The Budget tab in Beam gives you a real-time view of your project's financial performance. It compares your estimated costs and revenue against actual project activity, helping you understand what has been spent, what is committed, what remains, and how those changes impact your profit margin.
Each row in the report represents a cost code or budget category, while the columns provide detailed information about project costs, revenue, and profitability.
Expense Section
The Expense section tracks your projected and actual project costs.
Original Budget
The Original Budget is the cost amount that was initially budgeted for a cost code when the estimate was approved and the budget created. This value serves as your baseline for comparison throughout the project.
Revised Budget
The Revised Budget reflects the current budget after any change orders. If no changes have been made, the Original Budget and Revised Budget will be the same.
Cost to Date
The Cost to Date column represents your Actual Costs. Once an expense has been paid or formally recorded in Beam, it becomes part of Cost to Date. This includes:
- Bills
- Expenses
- Time entries
Committed Cost
Committed Costs represent costs that are expected but have not yet been incurred. These are future financial obligations that have been approved, awarded, or planned but are not yet reflected in Cost to Date. Click a committed cost and see the breakdown of time, bills/expenses, and subcontracts that are contributing to that total.
As projects progress, items move from Committed Cost to Cost to Date (Actual Cost), giving you a picture of future obligations and actual spend. You can also click into the committed cost number to see the breakdown of the time entries, bills/expenses, and subcontracts contributing to the total.
Remaining
The Remaining column shows the amount of budget that has not yet been spent or committed. In other words, this represents the amount still available within that budget category.
Remaining = Revised Budget − Cost to Date − Committed Cost
Remaining %
The Remaining % column shows what percentage of the revised budget is still available. This provides a quick way to identify budget categories that are nearly exhausted versus those that still have substantial remaining funds.
Remaining % = (Remaining ÷ Revised Budget) × 100
Income Section
The Income section tracks projected project revenue.
Original Price
The Original Price represents the revenue amount originally estimated and approved for that cost code. This is the baseline established revenue figure.
Revised Price
The Revised Price reflects the current revenue value after approved change orders. If no revenue adjustments have occurred, the Original Price and Revised Price will be identical.
If an approved change order introduces a new accounting code or cost type that did not previously exist on the project (for example, adding an HVAC scope to a project that did not include HVAC work), the entire value of the change order will appear in the Revised Price column.
If the approved change order affects an existing accounting code or cost type, the Original Price will remain unchanged, and only the incremental value from the change order will be reflected in the Revised Price column.
Profitability Section
The Profitability section helps you understand how changes to costs and revenue affect margins, allowing you to compare profitability across cost codes. Let's take the below example for Rough Carpentry:
Here, an approved change order has updated the revised budget, revised price, margin, and margin % columns.
Margin
The Margin column displays the projected profit dollars for each budget category.
Margin = Revised Price − Revised Budget
Margin %
The Margin % column shows the gross profit percentage.
Margin % = (Margin ÷ Revised Price) × 100
Totals Section
The Totals row at the bottom aggregates all project budget categories and provides a high-level view of project performance.
The Expense Totals combine:
- All Original Budgets
- All Revised Budgets
- All Actual Costs (Cost to Date)
- All Committed Costs
- All Remaining Budget
The Income Totals combine:
- All Original Prices
- All Revised Prices
The Profitability Totals combine:
- Total projected margin dollars
- Overall project margin percentage
What does the budget tab tell me?
The Budget tab helps answer critical project questions such as:
- How much have we actually spent?
- How much have we committed but not yet spent?
- How much budget remains?
- How profitable is each scope of work?
- How have change orders affected revenue and margin?