✔  Available on Grow and Scale subscriptions 1

What
An hourly or fixed fee recurring budget that can carry over budget surplus (or deficit) from one period to the next. 
Why
  • Automatically manage an ongoing budget with the flexibility of surplus or deficits.
  • Focus on delivering results and achieving your goals, without manually calculating a budget’s administrative and financial aspects.
  • Stay on top of current spend so you can make adjustments to end a project on budget.
Who
  • Site admins (in the owner company) can view, create, and manage budgets on all projects.
  • Site admins (in external companies/clients) can view, create, and manage budgets on projects they're a member of.
  • Project admins can view, create, and manage budgets on projects they're an admin on.
  • Standard users and client users with the project permission:
    • View project budget (allows users view-only access to the Finance tab's Budgets subsection).
    • Manage project budget (allows users to create new retainer budgets and manage existing ones).
When
For projects that involve ongoing work or support for the same client over a period of time. Typically, the work is continuous with a set budget renewing on a predefined cadence (like monthly or quarterly).
  • Brand management: When a company needs ongoing brand management and marketing support, retainer budgets let you manage budget allocation for that work over time.
What
An hourly or fixed fee recurring budget that can carry over budget surplus (or deficit) from one period to the next.
Why
  • Automatically manage an ongoing budget with the flexibility of surplus or deficits.
  • Focus on delivering results and achieving your goals, without manually calculating a budget’s administrative and financial aspects.
  • Stay on top of current spend so you can make adjustments to end a project on budget.
Who
  • Site admins (in the owner company) can view, create, and manage budgets on all projects.
  • Site admins (in external companies/clients) can view, create, and manage budgets on projects they're a member of.
  • Project admins can view, create, and manage budgets on projects they're an admin on.
  • Standard users and client users with the project permission:
    • View project budget (allows users view-only access to the Finance tab's Budgets subsection).
    • Manage project budget (allows users to create new retainer budgets and manage existing ones).
When
For projects that involve ongoing work or support for the same client over a period or time. Typically, the work is continuous with a set budget renewing on a predefined cadence (like monthly or quarterly).
  • Brand management: When a company needs ongoing brand management and marketing support, retainer budgets let you manage budget allocation for that work over time.
🎓 Learn in-app: Retainer project budgets

Before you start

  • Retainer budgets require a project's Time and Finance features to be turned on.
  • A project can only have one active budget at a time. The active budget is the one encompassing today’s date.
  • Projects can have multiple budgets but they cannot have overlapping dates, i.e. one budget's start and end dates cannot coincide with an existing (current or upcoming) budget’s dates.
💡 Are retainer budgets not the right fit? Check out fixed fee budgets, time & materials budgets, and task list budgets.
 

Usage limits

Teamwork.com plan
Number of active retainer budgets
Grow & Premium
2 retainer budgets
Scale & Enterprise
Unlimited retainer budgets
Teamwork.com plan
Number of active retainer budgets
Grow & Premium
2 retainer budgets
Scale & Enterprise
Unlimited retainer budgets

Create a retainer budget


  1. Click Jump to in Teamwork.com's left navigation menu.
  2. Search for and select a project. 
  3. Switch to the Finance section and select the Budgets tab. 
  4. Click Add project budget. 
    1. If a budget already exists, click the ellipsis (three dots) in the view's top right and select Add new budget. 
  5. Select Retainer as the budget type. 

    Image Placeholder
     
  6. Click the $ (currency) icon in the Retainer budget dropdown. 
  7. Choose either $ (financial) or Image Placeholder (time). The option you choose dictates the type of budget you're creating.
     
     
  8. Enter the retainer budget amount. This is the baseline budget amount that is renewed each budget period. 
  9. Select which logged time type contributes to your budget. Choose one of the following: 
    1. All time - all time logged (billable and non-billable)
    2. Billable time - time logged as billable that clients should be billed for
    3. Non-billable time - time logged as non-billable that clients should not be billed for
  10. Choose a budget period length (i.e. the project's billing frequency):
    1. Monthly
    2. Quarterly
  11. Select the retainer's start and end dates. This is usually the contract's duration. 
  12. Customize Retainer options using the checkboxes to:
    1. Add unspent hours to next period's budget.
    2. Subtract overspent hours from next period's budget.
  13. Click Advanced options.
  14. Check the default billable rate box to set a default project rate. Tread lightly — this bulk updates the billable rate for everyone on the project.
    Image Placeholder

  15. Check the Enable notifications box to notify certain users when the budget reaches (or exceeds) a certain usage percentage.
    1. Set recipients, notification type (email or mobile push), and budget usage %.
      💡 You might want to track a budget as it reaches 50, then 75, then 90 percent of the budget. Create multiple notifications to stay on track.
  16. Click Create retainer budget.
 

Another option...

Create a retainer budget from the project's Dashboard. 
  1. From a project's Dashboard tab, select the Summary tab. 
  2. Scroll to the Project budget panel. 
  3. Click Add a budget. Have an existing budget? Instead, click the ... (ellipsis) in the Project budget panel's top right, then select Add new budget. 

Edit a retainer budget

  1. Click Jump to in Teamwork.com's left navigation menu. 
  2. Search for and select a project. 
  3. Switch to the project’s Finance section, then select the Budgets tab.
  4. Scroll to the Project budget panel.
  5. Click the ... (ellipsis) in the panel's top right. 
  6. Select Edit budget from the dropdown menu. 
  7. You can edit: 
    1. Budget type (time or financial)
    2. Budget amount
    3. Time log type to contribute
    4. Budget end date 
    5. Advanced options:
      1. Default billable rate 
      2. Notifications 

📝 The budget must be deleted and recreated if any of the following need to be amended:
  • Period length
  • Start date
  • Budget's under/over spend in relation to the next period's budget

End the current retainer budget

  1. Click Jump to in Teamwork.com's left navigation menu.
  2. Search for and select a project. 
  3. Switch to the project’s Finance section, then select the Budgets tab.
  4. Scroll to the Project budget panel.
  5. Click the ... (ellipsis) in the panel's top right. 
  6. Select End current budget from the dropdown menu. 
  7. Click the date field. 
  8. Choose a date from the date picker as the existing budget's end date. The budget continues to be active up to and including the selected date.
  9. Click Save. 
Your budget ends at 11:59pm on the selected date and after that date shows up in budget history. 


Delete the current retainer budget

  1. Click Jump to in Teamwork.com's left navigation menu. 
  2. Search for and select a project. 
  3. Switch to the project’s Finance section, then select the Budgets tab.
  4. Scroll to the Project budget panel.
  5. Click the ... (ellipsis) in the top right of the panel. 
  6. Select Delete budget from the dropdown menu. 
  7. Click OK to confirm deletion.

Your budget is deleted (i.e. erased from the account). It will no longer appear on reports or invoices and won’t be visible or editable.
 

View retainer history 

  1. Click Jump to in Teamwork.com's main navigation menu.
  2. Search for and select the relevant project. 
  3. Switch to the project's Finance tab.
  4. Select the Budgets tab.

The retainer history panel displays the project's budget data in columns. 

Image Placeholder

💡 Hover over any of the chart’s bars to see the corresponding period’s data displayed numerically.

Total bar 
Light blue 
Displays the budget target for the month or quarter. In the first month, it always matches the default budget value. However, depending on the budget's over/underspend tracking, it can be more or less than this value in subsequent periods.
Used bar
Dark blue
Represents the amount of budget actually used within the retainer period. It fills up as time is logged against the project.
Added
Bar's green section
Shows the amount of surplus budget available if unused budget has been carried over from previous periods. This bar only appears if the total bar exceeds the budget's default value. 
Subtracted
Bar's red section
This section is added under the Total bar (below the x-axis) to represent a budget that was subtracted from the default value due to overspend in the previous period.
Average
Pink line
The average hours spent or fees incurred each period up through the current date. The goal is to have this bar as close as possible to the default line.
Default
Dashed grey line
The baseline retainer budget amount that is renewed each period cycle.
Total bar
Light blue
Displays the budget target for the month or quarter. In the first month, it always matches the default budget value. However, depending on the budget's over/underspend tracking, it can be more or less than this value in subsequent periods.
Used bar
Dark blue
Represents the amount of budget actually used within the retainer period. It fills up as time is logged against the project.
Added
Bar's green section
Shows the amount of surplus budget available if unused budget has been carried over from previous periods. This bar only appears if the total bar exceeds the budget's default value.
Subtracted
Bar's red section
This section is added to the base of the Total bar to represent a budget that was subtracted from the default value due to overspend in the previous period.
Average
Pink line
The average hours spent or fees incurred each period up through the current date. The goal is to have this bar as close as possible to the default line.
Default
Dashed grey line
The baseline retainer budget amount that is renewed each period cycle.

Best practices

  • Create budgets at the start: Add a budget as part of the process of kicking off a project or task list — even better, add budgets to project templates if you can.
  • Establish a budget baseline: Clearly define budget amount, retainer lifespan and budget period with the customer. When negotiating a budget, work towards setting a realistic target based on past performance, market rates, and industry standards.
  • Set up a budget review process: Regularly review the budget and assess its performance, making adjustments as needed to improve efficiency and effectiveness.

Elevate

  • Granular financial visibility: Drill down into your project budget by creating budgets for each task list.
  • Expense tracking: Account for one-off costs associated with a project by creating budget expenses in conjunction with a financial (fee-based) project budget.
1. Also available on legacy subscriptions: Premium, Enterprise.