Budget (resource field)

Data Type    Yes/No

Entry Type    Entered

Description    The Budget field is used to view or change whether a work, material, or cost resource is a budget resource, that is, a resource whose work, material, or costs should be tracked in the project. By default, the Budget field is set to No.

Best Uses    Identify budget resources when you want to track budgeted resource work, material, or costs against planned (baseline) and actual resource work, material, or costs.

Add the Budget column to a resource sheet when you need to identify budget resources and non-budget resources in a single view. This can be helpful when you want to change the budget status of several resources at once. This is also useful when you want to group or filter resources by whether they are budget or non-budget resources.

Example    You have a budget of $100,000 for staffing, materials, and travel for a three-month project. As you set up your project plan, you identify as budget resources the work, material, and cost resources that make up the budget that was allocated to your project. As work on the project continues, you enter actual progress information in the project plan. You then compare any variances between your budget and actual progress to determine whether you need to make any adjustments.

Remarks    You can also use the Resource Information dialog box to identify a resource as a budget resource. Double-click the resource to open the Resource Information dialog box. On the General tab, select the Budget check box.

Budget resources cannot be assigned to individual tasks in a project, but they can be assigned to the project summary task. In fact, only budget resources can be assigned to the project summary task.

After you have assigned a resource to tasks, you cannot change that resource to a budget resource.

For cost resources that are budget resources, you can only enter information in the Budget Cost fields, but not the Budget Work fields. For work and material resources that are budget resources, you can only enter information in the Budget Work fields, and not in the Budget Cost fields.

The Max Units field is not available for work resources that are budget resources, because these are already considered full-time equivalent work resources for budgetary reasons. The Standard Rate, Overtime Rate, and Cost Per Use fields are also not applicable to budget resources.