Budget vs Actual
Budget and actual per account for each project, with variance and absorption. The report used before approving the next spend - not the one that reports a loss after it happened.
Questions It Answers
- Which expense account is nearly out of budget?
- What spending happened outside the budget - accounts never budgeted but already used?
- How much budget is left on this project once material already purchased is counted?
Filters
| Filter | What it does |
|---|---|
| Project | One project. Empty means all projects - finished and cancelled ones included. |
| Project Group | Limits to one project group; only groups marked active appear in the list. |
How To Read It
One block per project: the project-level summary row first, then the per-account table.
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Contract Value | From the Project master, as a comparison. |
| Budget | The sum of all budget rows of this project. |
| Actual | Cost that has become cost according to the general ledger: this project’s journal rows on profit and loss accounts. |
| Not Yet Expensed | Project money already spent but still held as inventory or prepaid cost. It exists at project level only, not per account row - while the material sits in the warehouse its expense account is not yet decided. |
| Total Committed | Actual + Not Yet Expensed. This is the figure absorption is computed from. |
| Variance | Budget minus Total Committed. Negative means the budget is already exceeded. |
| Absorbed % | Total Committed divided by Budget. |
| Physical Progress % | From WBS weights, to sit beside absorption. |
| Per-account table | Account, Budget, Actual, Variance, and Absorbed % per account. Accounts not budgeted but already used appear too, marked unbudgeted - which is exactly what you most want to know. |
Not Yet Expensed is project money already spent but still held as inventory or prepaid cost. It moves into Actual when the goods are issued to the project through Outgoing Inventory, and Total Committed does not move during that shift - which is the proof that no amount is counted twice.
Why The Numbers May Differ
- The per-account table holds profit and loss accounts only. The project stamp tags every journal row of a document - the cash, payable, and inventory sides included - so balance sheet accounts are filtered out. Without that filter Accounts Payable would show as a negative actual, which means nothing.
- The per-account actuals do not sum to Total Committed, and that is correct: Not Yet Expensed has no expense account yet, so it exists at project level only.
- Absorbed % shows a dash or nothing. That project has no budget yet.
- Journal rows awaiting approval and rows inside a closed period are not counted.
- Actual rises with no new purchase. Material issued to the project moves value from Not Yet Expensed into Actual; Total Committed does not change.
Menu Location
- Project Management / Project Reports / Budget vs Actual
/report/projectbudgetactual