Budget Overview

Budgets help you track the total estimated cost required to complete a project or program. Before a project or program starts, the cost engineer and project or program manager determine scope and budget requirements and set these estimates at the project or program level. As requirements change, resource and financial support are adjusted accordingly. The team members involved in planning, funding, and financial support can estimate budgets from the bottom up using the manual budget and log changes to the budget at any time from as early as the planning stage to after the project or program is underway.

Budgets are created manually or are based on scope. You can use both methods of budgeting together. If you use both methods of budgeting, the Project Current Budget field on the project Cost Sheet page will calculate the sum as the Approved Manual Current Budget plus the Revised Cost of the scope budget.

Manual Budget

A manual budget is based on user-entered costs. This method is suitable for bottom-up budgeting. As your budgeting needs change, you can request changes and transfers using the Budget Changes and Budget Transfers pages. Depending on the cost categories of your budget line items, you can also use the Budget table to enter fields and calculate the total cost. For example, if you have a budget line item with a labor cost category, you can enter Quantity, Unit of Measure, Production Rate, and Labor Rate to calculate the total cost.

Manual budget change and transfer logs help you keep track of budget alterations as they occur. The Approved Manual Current Budget field (approved changes and transfers) and Pending Original Manual Budget field on the Cost Sheet display changes so you have up-to-date and accurate budget information for each project. These logs also provide a clear indication of the details behind the approved or rejected requests.

Change amounts are not incorporated in the current budget until these amounts have an Approved status. Only team members with the required security privileges can issue budget changes and mark them as approved. You can post a change amount as Pending. The project or program manager must then review the request and mark it as Approved or Rejected. Primavera Cloud recalculates the new budgeted amount and adjusts the current budget based on approved changes to the log.

Scope Based Budget

A scope based budget is based on rolled up costs from scope assignments and scope items. This method is best suited for bottom-up budgeting. If your project or program will use a scope based budget, you should consult the Scope Management User Guide for more information.