Project Budget Template
A vital part of project management is creating and managing an accurate budget. Use TotalSheets's project budget template along with a well-defined project plan to help put together a solid budget - one that will allow you to accurately predict your costs and to manage those costs during your project.
This project budgeting template was designed for all sorts of projects. Use it for home remodeling, contract work, small community service projects, and even large IT project budgets. Unless you are doing a multi-year, multi-million dollar project, you probably don't need to invest in expensive or more complex project budgeting software. For tracking spending over time, see our earned value management template.
Detailed Project Budget (New)
for Excel
Description
This version of the project budget template was designed with a new look and it provides multiple columns for fixed costs. Also, instead of using the Labor, Materials, and Fixed Costs columns to calculate the Budgeted amount, these columns are used to calculate the Actual amount.
Detailed Project Budget with WBS
for Excel
Description
This spreadsheet is designed to make it easy to define and categorize all the costs associated with a detailed project. The categories are laid out in the traditional WBS (work breakdown structure) format, making this template a useful addition to our popular Gantt chart template, which can be used to define a detailed project schedule.
This sheet allows you to specify material and labor rates and quantities for each task - automatically calculating the dollar amount.
Basic Project Budget with Income Section
for Excel
Description
This version is based on our general business budget template, and includes a section for recording income sources. This spreadsheet can be useful for smaller projects such as home remodeling or other small construction projects, where it may not be as critical to use a detailed work breakdown structure (WBS).
When adding new budget categories, make sure to verify the formulas for the Subtotals and Totals. As your project progresses, enter the actual expenditures for each task to see how well you are staying on budget. The difference between the budget and the actual expenditures will be calculated for each task along with the total variance for the project.
Monthly Project Budgeting Template
for Excel
Description
This template is for defining a budget by listing expenses (and income) on a monthly basis, and you can easily delete or insert more columns for projects of different lengths.
This spreadsheet is a cross between our EVM Template and the Personal Budget Spreadsheet. If you want to plan, track and graph spending over time, you might want to use the EVM template.
Project Budgeting Tips
- Make sure you document your assumptions when putting together your budget. These can be important when tracking your project and reviewing the outcome.
- Build some contingencies into your budget for unexpected costs and delays. But don't over inflate your budget too much or you may never get the project started.
- Don't try and do it all yourself. Make sure you get input from all the other key individuals and organizations that will play a role in delivering the project. They will be better able to provide accurate estimates of the project costs in their areas.
- Make sure you have an accurate understanding of your resources and the costs associated with those resources. Don't forget to include maintenance for machines and equipment. For individuals, be sure to add time off, overtime, insurance and other overhead numbers if needed.
- Watch your time estimates – don't underestimate the time it will take to complete tasks. This can run into scheduling conflicts which will ultimately blow your budget.
- Use your budget to track your performance and to communicate with other departments before, during and after your project.
