![\"Project](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/project-budget-in-app-template-screenshot.png\")
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Why You Need a Project Budget Template<\/h2>\n
A project is made up of tasks that lead to the completion of a project or service. That process isn\u2019t free. There are resources necessary, such as hiring a project team, possibly contracting vendors, maybe parts and a whole slew of other expenses that need to be paid and accounted for.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where budget management comes in, during the project planning phase. It\u2019s imperative that you calculate what the costs of these things will be as close as possible to create a realistic cost baseline, get the allocated funds and not go over budget, which could jeopardize the entire project.<\/p>\n
That means your cost estimates have to be accurate, or as much so as you can make them. This project budget spreadsheet can help you do that.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a lot of uncertainty in managing a project, which makes creating the budget plan difficult, but with a free Excel budget template you\u2019re on solid ground to build a financial model that\u2019s sound and able to do the job at hand.<\/p>\n Some of the project costs are easier to collect, such as:<\/p>\n Other project costs may change or carry from one project to the next, such as:<\/p>\n When you have downloaded and created your project budget template, there are all the fields necessary for you to get started on this pivotal project planning process. But without an expense tracking tool to collect all this data, you are starting off with a disadvantage. The budgeting process may seem like fuzzy math, and it\u2019s certainly no exact science, but with the proper project budgeting software<\/a> you can have a better handle on defining the financial constraints of your project. By doing so, you have given the project a better chance to succeed.<\/p>\n Besides budget templates, two such project management tools that can help you manage budgets are Gantt charts and dashboards. ProjectManager<\/a> offers an award-winning Gantt chart feature that lets you apply costs directly to tasks. You can also assign labor costs to team members, and that potential cost is automatically calculated as you assign them tasks and work hours. Plus, as the project unfolds, our real-time dashboards<\/a> can track project costs and compare them against your initial planned costs, so projects don’t even have to go over budget.<\/p>\n Money makes the project happen, so it\u2019s likely the costs will be discussed during project initiation. However, traditionally, budget management concerns begin to be addressed during the planning stage of a project.<\/p>\n You can\u2019t figure out your budget without first knowing what it\u2019s going to pay for. That\u2019s why budgets are conceived as you start to plan and organize your project schedule. To make an accurate project schedule, you need to define the work that will be done and how long it will take. To do so, you can use a work breakdown structure (WBS) to identify all the project tasks. Those tasks depend on having the funds to pay for the resources needed to execute them.<\/p>\n Our free budget template is really a cost control<\/a> mechanism to compare what it will cost to complete the project against what the project has been authorized to spend. Therefore, the budget spreadsheet template allows project managers to build their budget within the cost and time constraints of the project.<\/p>\n A project budget is defined by estimating costs for all the individual tasks that make up the project, including the resources needed to execute them. You\u2019ll need those cost estimates to fill out your project budget Excel template. You can use our estimate template<\/a> to make your estimates and share them with your stakeholders.<\/p>\n The buck stops with the project manager when it comes to overseeing every aspect of a project, which includes filling out and maintaining this free project budget template. They will work on the project budgeting activities, but not alone. In order to make more accurate cost estimates, project managers will seek guidance from those people on the project team who are involved in executing the project.<\/p>\n Once the project budget has been completed, the team will be released to focus on the tasks they\u2019ve been assigned. The budget management will remain the purview of the project manager, but depending on the size of the organization, the day-to-day work might go to an administrator, such as a project coordinator or assistant project manager.<\/p>\n However, the project budget is also shared with stakeholders. They need to stay in the loop and often have change requests throughout the project that will directly impact the budget. Therefore, during stakeholder presentations, budgetary issues are usually part of the agenda, if only to determine if the project is not going over budget.<\/p>\n Your free Excel template is a blank slate and now you have to turn it into a useful tool. By filling in as much of the information requested in this project budgeting template as you can, you begin to get control over the financial aspect of your project. Let\u2019s start.<\/p>\n This is the meat and potatoes of the project, and likely the most expensive aspect of the work you have to include in your project budget Excel template. To start with, you want to use a work breakdown structure to separate these into line items tagged to a specific task. This may seem like an unnecessary detail, but it\u2019s not. Every dollar needs to be accounted for if you want to reign in costs, so the more exact you can be the better your expenses estimate will be and the closer your project will come in within budget.<\/p>\n Now that you\u2019ve broken down your project into the small tasks that make it up using the work breakdown structure or WBS column, it\u2019s time to assign a labor and material cost to each. This is the money you\u2019re going to spend on assembling the team responsible for each task, the time they\u2019ll take to complete it and the materials they\u2019ll need for those tasks. It\u2019s a lot of work, but by doing it before the project begins, you\u2019ll save yourself headaches and over-expenditures.<\/p>\n Of course, a project budget is not only labor and materials, even if that is the heavy lifting. It\u2019s important to account for every dollar and cent, and those smaller items\u2014and sometimes not-so-small items\u2014are going to add up. Don\u2019t let these costs break your budget: find them and then collect them on your free Excel project budget template.<\/p>\n Take travel, for example. Your project budgeting template needs a column in which you note when and if you have to travel, and then how much that will cost, including any stipend. Maybe travel doesn\u2019t plan in your project, but you need to consider it. Better to have thought it through and dismissed it, than to have a cost come up in the midst of the project that you\u2019ve not accounted for.<\/p>\n The same goes for equipment. You\u2019re definitely going to have costs in this area. Equipment costs can vary from very expensive heavy equipment to minor ones, but you have to register those expenses in your project budget template in order to make an educated guess of what the project is going to cost.<\/p>\n There are fixed items, too, and there\u2019s a place for you to collect them on the free project budget template for Excel. A fixed budget item is one where the amount is set and doesn\u2019t change, as in one that is the same amount every week or month. There\u2019s also a column for miscellaneous costs, which are those that do not fit into any of the other categories on the downloaded project budget Excel template.<\/p>\n The last part of your free Excel project budget template is the columns that you\u2019ll be most interested in following when tracking the project. It\u2019s here that the spreadsheet calculates the planned budget against the actual one or the real money you\u2019ve spent for that task. One column is your estimated budget expenditure and next to it is the money that really went to completing the work, followed by a third column in which your balance is noted. Here is where you can see if you\u2019ve gone over- or under-budget.<\/p>\n If you’re ready to move on from a static Excel budget template to a robust project management software, look no further than ProjectManager. It’s easy to transfer your data over from the Excel sheet into the software. All you need to do is start a new project and open up the Gantt chart project view.<\/a><\/p>\n Once you’ve started your project, you can transfer the info from your filled-out Project Budget template into the Gantt chart<\/a> manually. The same rules apply – just type in the task names, the assignees, the planned hours, the project costs and so on.<\/p>\n Now that your project is filled out in ProjectManager, you can get to work tracking the costs as your project progresses. That’s because the budget is updated as team members complete tasks and update their status, giving you the most up-to-date information. Then you can look at the budget for the project or even many projects through the dashboard view<\/a>. Think of it as an overview at-a-glance, but it\u2019s also able to drill down deep into the detail you need when you need it.<\/p>\n The project budget template is a great tool to figure out how much your project will cost and make sure that number is within the approved funding for the project. However, there are other project management templates<\/a> that can help you control costs and manage areas of the project that can impact your overall budget.<\/p>\n Use a timesheet template to keep track of your team\u2019s time spent on their tasks, including cost per hour, vacation and overtime. Timesheets from past projects can help you estimate your project budget based on how much time was logged for tasks in the past. It also keeps an eye on your bottom line, showing how profitable your effort is and providing clues to add greater efficiencies.<\/p>\n Another way to monitor your labor costs is with a work schedule template. This template lists your team and where they\u2019re working, what time and what responsibilities they have over the week or month. This information is crucial to working more productively and managing costs. It helps you reduce resource costs, which makes your budget go further.<\/p>\n Risk is always on the horizon of a project, threatening to impact your budget. A risk tracking template collects those risks as you identify them and allows you to do a risk assessment to rank their priority and then track them as your team resolves the issue. Having a tool to manage risks as they arise in your project gives you the means to control them and the costs associated with those risks.<\/p>\n We have many other project management Excel templates that you can use to manage your projects.<\/p>\n For more information on how to create and manage a project budget, watch the video below. Jennifer Bridges, PMP, gives you a number of crucial tips that can help you get the most out of your project budget template.<\/p>\n![\"ProjectManager's](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Project-Budget-Screenshot.jpg\")
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![\"ProjectManager's](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Dashboard_Construction_Wide_Zoom-150-CTA.jpg\")
<\/a>When To Use a Project Budget Template<\/h2>\n
Who Should Use this Free Project Budget Template?<\/h2>\n
How to Use ProjectManager\u2019s Project Budget Template for Excel<\/h2>\n
Labor and Materials<\/h3>\n
![\"project](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Project-Budget-Labor-and-Materials-600x172.jpg\")
\nOther Line Items<\/h3>\n
Travel<\/h3>\n
Equipment<\/h3>\n
Fixed Items<\/h3>\n
![\"budget](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Project-Budget-Other-Items.jpg\")
\nPlanned v. Actual Budget<\/h3>\n
![\"planned](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Project-Budget-2020-Budget-v-Actual.jpg\")
\nHow to Use a Project Budget Excel Template in ProjectManager<\/h2>\n
![\"creating](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Gantt_Construction_Wide_Zoom-175.jpg\")
\n![\"a](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Gantt_Manufacturing_Wide_Zoom-150_Focus-on-Tasklist_Spreadsheet.jpg\")
\nWhat Other Project Management Templates Can Keep My Project on Budget?<\/h2>\n
Timesheet Template<\/a><\/h3>\n
Work Schedule Template<\/a><\/h3>\n
Risk Tracking Template<\/a><\/h3>\n
Watch a Budget Tutorial Video<\/h2>\n