Project Budgeting Configuration in Bitrix24
Project completed, client happy. Manager opens the sheet: "How much did we earn?" The account manager gathers data from three places, calculates in Excel, delivers a number two days later. Which doesn't match accounting. The problem is lack of cost tracking tied to the project. B24 isn't a financial system, but properly configured it gives enough visibility to control project budget.
Budget Structure Through Custom Fields
B24 has no built-in project budgeting module. Budget is built on custom task and deal fields. Basic structure:
- Planned Budget — numeric field in project card (work group) or related CRM deal. Fixed at project start.
- Actual Costs — summed from project tasks. Each task contains "Cost" or "Expenses" field.
- Expense Category — list: "Development," "Design," "Testing," "Purchases," "Subcontracting." Shows expense structure.
Fields are created through Administration → Custom Fields or REST API (task.item.userfield.add).
Cost Calculation by Time
The main expense item in project companies is employee time. B24 captures work effort through task time tracking:
- Employee starts a timer when working on task or enters hours manually.
- Each employee (or position) is assigned hourly rate through custom field in profile or reference book.
- Task cost = hours spent × employee's rate.
- Project cost = sum of all task costs.
Automatic calculation is implemented through business process or webhook: on task closure, robot multiplies hours by rate and saves result to "Cost" field.
Budget Reports
For budget control, set up reports:
- Budget Plan/Actual by Project — planned budget vs. actual costs. Shows overspend or savings.
- Costs by Category — how much spent on development, design, purchases.
- Costs by Employee — who logged how many hours on project and cost of that time.
- Expense Dynamics — cost accumulation graph by week. Lets you spot abnormal growth before budget exhausted.
Reports built through "Reports" module in tasks with grouping by custom fields or export to BI system.
Budget Overrun Control
Automatic notifications when approaching limit:
- Business process checks sum of actual task costs for project.
- At 80% budget — notification to project manager.
- At 100% — notification to manager and client, block new task creation without approval.
What We Configure
- Creating custom fields for budgeting: planned budget, actual costs, expense category
- Setting up reference book of hourly rates by position
- Creating business process for automatic task cost calculation (hours × rate)
- Setting up reports: plan/actual, costs by category, costs by employee
- Setting up notification robots on budget threshold breach (80%, 100%)
- Training team: correct time logging, cost field filling, reading budget reports