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Having a budget in Join will make your Dashboard view more meaningful
Sometimes you may not have a budget to work with, but it’s still important that you define a target value to ensure you’re getting all the benefits out of Join. Once a budget is added, it will make your Dashboards, Milestone Reports, Variance Reports, etc. much more informative.
What is a Budget?
A Budget in Join is the target value for the project and acts as the goal for the team to work towards. Various terms can be used to describe a budget, so if your team uses something different, you can personalize Join to use your terminology via the Settings page. Adding a Budget into Join is just like importing an Estimate.
Three Types of Budgets
Lump Sum Budget
The easiest way to create a budget is a single line item lump sum number, which can be entered in seconds. A lump sum will give you the Budget line on the Dashboard Cost Trendline but will lack any WBS filtering, grouping, and reporting in the Dashboard graphs and various reports. Here's a step-by-step guide to Creating a Lump Sum Budget.
Pro-rata Budget
If you know the project's lump sum budget amount and your estimate is broken out by WBS, you can prorate the line items from your estimate to match the lump sum total. A pro-rata budget allows you to see the proportional comparison between the current cost and a budget equivalent. It also acts as a starting point that can be manipulated to represent the target budget through collaboration with the Owner. Here's a step-by-step guide to Prorating a Budget from an existing Estimate.
Full Detailed Budget
A fully detailed budget broken out by WBS is the preferred method. The target values for each WBS will allow the team to develop Items that target the proper scopes in the project that require cost reduction.
Regardless of the type of budget you choose, Join makes it easy to work collaboratively with the Owner to ensure the budget is clearly defined for the team to complete the project successfully.