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To add a plan:
To do this, click the icon located at the bottom, right-hand corner of the page, complete the fields in the dialog that displays, and click Add SmartBudget.
The plan may take a few moments to generate, depending on how much data is in your system.
Once generated, a Billable Resource Costs table will display, showing the new billing rate goal for each billable role, for that plan period.
The other fields in the table show the data used to make rate calculations. You can change which columns display by clicking the icon in the corner of the table.
To edit rates or other parameters, click the Edit button, located in the top, right-hand corner of the page.
Then, update individual utilization, billing rate, or margin goals.
While editing, either the rate or margin goal must be locked (by clicking the icon), to control how other variables are impacted by your edits.
When you’re happy with the plan’s utilization rates, billing rates, and margins, click the Edit button, then click Commit.
The plan will be made active. This may take a moment.
When a plan is committed, the Administration > Projects > Project Roles page updates as follows, for each billable role:
The first day of the plan period is set as the effective date for each new rate.
You can copy an existing plan by opening SmartBudget, clicking the icon, then selecting Copy SmartBudget.
Note that:
If cost values change in your system, you can apply the updated values to an existing plan by clicking its Update Costs button. The Last Update date will change accordingly.
If you update costs for an active (committed) plan, rate defaults won’t update unless you re-commit the plan.
Yes, you can update values and rates, and re-commit the plan whenever you want. Updated rates will overwrite the existing defaults, but any project-specific rates you’ve set won’t change.
No. SmartBudget can only update default rates for new projects, so any existing projects will not be impacted.
You’ll apply goal rates as the role defaults by committing a plan. Then, when you add a role to a project’s rate card, the default will be used, unless you override it.
Your plan might fail to generate if you’re missing required data. Check that all data prerequisites have been met.
The Commit button will be unavailable if an error is present in the plan. If you resolve the error, that button should become available. Click the arrow beside the error to see more details.
This table shows the sum of all business costs for the period: Business costs + Direct cost of resources. These are used to calculate the billing rate goals.
Yes, if you forgot to include an overhead cost that applies to a plan, you can add it using the Business Costs table on the right side of the page. Simply click Add Cost.
Costs you add here will automatically be included in cost calculations, so they’ll update either billing rates or margins, depending on which is locked for editing.
This table lays out all of the non-billable resources and their costs. These costs comprise a portion of the total overhead load carried for each hour your billable resources work. This data is included so you understand exactly what the cost calculations are based on.
Create a new plan whenever you want to revise rates. This may be on an ad hoc basis, or on some regular schedule, such as quarterly or annually.
No. Updated default rates only change if you add a new SmartBudget, or update the rates manually.
You can delete both draft and active SmartBudgets by clicking the icon in the top, right-hand corner of the page, and selecting Remove SmartBudgets.
However, removing an active plan will cause all default rates for the period to revert to their pre-commit values.