ForemanFOREMAN

Time → budget project costing

See how approved hours and labor cost roll into your budget, turning tracked time into real project costing.

Tracked time isn't just a timesheet — it feeds your budget. Once an entry is approved, its hours and labor cost roll up against the budget item you attributed them to, so you can compare what you planned against what the work actually cost.

What rolls into the budget

Two things from each approved entry reach the budget:

  • Hours — the labor hours worked on that item.
  • Time Cost — those hours priced at the member's burdened Standard and Overtime rates.

Only Approved entries count. Pending entries, and entries logged with no item, don't roll up until they're approved and attributed.

The path from clock to budget

  1. Log time — by the live clock or by hand — and choose a budget line in Item. (See The live clock and Manual time entry & approval.)
  2. A manager opens the entry, sets its Status to Approved, and clicks Save.
  3. Foreman sums the approved hours and labor cost for each budget line.
  4. The line's Hours and Time Cost columns update on your budget, and the labor cost is added into Actual Cost alongside the vendor bills.

Don’t see this?

Approving time requires time-entry write access and permission to manage the team. If the Status field isn't available, ask an authorized manager to approve the entry.

See it on the budget

  1. From the sidebar, open Projects and choose your project.
  2. Open its Budget tab.
  3. Look at the Hours and Time Cost columns on each line — they reflect the approved time attributed to it.

Note

Attributed time to the wrong line, or it's still Uncategorized? Reopen the entry, change its Item, click Save, and the rollup follows the next time it's recalculated.

Keeping the numbers honest

Labor cost is a project-costing figure, not an instruction to bill the client. Review the columns in any budget view you share externally. Standard and overtime rates are saved on an entry when that rate is first needed; later rate changes don't overwrite an existing rate snapshot. Changing an entry's hours or date can still change its standard/overtime split and total cost.

Note

Time Cost is one of the two halves of Actual Cost — the other is vendor bills approved for payment. It also keeps its own column, so you can read labor on its own and see it inside the total spend at the same time.