Creating Budgets for a Job (Project)

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If you are interested in upgrading to access these features, please contact your ServiceTrade Account Manager or email am@servicetrade.com

Typically a Budget will automatically be created for a Project when you Create a Project from an Approved Quote.

However, sometimes you have an approved quote or agreement in an external system and want to create a Project and Budget from scratch.

This article will walk you through creating a budget on a Project. You must first Enable Project Mode to create Budget.

Prerequisites

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

Step 1: Enabling Project Mode and Creating a Budget on a Job

A Job must be set to the Job Mode 'Project' to enable a budget.

All newly created Jobs will default with the Job Mode Project toggle off. To set a Job's Job Mode to Project, follow the instructions below:

1. Before you create a budget it is best practice to add all services and job items to the Project. Its also best practice to create a Job with Service Granularity.
   • You can not create services on the edit budget menu, so this should be done before you create the budget.
2. On a Job Page, click Manage Job.
3. Click the Manage Job as a Project toggle on.
   
   
4. Enter any other relevant information.
5. Click Save when done.
   • This will automatically enable the ability to create Budget.
6. Under Act on the Job, click the Create Budget button.
   
   
   • The Budget Page for this job will open in a new tab.
     
7. On the Budget Page, click the +Add New Budget button.
   
   • This will open the Budget Type Selection section.
8. Continue to the next Step.

Step 2: Selecting a Granular Level Budget Type

On the Budget Type Section, you are provided one type of Budget to select from with examples:

• Granular Level Budget (Most Common) Organizes your budget on an item-by-item basis. It will pull existing Job Items and Services when you create a Budget from a job into the budget. You can break down your budget into individual detailed items and associate those items' costs to a specific granular service performed on the job. These items can be pulled from your ServiceTrade Items List or added ad hoc.

Step 3: Creating Granular Level Budgets

1. Check the box to the left of the Granular Level Budget
2. *optional, but recommended If you have existing Job Items that you want to be added to this budget, check to select the Create budget items from existing job items checkbox.
   
3. Click the green Create Budget button.
4. Click +Add Budget Item directly under the relevant service to add an item.
   • A row will appear where you can now enter the new item information.
5. 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.
6. 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
7. Repeat steps 4-6 until you have added all of your budget items
8. *optional If you want to apply these budget Items to the Job's items, check to select the Apply these changes to Job Items automatically checkbox.
   
9. Click the Save button when done.

Creating High-Level Budgets

You may want to create a High-Level Budget. The following video walks you through creating a high level budget using a Granular Level Budget:

Next Steps

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