Enabling and Creating Budgets from a Job

Budget Management is now available in beta for Premium and Enterprise customers. Budget Management is the first release in our larger Project Management suite in 2022. Upcoming releases related to Project Management include WIP (work in progress) and advanced billing features, among others. If you are interested in getting early access to budget management, reach out to your ServiceTrade Account Manager or email am@servicetrade.com.

There may be times when you have a job where you need to track your cost.

The Budget Management feature within ServiceTrade is part of the Project Management umbrella which allows Premium and Enterprise customers to better manage cost expectations for projects or jobs regardless of size through the lifecycle of the project or job. Furthermore, the Budget Management feature provides better insight into seen and unforeseen changes to better manage the impact on a project's or job's bottom line.

You can create two types of budgets in ServiceTrade - either a High-Level Budget or a Granular Budget. This article will walk you through how to create, edit, and delete either type from a job.

You can also create a Budget directly from a Quote. Click here to learn how to learn more.

Prerequisites

• Budget Management requires a Premium or Enterprise account with Budget Management Role Permissions enabled.

Index

• Enabling and Creating a Budget on a Job
• Selecting High-Level Budget or Granular Level Budget Type?
• Creating High-Level Budgets
• Creating Granular Level Budgets

Enabling and Creating a Budget on a Job

Budgets are not automatically available on jobs. A budget must first be enabled then created.

1.  Navigate to the Job Page of a Job you want to create a budget for
2. Click Manage Job
3. Toggle Manage Job with a Budget on 
4. Click Save
   • Under Act on this Job, a new action button called Create Budget has appeared
5. Click the Create Budget button
   • The Budget Page for this job will open in a new tab
6. On the Budget Page click the +Add New Budget button
   • This will open the Budget Type Selection section

Selecting High-Level Budget or Granular Level Budget Type

On the Budget Type Section, you are provided two types of Budgets to select from with examples:

• High-Level Budget organizes your budget at the cost code level. You can break down your budget into item types, which are essentially your cost codes for a particular project/job (i.e Inspection, Service, Part, Labor, Fee, Material, General Conditions, Equipment, Subcontractor, or Other.)
• Granular Level Budget organizes your budget on an item-by-item basis. You can break down your budget into individual detailed items and associate those items' costs to a specific granular service being performed on the job. These items can be pulled from your ServiceTrade Items List or can be added ad hoc.

Creating High Level Budgets

1. Check the box to the left of High-Level Budget
2. Click the green Create Budget button
3. Click +Add Budget Item directly under the granular service you would like to add an item to
   • A row will appear where you can now enter the new item information
4. Click the Item Type drop-down box to search and select an Item Type you want to budget
5. Select and enter Estimated Hours (if applicable), Total Budget (your cost), and Estimated Value (your estimated price if applicable)
   • Item Type is the only required field
6. Repeat steps 1-5 until you have added all of your budget items
7. Click the Save button when done

Creating Granular Level Budgets

In this example, we are creating a granular budget for an HVAC removal and installation job using items from our Items List.

1. Check the box to the left of the Granular Level Budget
2. Click the green Create Budget button
3. Click +Add Budget Item directly under the granular service you would like to add an item to.
   • A row will appear where you can now enter the new item information.
4. Click the Item drop-down box to search and select an Item from your Items List or type in a custom ad-hoc item.
   • Selecting an Item from your Items List will autofill all applicable information from the Item's List.
5. Select and enter Item Type, Service Line, Quantity, Unit Cost, and Price
   • Unit Cost and Price are the only fields not required to add an item
6. Repeat steps 1-5 until you have added all of your budget items
7. Click the Save button when done

Next Steps

Once you have enabled and created your desired budget, you can then manage it following the steps in our Managing a Budget article.

Questions? 

Contact ServiceTrade support at support@servicetrade.com.