#Project expense tracker excel for free
#Project expense tracker excel portable

Once you've put together your project budget, you can have a reasonable estimate of how much you expect the project to cost, and plan accordingly. If you fail to account for the potential cost of any delays or mistakes, you're setting yourself up to go over your projected budget. It doesn't matter if you're using project budget template Google Sheets, or Excel project budget templates. Presuming that everything will work perfectly is one of the biggest reasons that a budget template for project management might end up being inaccurate. If there's one thing you can expect from a project, it's unexpected problems. It's also probably worth building a cushion into your budget, by budgeting some 'Other' costs to account for unexpected problems or estimates that are too low.

#Project expense tracker excel portable

That includes anything from a flight that gets Bob on-site, to a manager's time to ensure Bob and the rest of the team are coordinating properly, to a laptop and portable hotspot so Bob&Co can share their brilliance with the home office. Remember that project budget templates should include any costs required for your project to succeed, even if they're not directly related to the project. Taking the time to list out every part of your project, while breaking down costs into Labor, Materials, Fixed Costs, and Others, helps ensure that you're putting together a realistic budget estimate and not letting things slip through the cracks. Cost overruns are a common danger on any project, but they're much more likely if you're not doing the basic preparation of putting together a comprehensive budget. If you answered 'No' to both questions, then you probably want some sort of budget tracker template. Did your eccentric rich uncle Rupert leave you a potential fortune only on the condition that you spend millions of dollars wastefully over the next 30 days in order to claim your inheritance?

#Project expense tracker excel for free

Do people always give you their goods and services for free out of sheer admiration?Ģ. Take this simple two-question quiz to find out:ġ. Note that parent rows (indicated here in blue or gray) should not have any of these costs entered, as the Subtotal column will automatically tally all descendant rows.Ĭonsult the About worksheet for further details on modifying this budget spreadsheet template - as well as some extra tips for calculating a project budget. Use the left-hand view options to sort tasks into Kanban views based on either of these two fields.įor each task, enter Fixed costs, Material costs (by Unit and Quantity), Labor costs (by Hours and Rate), and any Other costs associated with that task. Each Resource is linked to the Resources worksheet, where they are entered with a type classification (Person, Equipment, etc.) and a picture, to clarify what resources will be required for various parts of your project.īack on the main Budget worksheet, each Task is also assigned an Owner and an RYG stoplight status to indicate whether the project is proceeding as planned or in need of attention. For more complex or multi-part tasks, use a summary row (rows in gray) to break them down further into level 3 tasks.įor each bottom-level Task, select the necessary Resources (be they human or otherwise). Within each category, all related tasks are given their own row as Level 2 Tasks.

Instead, a project budget template like this one lets you enter your costs to calculate an estimated budget.īreak your project budget down into main categories, represented by blue rows. That way, you won't forget to break each project down into tasks, and then consider the materials, labor, fixed costs, and various other expenses of each task. And since building your own spreadsheet from scratch takes time, it's helpful to have a budget spreadsheet template with all the columns already set up and labeled. To make sure that your estimate is based on the best information possible, it's helpful to have a spreadsheet that lays out each part of your project, and the labor, materials, and other costs required for each part to be successfully completed. The difference between an estimate and a guess is that smart people make estimates, and estimates are based on information. No matter what you've heard about the power of positive thinking, when it comes to your budget, being optimistic and just making a guess is a bad idea. A budget, in case you're in charge of Boston's Big Dig and haven't heard of one, is a careful estimate of what your project will cost.