Zoho Projects budget feature allows users to track costs at a project, milestone, and task level. Budget could be based on either amount or hours. If your project is based on hours then the Difference column shows the difference between planned and actual hours or if it is based on the amount then the Cost Variance column highlights the difference in planned and actual cost.
Project Level Budget
By enabling budget at a
project level, the user will be able to track the project cost and keep it on track. You can select a budget based on Project Amount or based on Project Hours in the Project Budget field.
Consider a scenario where Monica owns a consultation service company and wants to track the budget of a project. She can enable projects in the settings and enter the Project Amount or Project Hours while creating the project. She can also set a project threshold limit and avoid budget overrun.
Milestone Level Budget
If the user enables budget at a
milestone level, the project budget will be calculated by summing up the budget of each milestone . The Project budget threshold will be calculated based on the milestone budget threshold.
For instance if Monica wants to view the total cost required to design and implementation, she can create new milestones for each phase and set a budget for the milestone. She can enter the Milestone Amount or Milestone Hours while creating the milestone.
Task Level Budget
By enabling budget at a
task level, the user will be able to calculate budget for each task. The overall budget of the project will be computed as a sum of costs of all tasks.
If Monica wants to calculate the cost required only for the deployment of the software, she can select budget at task level and enter the amount or hours. She can also set task threshold limit and avoid budget overrun for tasks.