading.
Budget burn
The budget burn chart tracks all project-related activities. It shows you the budget progress over time, so you can analyze the burn rate. Currently, it tracks only the time budget. In addition to tracking planned and actual work, the chart also includes a forecast dimension. It helps you detect potential overservicing ahead of time and course correct promptly by replanning or renegotiating the project scope.
The chart is always visible under Budget insights and starts showing data as soon as you have set either a start and an end date to the project or planned some tasks.
The displayed period is determined by:
- One-off projects: project start and end date. Note! If someone logs time outside the project period, the displayed period will be adjusted accordingly to include those activities as well.
- Retainers: filtered period(s).
The lines on the chart help you track and compare four different dimensions:
- The budget line is a horizontal line indicating the total hours you’ve budgeted for the project. The value is taken either from the quote or from the manually set budget (the ‘Total hours’ field). Anything that goes over the budget line will turn red as it indicates you’re over the budget.
- The planned line tracks all the tasks and events you’ve already planned for the project. Note that scheduled time entries do not affect planned time – the line takes into account only the planned duration of tasks and events.
- The line starts from the start date of the first planned task/event and ends with the end date of the last one.
- Tasks don’t need to be assigned to show up on the planned line.
- Tasks affect the line graph in the following way:
- if a task has a start and an end date, the total duration of the task is evenly distributed across that time frame
- if a task has only a start date or only an end date, the total duration of the task is shown on the start or end date respectively, resulting in a spike in the line
- if a task has neither a start date nor an end date, the total duration of the task is evenly distributed across the project time frame
- Events affect the line graph in the following way:
- if an event has multiple participants, the duration of the event is multiplied by the number of participants
- if an event is linked with a task, the event will not be shown on the planned line. The event will turn into a scheduled time entry for that task and will be displayed on the forecast line instead.
- Tasks marked as “personal” are excluded from the chart.
- The actual line indicates how much time your team members have already spent on the assigned activities, i.e. the logged time. It follows past events and past time entries – both completed and not completed ones. For example, if a team member logs time under a task but forgets to mark the time entry as done, that time entry is still reflected in the actual time.
- The forecast line shows you how the remaining planned work is going to span out over the course of the project if you continue as currently planned. The line follows the remaining planned time for tasks/events and future scheduled time entries. For example: You planned 100 hours for a task. 20 hours of it are done. These 20 hours will be reflected on the actual line and the remaining 80 hours will be reflected on the forecast line as work you intend to do.
- The forecast line always starts from today as it’s a projection for the future.
- Tasks need to have a start and an end date for the forecast line to be accurate.
- Scheduled time entries are part of the forecasted dimension. The line always takes into account the most specific information available:
- No scheduled time entries = the line relies on the remaining planned duration of tasks and events.
- With scheduled time entries = the line follows the time entries scheduled for the future.
- If anyone other than the task assignee logs or schedules time under a task, it’s interpreted as work done in addition to the planned time and will be forecasted it as overtime. If you do not want it to count as overtime, simply make sure that everyone who is supposed to log time under the task is also a task assignee.
Budget breakdown
The budget breakdown chart helps you track the use of the time budget on a role level. This way, it’s easier to detect if you’re overutilizing certain roles and need to replan the work to remain profitable. The chart is only visible if you have chosen role prices for the revenue calculation method.
The chart starts displaying data as soon as you’ve assigned roles/doers on the quote OR assigned a task to a team member.
The bars on the chart help you track and compare four different dimensions:
- The budget line indicates the total hours budgeted for each role. The target values are taken from quote lines. If you have not added roles on the quote, the budget line doesn’t appear because there’s no budget defined for the role.
- Only successful quotes are included in the calculation.
- If the same role is used on several quote lines, the quote lines will be summed up. In case of multiple quotes, the totals for each role will be also summed up. Each role will only have one bar on the chart.
- The planned bar shows you the tasks and events you’ve already planned and assigned to team members in the given role.
- Tasks need to be assigned in order to be counted as planned time. Unassigned tasks will not be reflected on the chart.
- Tasks marked as “personal” are excluded from the chart.
- The actual bar indicates how much time people in each role have already spent on the assigned activities, i.e. the logged time.
- When a person logs time under a task assigned to another role, their logged time will be shown in the actual bar of their own role. For example, if a design task is assigned to a Senior Designer, but a Project Manager logs 30 minutes under it, these 30 minutes will be reflected in the actual bar of ‘Project Manager’.
- The forecast bar shows you the projected hours for the role based on the remaining planned time. You can enable or disable the forecast dimension from the Include forecast tickbox.
- Tasks need to have a start and end date for the forecast bar to be accurate.
- Past time entries are considered as part of actual time. Future time entries are considered as part of forecasted time.
- As long as time entries do not exceed the planned duration of the task, the forecast bar will reflect only the remaining planned duration of the task. Once the total amount of time entries exceeds the task’s planned duration, the forecast bar will reflect the remaining scheduled time entries.
- If anyone other than the task assignee logs or schedules time under the tasks, it’s interpreted as work done in addition to the planned time and the chart will forecast it as overtime. If you do not want to it count as overtime, simply make sure that everyone who is supposed to log time under the task is also a task assignee.