SECTIONSExamples of Tracking the Consumption of Individual Budgets
The following examples show how you can use budget allocations to track the consumption of individual budgets based on the milestones, timecard splits, expenses, or miscellaneous adjustments that are allocated to them.
Example 1: Tracking Consumption of Individual Customer Purchase Order Budgets by Timecards
A project to supply a business system to a customer has two milestones named Consultancy and Training. The customer raises separate purchase orders for the consultancy and training phases of the project. The following customer purchase order budgets are created in the project, with the appropriate customer purchase order number stored in the Customer Reference field:
| Budget Name | Customer Reference |
|---|---|
| Consultancy Funds | PO_1 |
| Training Funds | PO_2 |
A budget allocation using the Consultancy Funds budget is assigned to the Consultancy milestone, and a budget allocation using the Training Funds budget is assigned to the Training milestone.
After a week's work on the project, your consultant submits a timecard for 3,000 USD against the Consultancy milestone, and a timecard for 2,000 USD against the Training milestone. When the timecards are included in financials, the Amount Consumed field on the Consultancy Funds budget increases by 3,000 USD, and the Amount Consumed field on the Training Funds budget increases by 2,000 USD. This means that you can immediately see how much of each budget has been consumed.
Your consultant also creates a miscellaneous adjustment for the cost of professionally printing and binding training handbooks for the customer. This miscellaneous adjustment’s amount is 500 USD, its transaction category is one that represents billable revenue, and it is assigned the budget allocation using the Training Funds budget. When the miscellaneous adjustment is included in financials, the Amount Consumed field on the Training Funds budget increases by a further 500 USD. (For information about how a miscellaneous adjustment’s transaction category determines whether the amount is treated as a billable or cost value, see Budget Consumption by Miscellaneous Adjustments.)
When the timecard splits and miscellaneous adjustment are billed, PSA copies each budget's customer reference to the associated billing events:
- PO_1 is copied to the billing event created for the 3,000 USD timecard split that was booked against the Consultancy milestone.
- PO_2 is copied to the billing event created for the 2,000 USD timecard split that was booked against the Training milestone, and the 500 USD miscellaneous adjustment.
When the billing events are released for invoicing, the customer reference on each billing event is available to be included on its corresponding invoice if the integration between PSA and your finance system supports this. For more information, see Passing Customer References through to Billing Events.
Example 2: Tracking Consumption of Multiple Internal Budgets by Timecards
An internal project is funded by three budgets from three separate cost centers. The budget allocation assigned to a milestone is as follows:
| Budget Name | Percent Allocation |
|---|---|
| Cost Center A | 60% |
| Cost Center B | 30% |
| Cost Center C | 10% |
A timecard for 1,000 USD is submitted against the milestone. When the timecard is included in financials, the cost is allocated across the three budgets as: Cost Center A 600 USD, Cost Center B 300 USD, and Cost Center C 100 USD. The Amount Consumed field on each budget updates to include these amounts so that you can immediately see if there is any risk of overspend.
Example 3: Tracking Consumption of Individual Customer Purchase Order Budgets by Milestones
A fixed price project for a customer has three milestones: two for the project's development phase, and one for the project's installation phase. The customer raises separate purchase orders for the two phases. Separate customer purchase order budgets named Development and Installation are created for the two purchase orders.
A budget allocation using the Development budget is assigned to Milestones 1 and 2, and a budget allocation using the Installation budget is assigned to Milestone 3.
| Milestone | Milestone Amount |
|---|---|
| Milestone 1 | 10,000 USD |
| Milestone 2 | 15,000 USD |
| Milestone 3 | 8,000 USD |
When Milestone 1 is completed and included in financials, the Amount Consumed field on the Development budget increases by 10,000 USD. When Milestone 2 is included in financials, the Amount Consumed field on the Development budget increases by a further 15,000 USD.
When Milestone 3 is included in financials, the Amount Consumed field on the Installation budget increases by 8,000 USD.
So by assigning a budget allocation to a milestone, you can control which customer purchase order budget the milestone's amount is allocated to, and you can track how much of the budget has been consumed by monitoring its Amount Consumed field.
Example 4: Tracking Consumption of Individual Billable Expenses Budgets by Assignments
A project to supply a business system to a customer has an agreed budget for billable expenses. The customer requests some additional scope is added to the project, for which a separate fee and billable expenses budget is agreed.
| Budget | Billable Expenses Limit |
|---|---|
| Main Budget | 10,000 |
| Additional Scope | 1,000 |
A resource working on the project is assigned to both the main project delivery work, and the additional scope. Billable expenses are incurred while delivering both pieces of work, but it is important to account for them separately. To achieve this, the project manager creates two separate assignments for the resource and defines a budget allocation for each, so that the expenses can be booked against the appropriate assignment.