Using Budgets

What budgets are used for in Beeye, why, and how to use them

Definition

A budget is a duration in hours representing the estimated time necessary to complete a task. For example, a monthly accounting task can have an allocated budget of 2 hours for a given client.

For a given task, the total budget can be divided into several budgets that can be allocated to different resources: for example, in an audit project, the total budget of a task can be divided among partner, manager, and senior.

This separation of the budget allows for a more detailed allocation of the budget and thus more accurate comparisons during the project in terms of planned and actual time for each of the resources.

The budget can then be translated into a monetary equivalent (called valuation) by multiplying its duration in hours by the bill rate of the resource assigned to this budget (or part of the budget). For example, if the resource has a bill rate of $100/hour, the 2-hour task will have a valuation of $200.

Why use budgets?

Entering budgets can allow you to:

• Estimate the total budget of a project: get an idea of the efforts required for the completion of a task, and subsequently a project consisting of a set of tasks.
• Value the budget of a project to compare it to fees: by comparing the valuation of budgets allocated on tasks with the fees, you get an indicator of the potential profitability of this project. If your fees are lower than the valued budget, you are not using your resources profitably.
• Estimate the workload represented by tasks assigned to a resource or a team: by summing the budgets on tasks assigned to a resource, you can quickly estimate if their workload is sustainable.
• Measure productivity by comparing the budgeted time to the actual time spent on a task: comparing the budgeted times to the times spent afterwards can allow you to adjust your budgets, and then adjust your fees accordingly to avoid time-consuming but unprofitable tasks.
• Automatically plan tasks by distributing the budget between the right due dates: Having a defined budget on the task is a necessary condition to be able to plan it automatically.

How are budgets valued?

To know the value in currency of the budgeted times on tasks, Beeye multiplies these times by a bill rate.

Several rules apply to know which bill rate is used to value a given budget:

• If the resource has a defined bill rate, this bill rate will be used to value the budget.
• If the resource does not have a bill rate, but their position has a defined bill rate, the bill rate of the position will be used. This option is useful for obtaining a valuation of the tasks of a project during the budget creation phase, before the tasks are assigned to named resources.
• If no bill rate is defined, the budget will not be valued (it will have a value of 0).

If you set the bill rates as indicated, you will find the valued budgets in the summary table of the project sheet (Information section), as well as in the Projects page (Budget (amount) column).

How are budgets used by automated scheduling?

Automated scheduling takes into account the information contained in the budgets in the following way:

• If a resource is directly assigned: this resource will be scheduled between the dates defined for this budget.
• If a profile is defined, but no resource is selected: a resource matching the profile will be automatically selected and scheduled.
• If a Field is selected and the field is filled in: the resource indicated in the field will be selected and scheduled between the dates defined for this budget. If the field is not filled in, the task will not be scheduled.

How to use budgets?

For more information on using budgets, consult specific articles to learn how to add a budget to a task, modify a budget, or delete a budget.

• Add a budget to a task
• Modify a budget
• Clone a budget
• Delete a budget