For information about recording budgeted versus actual job prices and costs, see Record Usage for Jobs. The following procedure describes how to estimate budgeted costs during planning. By monitoring differences between actual usage and budgeted usage, you can control an ongoing project and improve the quality of future jobs by reducing the risk of underestimating costs. You can then compare the budgeted amounts with the actual usage as recorded in the job journal.
The budget can be either general with few entries or it can contain more entries that are divided into activity levels. The budget is used to plan the resources that you allocate to a job.
