Which finance view to use

Flowtly Editorial Team4 min

Once a budget is planned from your contracts, two places in Flowtly show money for the same work: the Budget Summary and the Finance Dashboard. They are not two versions of one number. They answer different questions, and a figure that looks missing in one is usually present in the other, dated differently.

What each one is for

Budget Summary — is this budget on plan? It covers one budget and compares what you planned with what has actually happened, period by period. Use it to answer "are we where we expected to be by now".

Finance Dashboard — where is the company's money? It covers the whole organisation and tracks cash: what has been contracted, what has been billed against it, and what has actually reached or left the bank. Use it to answer "what has been committed, and what has settled".

Why the two plan figures differ

This is the difference worth understanding, because it is the one that looks like an error.

A budget planned from contracts takes its plan from the payment-schedule lines of those contracts — the dated instalments — not from the contract total. Each instalment counts in the period its own date falls in.

The Finance Dashboard's Contracted figure is what the signed commitments come to in full, with no date phasing.

So a contract signed today, with instalments falling in October and November, appears on the dashboard immediately at its full value, while the budget places it in October and November. Comparing the two figures today makes the difference look like money that has gone missing. It has not: it is scheduled later.

To date, or the whole year

For the same reason, a budget's plan can legitimately be shown as two different numbers, and which one you see depends on where you are looking.

Where Which plan figure
Budget Summary headline cards the plan to date — only periods that have already begun — with the whole-year plan named beside it
Budget list tiles, the dashboard widget, a project's budget section the whole-year plan

Neither is wrong. Compare a to-date actual against a to-date plan, and a whole-year commitment against a whole-year plan. Comparing across the two is what produces a gap that is not really there.

What feeds a budget

A budget draws on what you tell it to include: projects, contracts with payment schedules, payroll and people costs, income from logged hours, and tagged invoices. For projects and for contracts you also choose how the budget decides which ones belong to it — a list you pick, or everything with an optional list of exclusions. See Budget configuration.

Tags are what tie a budget line to the contracts and invoices that spend against it, which is why the breakdown tables are organised by tag. Projects decide which work is in scope. Contracts supply the plan itself when the budget is planned from them, through their payment schedules.

Which to use when

You want to know Use
Are we on plan for this budget, this month or this year? Budget Summary
Why is a period over or under plan? Budget Summary, then open the period to see the lines behind the figure
What has the company committed to in total? Finance Dashboard
Has what we billed actually been paid? Finance Dashboard
Which tags or projects are consuming the budget? Budget P&L

Connection map

Refers toUses upDerived fromPart ofPlanned vs actual
Documented hereDocumented elsewhere
invoice billed to counterparty. invoice taxed by tax-group. cost spends against budget. cost owed to counterparty. bank-transaction reconciled to invoice. bank-connection imports bank-transaction. contract schedules payment-schedule-line. payment-schedule-line invoiced as invoice. contract agreed with counterparty. contract attached to budget. contract orders purchase-order-line. purchase-order-line prices position. purchase-order-line estimated against time-entry. budget raises budget-alert. budget covers project. counterparty defaults to budget. counterparty defaults to project. invoice billed from project. set-off-declaration settles invoice. set-off-declaration declared with counterparty. project linked to budget. tenant-turnover reported by counterparty. tenant-turnover compared per area from contract. utilities-statement calculated for contract. lead becomes counterparty. deal sold to counterparty.billed totaxed byspends againstowed toreconciled toimportsschedulesinvoiced asagreed withattached toorderspricesestimated againstraisescoversdefaults todefaults tobilled fromsettlesdeclared withlinked toreported bycompared per area fromcalculated forbecomessold toIInvoice — A sales document issued to a client: line items, dates, tax. It is created, reviewed, previewed and then sent — or, when it went out some other way, recorded as delivered.InvoiceCCounterparty — The other side of a financial document — a client billed, or a supplier owed.CounterpartyTTax group — The tax treatment applied to a line, so rates are set once rather than per document.Tax groupCCost — Money the organisation owes or has spent, tracked against a budget.CostBBudget — The financial envelope an engagement is measured against — what was planned, versus what has actually been spent.BudgetBBank transaction — A movement on a connected bank account. Matching it to an invoice or a cost is what makes the books agree with the bank.Bank transactionBBank connection — The consented link to one bank that transactions arrive through. It can stop working on its own — a consent expires or is withdrawn — so it reports whether it is still working.Bank connectionCContract — The financial terms of an engagement: a structured set of payment schedule lines, in one direction or the other.ContractPPayment schedule line — One dated amount on a contract, in a direction — money owed to a supplier, or due from a client.Payment schedule lineOOrder line — One line of a purchase order: a role priced by the hour with the hours estimated for it, or a deliverable priced as an outcome. A deliverable carries no hours at all.Order linePPosition — The catalogue of job titles a project role is drawn from.PositionTTime entry — What actually happened — work time logged against a project.Time entryBBudget alert — A notice that a budget has gone off plan - spending over the planned amount, or a margin below the one that was planned. It is raised by a daily check rather than by anyone asking for it.Budget alertPProject — The core organizational unit for a business initiative, client engagement or internal work. Everything tracked — time, cost, invoicing, profitability — hangs off one.ProjectSSet-off declaration — A record that your invoices to one counterparty and its cost documents were settled against each other, in amounts that balance exactly. It lowers what remains due on the invoices; it is not a payment.Set-off declarationTTenant turnover — A tenant's reported sales for one month, entered by staff and used for reporting only. An absent figure means not reported, which is a different statement from a reported zero.Tenant turnoverUUtilities statement — One lease's electricity for one month, the kWh its meters recorded times the tariff in force. A draft until finalised, then it never changes; a correction is a new draft.Utilities statementPProspect — A company you are working but that is not a customer yet. It sits at New, Contacted or Qualified, and everything done to it is logged against it.ProspectDDeal — A sale in progress: a customer, an amount, and the stage it has reached. It cannot exist without a customer, and its stage is never blank.Deal

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