For AI agents: a documentation index is available at /llms.txt. A markdown version of this page is available at /guide/cloud/time/budget-and-cost.md.
Budget and cost
Track spend against budget, understand where money goes, and invoice from tracked time.
Budget on Pro, cost reports and invoicing on Premium
Project budget and cost management come with Pro Unlimited. Budget and cost reports and invoice management are Premium.
#How cost is calculated
Cost comes from logged time × rate. Which means it is only as good as your time tracking.
Bad time data makes cost reporting worse than useless
A cost report built on hours reconstructed on Friday afternoon is not approximately right — it is confidently wrong, and people make decisions on it. Fix the logging habit before trusting the numbers.
#Setting a budget
Set it on the project
Total budget in project settings, in money or hours.
Set rates
A default project rate, or per-person rates where they differ meaningfully.
Decide what's billable
Meetings? Travel? Rework? Write the rules down — otherwise each person decides differently and the data is inconsistent.
Set an alert threshold
80% is a useful trigger. Finding out at 100% is finding out too late.
#Tracking spend
The budget view shows spend to date, remaining, and burn rate.
The number that actually predicts trouble is burn rate against progress:
On track.
You will be roughly double budget. Act now, not at 90%.
Either genuinely efficient, or time is not being logged. Check which.
The conversation you should have had at 60%.
#When a project is going over
Say so early
The options at 60% are real. At 95% the only option is asking for more money.
Find out why
Underestimated? Scope grew? Rework? Each has a different fix, and guessing picks the wrong one.
Separate must-have from nice-to-have
Cutting scope is usually more palatable than a budget increase.
Re-baseline once
A budget revised three times is not a budget.
#Invoicing Premium
Generate invoices from approved billable time.
Approve the timesheets
Invoice from approved time only. Invoicing unreviewed entries is how disputes start.
Generate the invoice
For a project and period, from billable entries.
Read it before sending
Check the line descriptions. They are what the client reads, and vague ones invite queries.
Send and track
Record payment against it.
Tip
Time entry descriptions become invoice lines. That is the real reason to write useful ones — see Time tracking.
#Reporting Premium
Budget and cost reports cover spend by project, by person and by period, and roll up across programs.
The most valuable comparison is estimate versus actual cost across finished projects. It is how quoting gets better, and most teams never look at it.
#Common mistakes
Only checking budget at the end
By then nothing can be done. Check weekly.
Ignoring unbilled time
Non-billable hours still cost you. A project that is profitable on billable hours alone may not be.
One rate for everyone
Fine if true. If a senior and a junior cost very different amounts, one rate makes every project report wrong in a different direction.
Not looking back after delivery
The estimate-versus-actual comparison on a finished project is the single most useful number you have for the next quote.