Budget configuration

To configure a budget, start by clicking on the Budget item in the main menu. In the top-right corner of the view, you will see the Add button, which provides two options: Add a Budget or Add a Budget group.

If you select the Budget Group option, a modal will appear where you can enter the name of the budget group. Once saved, the new budget group will appear in the main budget view, listed after all not grouped budgets.

After creating a budget group, you can add budgets to it in two ways:

• Create a new budget within the group: Click the Add new budget button located near the budget group. A modal will open, allowing you to configure the new budget.

• Attach an existing budget to the group: Open the specific budget by clicking on its tile, then select Edit budget in the top-right corner of the page. In the modal that appears, choose the desired budget group from the dropdown menu and save the changes. Additionally, you can rename a budget group or delete it entirely by using the corresponding buttons provided in the interface.

If you select Budget option after the Add button is clicked, the modal will open with following fields:

• Name;

• Budget category [optional];

• Budget type: Common (all participants use one common budget pool), Individual (each participant has his own budget pool, which he uses independently).

  After "Save" button is clicked, you will be redirected to this budget page. The budget page always shows a Budget Summary tab and a P&L by tags tab (currently a preview feature); a P&L by person tab (also a preview feature) additionally appears for budgets that include employee costs. A badge next to the budget name indicates whether the budget is in observation or planning mode. The Budget Summary tab is divided into two sections: a chart and a detailed list of costs with a circle diagram, that will visually represent all costs, showing the total amount used within the budget. Within this view, you can plan and manage your budget by clicking the dedicated "Plan your budget" button.

Budget Planning

Budget planning in Flowtly is monthly and open-ended. You choose a year, pick a start month if you want, and set the amount for any month. There is no end date—values and rules continue into future months and years until you change them. Planning is not required to use Budgets.

The planner shows one year at a time for convenience. Use the year picker to switch what you’re viewing; this does not limit the period of the budget. Click any month bar to open the month editor. The Budget total in the top-right reflects the sum for the currently visible year, and saving updates the chart immediately. You can return at any time and adjust months again.

In the month editor you enter a Base amount for that month. If the previous month already has a value, it appears as the default. You can optionally apply Exponential growth (%) to compound a percentage increase month over month from this point forward, Linear growth (currency) to add a fixed amount each month, or Unit growth (currency) when your budget depends on units. Leaving the growth fields empty keeps the same value for the following months.

When you set a base or a growth rule in a month, it becomes the starting point for all subsequent months and carries across years automatically. Editing any later month establishes a new starting point from there on. Clearing the growth fields in a later month stops the automatic increases from that point; existing values remain as set. Months before your chosen start month can stay at zero if you don’t need them.

Save your changes and navigate between years to review how the current rules extend into the future.

Budgets planned from contracts, inside a budget group. A budget can take its plan from the payment schedules of its projects' contracts instead of from the planner. If such a budget belongs to a budget group, and one of its projects has no contract schedule, it uses that project's manual plan. The manual plan comes from the budget in the same group that is planned by hand and covers only that project. This lets a consolidated budget include every project, whether it is planned by contract or by hand. A project's plan is never counted twice: when its contracts plan costs (or income), those contracts are the plan for that side, and the manual plan is not added to them. If more than one manual budget in the group covers the same project, the oldest one is used. A manual budget that covers several projects is not split between them.

It’s important to note that budget planning is not mandatory to start using the budget. You can directly attach costs or invoices to a budget, even if it has not been planned or configured. In such cases:

1. The system will automatically display the Budget Summary in a monthly configuration by default.
2. The Costs table will also be displayed, providing an overview of the attached costs and invoices.

This flexibility allows you to start tracking financial activity immediately, even before completing the budget configuration process.

The cost breakdown, part of the Budget Summary tab, displays a table summarising all transactions associated with the budget, organised by months. Each row represents a transaction, showing the cost for each month across the selected timeframe. Costs are displayed in the relevant currency, with blank cells indicating no expenses for that month. This structured view helps analyse spending patterns, and manage budgets effectively.

For the Individual budget type, participants are managed from a Participants drawer rather than a separate tab. It allows users to manage and view individuals or entities associated with the specific budget. Participants can be added or removed as needed, ensuring clear visibility of who is involved in the budget's allocation and management.

What the budget includes

One step of the budget dialog, What should the budget include?, is where you tick the kinds of cost and revenue a budget tracks — projects, contracts with payment schedules, payroll and people costs, income from logged hours, and tagged invoices. For Projects and Contracts with payment schedules you also choose how the budget decides which of them belong to it.

Projects

• Selected projects — the budget covers the projects you pick, and only those.
• All projects — the budget covers every project that is not archived. Under this option you can additionally list projects to exclude, and the budget then covers everything except the ones you list.

A caption under the picker spells out which of the two rules the budget will be saved with, so it is always visible whether exclusions are being applied.

Contracts

• Selected contracts — the budget covers the contracts you pick, and only those.
• All contracts — the budget covers every contract.
• All from related projects — the budget covers every contract attached to a project this budget covers. Widening or narrowing the project side widens or narrows the contract side with it.

"All" is a rule, not a list

The difference matters most for things that do not exist yet.

Selected projects and Selected contracts record a fixed list. A project or contract created afterwards sits outside the budget until someone opens the budget and adds it, and nothing on screen points that out — the figures are simply smaller than the whole picture.

The All options record a rule instead, and that rule is applied every time the budget is read. A project created next month is inside an All projects budget without anyone reopening it, and a contract attached later to a project the budget covers is inside an All from related projects budget the same way.

Exclusions work the same way. Excluding one project from All projects stores "everything except that project" rather than a list of whatever existed at the time, so projects created later stay covered and the exclusion keeps holding.

On the budget page and in the budget list, this rule is shown as All non-archived projects in this organisation, or All non-archived projects in this organisation except followed by the number of excluded projects. It means every project in your organisation that is not archived, including projects created after the budget.

Archived projects are left out. Archiving a project takes it out of every budget under an All projects rule, so its costs and income stop counting towards those budgets. A transaction on that project then no longer lists them, and shows Not linked to any budget if no other budget covers it. Unarchiving the project brings it back.

Changing an existing budget

Opening a budget for editing shows which option it uses and keeps it. A budget built from a hand-picked list keeps that list and that behaviour until someone changes it.

Switching to one of the All options leaves your hand-picked list in place rather than discarding it, so switching back restores the projects or contracts you had chosen instead of making you pick them again.

If you save while the budget's coverage is still loading, the dialog asks you to try again in a moment rather than saving. Saving early could drop exclusions the budget is meant to keep and quietly widen it.

Example use cases

• Manage recurring monthly departmental expenses with projected growth.
• Track individual project budgets for different teams or clients.
• Allocate and monitor personal spending limits for multiple participants within a larger budget.
• Set up flexible spending plans that adjust based on units or fixed increments.
• Keep a company-wide budget that covers every project that is not archived, including ones started after the budget was set up.
• Track a department's spend across all projects except the two run for a different cost centre.