The budget insights report is in early release for Grow and Scale plans.
Also available on legacy Premium and Enterprise plans.
What
The budget insights report gives you a consolidated view of your project budgets, including usage, remaining amounts, date alignment, and financial performance.
Why
  • See budget performance across clients and projects.
  • Understand which budgets are active, ended, or upcoming based on your selected date range.
  • Identify time that wasn’t logged against any budget.
Who
  • Owner company admins can fully access Budget insights.
  • Project and finance stakeholders can use it to interpret budget health and usage.
When
Use budget insights whenever you need a high-level view of budget performance or when validating how time has been logged against project budgets.

Budget insights report overview

The budget insights report helps you understand how budgets are progressing over time. It brings all client, project, and task-level budgets into one place so you can monitor usage, remaining budget, and financial totals at a glance.

You can find the report in Reports → All, then select Budget insights.
 

How the hierarchy works

The report is organised into four levels:
  • Client (top-level grouping)
  • Project (projects belonging to that client)
  • Budget (time and materials, fixed fee, or retainer)
  • Task list budgets (budget amounts allocated to task lists within projects)
Hierarchy structure showing client, project, budget, and task list levels

How budgets work in the report

This section explains how budget types behave, how usage is calculated, and how date ranges influence visibility and totals.

Budget types

  • Time and materials: Tracks hours and monetary usage based on logged time.
  • Fixed fee: Tracks monetary usage only. Logged hours do not affect budget totals.
  • Retainer: Tracks usage per recurring period and may apply carry-over or overspend rules.

Date ranges and budget visibility

Budgets appear when they overlap the date range you’ve selected. This includes any:
  • Budgets starting within the range.
  • Budgets ending within the range.
  • Budgets spanning the entire range.
  • Open-ended budgets that overlap the range.
Exclusions
Budgets that fall entirely before or entirely after the selected date range.

Budget periods vs report dates
Report date ranges do not alter the budget’s own dates. They simply control which portion of the budget period is shown.

Example: A budget spanning Jan–Mar will show only February’s logged time when the report is set to February.

Outside budget

The Outside budget row highlights time or expenses logged outside a budget’s active dates:
  • Logged before the budget start date.
  • Logged after the budget end date.
  • Logged on days where no active budget exists.
Budget insights report showing Outside budget rows
Tip
Unexpected outside budget totals often indicate time logged earlier or later than planned.

Used vs remaining

  • Time and materials: Usage increases with logged time or cost.
  • Fixed fee: Usage increases only when spend is recorded.

Task list budgets and unassigned amounts

  • Task list budgets divide a project’s budget into allocations for individual lists.
  • Unassigned amounts represent any portion of the budget not yet allocated to specific task lists.
  • Task list usage rolls into the project total; unassigned amounts do not accumulate usage until allocated.

Retainer budgets

  • Usage is tracked per retainer period.
  • Carry-over increases the next period’s available capacity.
  • Overspend deduction reduces the next period’s availability.

Financial metrics

  • Billable time contributes to revenue.
  • Non-billable time contributes to cost only.
  • Profit reflects the difference between revenue, logged time costs, and expenses.

Available columns

You can show or hide budget, time, cost, and revenue details using the column picker.
  1. Click the plus (+) on the right of the header row.
  2. Use the toggles to show or hide columns (e.g., budget hours, budget usage, profit %)Column picker showing available budget and financial metrics

Filter, sort, and search

Use filters to refine which budgets appear.
  1. Click Filter in the report’s top right.
  2. Select a filter option from the dropdown.

  3. Refine your selection with the available options (such as budget status, budget type, client, project, tags, owner, category, or project status).


Summary row totals

The budget insights report’s summary row aggregates totals from the budgets currently visible in the report.
Budget insights report summary row
Note
Applying filters or adjusting the date range changes which budgets contribute to summary totals.

Frequently asked questions

Why is a budget missing from the report?

Budgets only appear when they overlap your selected date range. Try widening or adjusting the range.

Why do usage totals look lower than expected?

The report only includes time logged within the selected dates. Expand the range to view more activity.

What’s the difference between unassigned amounts and outside budget?

Unassigned is allocation-based. Outside budget is date-based. They measure different things.

Why are some columns unavailable?

Certain financial columns require the Scale plan or specific role permissions.

Why are some numbers highlighted red?

Red values indicate overspend — usage has exceeded the allocated amount.


See also
To explore overall profitability and billable performance, visit the profitability report.