Freezing a Budget

Why a budget is a copy

A Budget is a frozen copy of the whole cost document, taken at a moment in time, and thereafter the thing spending is measured against. The report itself stays live and keeps being edited, and that edited state is what the other views call the Estimate. Freezing a copy rather than stamping a column on each line is what lets the Variance view show scope added after the freeze and scope dropped since.

The Budget view reading an approved revision: read-only, badged In use, with who approved it and when.

Taking a revision

New from estimate copies the live report into a new revision. Copy this revision starts from an existing one instead, which is the usual way to negotiate a variation off an approved figure rather than off a report that has moved on since. Revisions are auto-named Original, Rev A, Rev B, and the name is editable while the revision is a draft.

Only one draft exists at a time, per document.

Editing a draft

A draft is freely editable: the frozen numbers are a starting point to negotiate from. Quantity, rate and the amount itself can be typed on any line, and the totals above recompute as you go.

A draft revision: every amount editable, with Discard draft and Approve on the toolbar.

Discard draft throws the whole draft away and leaves the approved budget untouched.

Approving, and which revision is in use

Approve makes a revision immutable and puts it in use. There is no un-approve: correcting an approved revision means taking another one. Approving and putting in use are separate ideas, though, and an admin can move Use this budget to any approved revision, including an earlier one, which re-bases every variance figure in the project for everyone.

Approving a revision and choosing which one is in use are both restricted to organisation admins. Taking, editing, renaming and discarding a draft are open to anyone who can edit the project.

What a frozen line keeps

Each budget line stores its label, its place in the outline, its inputs and the amount those inputs resolved to. The stored amount is authoritative and is never recomputed, so a line copied from a BOM-linked cost line does not move when the BOM does, and a line priced from the rate library does not move when the library does.

Lines are matched back to the live report by a stable id that is never reused, so rows renamed or moved after the freeze still line up. The live row's label and position win wherever both exist.