Zoho Projects now supports tracking budget with both Cost Budget and Budgeted Hours simultaneously across all modules (Based on Project, Phase, Task, or User).
Why Track Both?
Tracking both cost budget and budgeted hours provides a more holistic view of the project's financial health. While the cost budget focuses on the total expenditure, budgeted hours offer insights into the time required to complete the project. This approach allows users to:
- identify potential cost overruns early when budgeted hours or budget costs are exceeded.
- optimize resource allocation by comparing actual hours spent to budgeted hours.
- improve project forecasting by accurate tracking of both cost and time.
For example, Zylker Constructions is managing a construction project with multiple phases including Foundation phase and would want to track the budget Based on Phase to ensure successful project completion.
To do so,
- Set the Cost Budget to $10,000 and Budgeted Hours to 500 hours for the Foundation phase when creating or editing a phase.
If the Foundation phase takes 550 hours instead of the planned 500 hours during the phase, the project manager can view this overrun from the project details page or the phase details page. This indicates that the phase is exceeding the Budgeted Hours.
The project manager can then decide whether to adjust the pace or allocate additional resources, potentially impacting overall costs.
The Budgeted Hours and Cost Budget fields are optional. Leave them blank if you choose not to track the budget in either way.
Learn more about setting a budget for the project.