Track internal project budgets, approve them, and see Budget vs Actual on the Profitability report.
An Estimate is what the customer sees and signs. A Project Budget is what you internally plan to spend to deliver the work. They're often close, but not the same — you might bid a project at $50k and budget $42k of internal cost to deliver it.
Inside a project, go to Financials → Budget. Click + New Budget and add line items grouped by category (Materials, Labor, Subcontractors, Equipment, etc.). You can also Import from Estimate to seed the budget from an approved estimate's sections.
Budgets go through a draft → submitted → approved lifecycle. Office staff create the draft and submit; an admin approves. Approved budgets feed the Profitability report; draft budgets don't.
The Reports → Job Profitability table now includes Budget and Budget Variance columns alongside the existing Estimate-derived columns. Variance is computed as approved budget − total actual cost: positive means under budget, negative means over.
Managing Contacts
Add clients, vendors, and employees to your contact database.
Creating Estimates
Build detailed estimates with sections, margins, AI-written descriptions, and line items — then send or turn them into a proposal.
Proposals & E-Signatures
Build proposals with the drag-and-drop builder and collect electronic signatures.