Scroll down to the Details section of your project; it is located right below Financial.
This is the heart of your project. You will find here your project structure with its different phases and items. It will also be populated as the project unfolds with actuals (hours/expenses/invoices).
At this point in time you want to define the budget of your project (via its project items). To do so you have 3 options:
Enter a high level budget amount for each project item.
Create a detailed budget for each project item based on hour types and possibly resources (if wanted).
Create a detailed budget for each project item based on the project item activities of the Gantt chart.
For the purpose of this exercise we will focus on the first 2 options (the Gantt chart is further explained in the section 4.5 Project and Resource planning).
Step 2A: High level budget
Double-click on the project item Requirements (note that you will not create a budget for Pre-Sales since this item is not billable to the client and you do not know how much time it will require). In the next screen you will recognize some of the fields of your project template item.
You want to define a high level budget amount for this item.
Enter $5,000 in the Budget field.
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To go to the next item simply click the down arrow located at the far right of your project item screen.
In the next project item enter the budget field: $12,000.
Now enter the following amount for each one of your other project items respectively:
3.1.0 Training: $5000
3.2.0 Training material: $500
4.1.0 Project Management: $22000
4.2.0 Travel: $4000
8.1.0 Licenses: $60000
Once you are done with the project item 8.1.0 Licenses, force the auto-save and click on the project link to go back to the project screen.
Scroll down to the item section. You will see the column Budget updated with the values you have entered.
Note: the column Estimated Result displays the same amounts as the Budget column since no estimated costs have been calculated. This is only possible via budget line entries (see below related exercise).
You have one more project item in your structure and it is located on the next page of your Items section; click the blue arrow in order to display it.
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Your last project item is related to Non Billable entries; as with the Pre-sales project item you will not define a budget for this item nor will you invoice it.
Now click on the blue back arrow located at the bottom right of the items section to go back to the first page.
Step 2B: Budget by Line
You want to refine your budget at a greater detail level; to do so you will create a budget by line.
In the navigation bar click the dropdown menu of your project and click Budget.
PSA will bring you to a grid where you will find your different budget elements (project item, employee, hour type, Fee, Product, quantity, etc. note that this guide doesn’t cover the use of equipment).
Click the + Sign to enter your first budget line.
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PSA will display a pop-up window for you to select a project item for this budget line.
Select 1.1.0 Requirements and click Ok.
Back in the grid PSA will create a line for you to complete under this project item.
You can specify a different description here (to replace the standard New Budget).
Click in the field and enter Consultancy hours.
(Note that you can copy the description for future lines with CTRL+ C)
Although you have selected your project team members the list is not yet confirmed, you will not specify them as of yet at the budget line level.
Go directly to the Hour Type column and hit the look-up button.
In the new pop-up window select Consultant and click Ok.
PSA will automatically display in the grid the corresponding rate for this hour type.
Your last step is to specify the budgeted number of hours for this line.
Go to the corresponding cell and enter 40.
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PSA will update the line accordingly and save the line automatically. It will also update the totals at the bottom of the grid.
Now click the + Sign and go ahead with the creation of the following budget lines;
2.1.0 Configuration & testing: Consultancy hours - 80 hours – Consultant
3.1.0 Training: Consultancy hours - 32 hours - Consultant
4.1.0 Project management: PM hours - 80 hours - Project manager
You have completed the creation of your budgeted hours; you will now budget your expenses.
Click the + Sign.
Select the project item 3.2.0 Training material and enter the following description: 65 Training guides.
Enter 65 in the quantity field and $10 in the Selling price per unit field.
PSA will automatically calculate the value of the budget line and save the entry.
Click the + Sign again to enter your next item.
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This is also an expense item.
Select the project item 4.2.0 Travel
Enter the following description: 2 trips
Enter a Quantity of 2 and $1750 in the Selling price field.
Click the + Sign to add another budget line to your travel project item.
Select the project item 4.2.0 Travel
Enter the following description: 10 days allowance
Select the Fee Daily allowance and the Quantity of 10.
PSA will not display a sub-total of both budget lines for this project item.
Click the + Sign for your last budget lines.
This time it is related to the licenses and server required on this project. You will select a project item defined as Products and you will add CRM Products to the budget line.
Select the project item 8.1.0 Licenses and enter the following description: Basic on premise.
Select the Price List PSA Default and the product Basic on premise and enter a quantity of 100
For the next and last budget line, select the project item 8.1.0 8.1.0 Licenses and enter the following description: Server.
Select the Price List PSA Default, the product Server and enter a quantity of 1.
You have created all of your budget lines.
The grid will offer you the following additional options:
X Sign: if you need to delete a budget line, highlight the line and click the X Sign.
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Retrieve records: This option will refresh the data of the grid.
.
Export to Excel: This option will allow you to export to Excel.
Update from Gantt: If you are budgeting at the Gantt chart level, this option will update the budget lines with the information of the Gantt (this is the subject of a separate exercise in the section 4.5 Project and Resource planning).
Finally you can also collapse the project items to only display the total budget per item.
Go back to the Project’s main screen (click on the project’s name in the navigation bar).
And scroll down to the Details section.
You will see that the high level budget amounts have been updated with your detailed budget line entries.
Note that the values of the column Estimated Result are still the same as the values in the Budget column. This is due to the fact that your hour types are defined with a selling price rate* only and that no costs were defined for your budgeted expenses; the only exception being your travel item which included a daily allowance fee already defined with a cost rate.
*If your cost price are defined at the hour types level this step will automatically provide you with the estimated profitability of your project.
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Step 2C: Budget by Line with resources.
You want to calculate the estimated profitability of your project. To do so you will now integrate costs to your budget lines.
For your hours this will require that you select a resource for each budget line (since you have defined the cost price at the employee level).
For your expenses it will simply requires that you enter a value in the cost price column.
Go back to your Budget grid.
Go to the first item (1.1.0 Requirements) and click the look-up button of the resource column; select April Meyer.
Note that the list will only display the project’s team member.
You will notice that PSA has updated the budget line with a cost price and cost amount.
Enter the following cost prices to your budget lines:
2.1.0 Requirements: select April Meyer.*
3.1.0 Training: select April Meyer.*
4.1.0 Project Management: select yourself as the project manager:
3.2.0 Training material: add a cost price of $10.
4.2.0 Travel: add a cost price of $1750.
*If you have multiple budget lines to assign to one resource you will want to make use of the function
“Change multiple records” of CRM. See Note at the end of this sub-section.
Once you are done go back to the project screen and navigate to the Details section.
You will now see the Estimated Result of your project based on budget versus Estimated Cost of each project item.
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If you need to assign multiple budget lines to one resource you can make use of the function “Change multiple records” of CRM. To do so however you will go to the Budget section of your project’s main screen.
It is located right after the Invoices section on the project form.
You will find here all the budget lines you have created. Note that you can also add budget lines from here with the + Sign button. Click the Grid icon.
In the next screen, change the view for Budget Project Sub Grid View.
Change the view for Budget Project Sub Grid View; you will see all the details of your budget lines.
Select the three budget lines with the hour type Consultant and in the local command bar click Edit.
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Select April Meyer in the Employee field.
And click Change.
PSA will update the budget lines according to the cost price of the resource. The budget grid will also display this change (since it is the same data but with a different user interface).
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