Understand budget versus actuals
Compare the amount you planned for each category with the actual amount you enter on that line.
Who it is for
Use the project Budget screen while a rehab is underway and you want a category list you can scan. The page title is Budget vs actuals. The line under it says "Track estimated vs actual spend by category."
A wholesale project does not show Budget. Opening that address says "Not available for this strategy" and "This tool does not apply to the selected investment strategy."
The numbers on this page are the budget lines you save. Recording an expense does not type a new actual into these lines. Expenses stay on Expenses. Receipts compares them with the plan.
Before you start
- A project that is not wholesale, so the Rehab group shows Budget.
- A role that can save. Viewers see "Your role doesn't allow that action. Ask an owner or admin."
- Optional: an estimate on Estimator if you want Sync to Budget to create the first lines. See send the estimate total into the analyzer.
Steps
Open Budget
Open the project. In the project menu, under Rehab, click Budget. You can also use the shortcut labeled Budget. The kicker is "Project operations."
Four tiles sit above the table: Estimated, Actual, Variance, and Lines.
Add a budget line
Click + Add budget item. The form asks for Category, Description, Estimated amount, and Actual amount. Category is required. Description, estimated, and actual can be left blank and are stored as empty or zero.
Save the line
Click Save. The confirmation is "Budget item added." The form closes. The new row appears in the table with columns Category, Description, Est., Actual, and Var.
Read the variance
Variance on a row is actual minus estimated. A positive number is shown with a plus sign. The tile Variance is the same math for every line on this project. Lines is how many budget rows are saved.
Remove a line you do not want
Click the × on that row. The accessible name is "Delete record." The confirmation is "Record deleted." An empty table says "No budget records" and "Use Add budget item to create the first line."
What the fields mean
Category is the label you compare later with expenses, such as Kitchen or Roof. Description is optional detail. A blank description shows as a dash in the table.
Estimated amount is the plan for that line. Actual amount is what you type as spent or committed on that line. Rehabfolio does not fill Actual from the expense ledger. If you want the plan to start from the estimator, open Estimator, go to the summary, and click Sync to Budget. That writes one estimated line per estimate category, with the description "Synced from repair estimate," plus an Estimate Adjustments line when contingency or overhead is in the estimate. New synced lines start with an actual of 0. Syncing again updates the estimated amount on those linked lines. It does not copy expenses into Actual.
Variance above zero means the actual you entered is higher than the estimate. Zero or below means you are at or under the estimate on the numbers typed here.
Tips and troubleshooting
- Wholesale projects hide this tab. Change the strategy if this address should carry a rehab budget.
- "Your role doesn't allow that action. Ask an owner or admin." Ask an owner or admin to save the line, or sign in with a role that can edit.
- Expenses, receipts, and bank imports do not rewrite these Actual cells. Update Actual yourself, or read spend on record an expense and on Receipts, where Recorded spend is the expense total.
- Sync to Budget replaces linked estimate lines. Lines you added by hand, with their own categories, stay unless they were created by an earlier sync.
- The workspace Budgets page can show expense totals in its Actual tile when every budget actual is still 0. That rollup is explained in scan every project's budget.
What to do next
Log the bills that support the rehab in record an expense. Scan the workspace tiles in scan every project's budget. If the lines should start from a spreadsheet of old bills, use import expenses from a CSV.
Next step
Continue with Draft a scope from photos.