Budgets let you set planned hour and quantity targets for each cost code on a project, then track how actual field entries compare to those targets in real time. Once a budget is in place, Raken automatically calculates Efficiency, % Completed, and Projected Hours as your team logs time, materials, and quantities against that cost code.

To set up a budget in Raken:

Budgets and Production Tracking require the Performance Plan.

Budgets are built on top of cost codes, so cost codes must exist before you can budget against them. See How to Set Up Cost Codes in Raken if you haven't set these up yet.

Open the Raken web app and navigate to the project you want to budget. Click Settings at the bottom left, then Production, then Budgets.

Click + Add budget. Select the cost code you want to budget, then enter the budgeted hours and/or budgeted quantity for that code. Click Save.

Add a budget entry for every cost code you want to track progress against on this project. Cost codes without a budget entry can still be used for time and material logging, they just won't show budget-based calculations like % Completed.

From the Budgets screen, click Upload budgets to download the CSV template. Fill in your budgeted hours and/or quantities for each cost code, then upload the completed file. This is the faster option for projects with a large number of cost codes to budget at once.

Once a budget is set up, Raken calculates three figures automatically as time cards and material entries are logged against that cost code:

These figures appear in Production Insights and on the Production section of the daily report PDF.

For the Production section to appear on the daily report PDF at all, three things must be logged against the same cost code: a budget, a time card, and a material entry. Missing any one of the three keeps the section off the PDF.

Note: % Completed caps at 100% in reports, even if actual hours or quantity logged exceed the original budgeted amount. If a cost code is running over, that will still be visible by comparing the Actual and Budgeted columns directly, just not as a percentage above 100%.

Budget setup is controlled by a dedicated permission, separate from general project settings access. Any user whose role has the "Can create/edit/delete budgets" permission enabled can add, edit, and delete budgets. An Account Administrator can enable this permission for a role under Company > Roles & Permissions.

These figures only calculate once there's actual field activity to compare against the budget. Confirm a time card and a material entry have both been logged against the same cost code as the budget.

Project level. Each project has its own independent set of budgets, even if the underlying cost codes are shared company-wide. Setting a budget on one project does not affect any other project.

No. Budgets in Raken are tracked by hours and/or quantity per cost code, there is currently no dollar-amount budget field.

Not currently. The Public API supports listing existing budgets for a project, but does not support creating or updating them. Budgets need to be added manually or via the CSV bulk upload inside the Raken web app.

Confirm the cost code is enabled on this specific project first. Cost codes added at the company level only apply automatically to new projects, existing projects need the code enabled individually under Settings > Production > Cost codes. See How to Set Up Cost Codes in Raken.

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