Overview
The Budget tab provides a live view of your project's financial health by comparing your approved budget against your actual confirmed costs. It helps you identify overages early, understand where money is being spent, and make informed decisions throughout the project.
This article explains how to navigate the Budget tab, interpret the key metrics and budget table, drill into line items, and manage expenses.
These features are available only on the Pro plan, if you are not seeing these features available in your account, please reach out to us at [email protected] to assist.
Step 1: Navigate to the Budget Tab
Open your project in Handoff.
Tap or click the Budget tab in the project navigation.
If you see either of the following messages:
No approved estimates
Approve an estimate to start tracking your budget
then no proposal has been accepted yet. Budget tracking begins as soon as a client approves an estimate.
Step 2: Read the KPI Summary Cards
At the top of the Budget tab, four KPI cards provide a high-level overview of your project's financial status.
Total Budget
The Total budget represents the sum of all approved estimates and approved change orders.
This value is read-only.
It is always calculated from approved proposals.
It cannot be entered or edited manually.
Total Spent (Desktop) / Total Cost (Mobile)
This value represents the total of all confirmed expenses.
Expenses in Pending Review status are not included.
Remaining Budget
The Remaining budget is calculated as:
Total budget − Total spent
A positive value means budget remains.
A negative value means the project is over budget
Financial Status Badge
The status badge updates automatically based on the percentage of budget used.
Status | Budget Used |
On track | Less than 80% |
At risk | Between 80% and 100% |
Over budget | More than 100% |
The % used indicator appears next to the status badge, allowing you to quickly see your current position.
Read the budget table
Below the KPI cards is the budget tree — a hierarchical table that breaks your project down by estimate source, then by section, then by line item.
Table columns (desktop)
Item — the name of the estimate section or line item, grouped under its source (e.g., EST-001 for your base estimate, CO-001 for a change order).
Category — visible only in fullscreen mode on wide desktop screens.
Linked expenses — the number of confirmed expenses attached to that line item.
Budget — the approved estimate value for that row (quantity × rate × markup), computed from your accepted proposal.
Actual cost — the sum of all confirmed expenses linked to that line item.
Variance — Budget minus Actual cost. A positive number means you are under budget on that item. A negative number — shown in red — means you have an overage on that item.
On mobile, the bottom of the screen shows running totals for everything currently in view: Budget in view, Actual cost in view, and Variance in view.
Understand overages vs. underruns
Variance is positive (e.g., $500.00): your actual cost is less than your budget for that item. You are under budget.
Variance is negative, shown in red (e.g., -$200.00): your actual cost has exceeded your budget for that item. You have an overage.
Variance at zero: actual costs exactly match the budget.
Variance is calculated independently at each level — a line item, a section, and an estimate group can each show their own overage or underrun. A section can appear over budget even if the project overall is on track, if costs shifted between items.
Filter and search the table
You can narrow the view to focus on a specific part of the project.
Use the Search input at the top of the table to find a specific line item by name.
Use the filter tabs to show only line items from a specific source:
All — the full budget tree
EST-001, EST-002, etc. — base estimate groups only
CO-001, CO-002, etc. — individual change orders
Other expenses — costs you added outside of any estimate line item
Drill into a line item
To see the full detail for any row:
Click (desktop) or tap (mobile) any line item row. A Line item details panel or bottom sheet opens.
The panel shows:
The line item name and budget amount
Linked expenses (N) — every confirmed expense attached to this item, with a label showing whether it was Imported (from a receipt or invoice) or entered as Manual entry
Any file attachments associated with expenses on that item
A footer with Budget, Actual cost, and Variance for that item alone — variance appears in red when the item is over budget
Take action from the Budget tab
From the main table or the line item detail panel, you can:
Add an expense manually — click Add expenses > Manual entry and fill out the form. The expense is confirmed immediately and updates actuals right away.
Import expenses from a receipt or invoice — click Add expenses > Extract from file (desktop) or use Take a photo / Upload files (mobile). Extracted expenses land in a pending review state and do not count toward actuals until you approve them.
Add or edit an expense from the detail panel — click New expense inside the line item panel, or click an existing expense to edit it, including re-mapping it to a different line item.
Delete an expense — open the expense in the detail panel and use the delete option. You will be asked to confirm with Delete expense or Keep expense.
Things to know
Only confirmed expenses appear in actuals. Expenses imported from files stay in a pending review state until you approve them in the AI Review Banner. Until approved, they have no effect on your budget table or KPI cards.
The budget is always read-only. There is no way to manually set or override a budget number. If the budget looks wrong, the source is your approved estimate — check the estimate for accuracy.
Change orders appear as separate groups. CO-001, CO-002, etc. each have their own section in the table. Their line items and variances are tracked independently from the base estimate.
Invoices do not affect the actual cost calculation. Invoices you send to your client are reflected only in a separate gross profit/margin view, not in Total Spent or the Variance column.
There is no export for the budget table. If you need to share a cost breakdown externally, use the estimate export instead.
No email or push alerts for overages. Budget warnings (At risk, Over budget, red variance) are display-only inside the app.