Whether you're creating a budget from scratch, editing an existing one, or creating one from a template, the budget overview remains consistent.
For easier navigation, you'll notice that the main budget elements include:
Budget editor: Allows setting up services, rates, billing types and units, your time-to-complete estimations, as well as defining time-tracking and booking restrictions.
Main budget settings: the budget start and end date, quick access to the Assistant, sharing options and quick notification settings, and the budget sidebar which contains general budget information, details, project and email associations, client details, and custom fields.
Navigation pane: Contains tabs like Overview, Services, Time, Expenses, Invoices, Purchase orders, Scenarios, Recurring budgets, Resource requests, and the Activity (covered in the paragraphs below👇).
Budget Navigation Tabs
The budget components in Productive have been divided into several tabs for easier navigation and data organization.
You'll find the tabs (Overview, Services, Time, Expenses, Invoices, Purchase Orders, Scenarios, Recurring, and Activity) in the budget's navigation pane in the upper right portion of the screen.
Overview
This tab features sections for Budgeting and Profitability, facilitating easy monitoring of budget spending and profits.
You have the option to display or hide the forecast chart directly from the services screen by clicking on "Show forecast chart" in the upper right corner.
Services
The Services tab provides an overview of all budget services, including price, quantity, logged hours, and total budget amounts.
You can customize how this information is displayed using service views. Default views are prebuilt for common needs (Budgeting, Profitability, Planning), while custom views let you select fields for time, financials, and service details, including service-level custom fields.
Views can be private or shared and respect user permissions—profitability and billable fields require the appropriate access. Changes can be saved to the current view or saved as a new view.
To edit service details, click Edit to open the Budget Editor, where you can adjust the price, estimates, discounts, and other service-level settings.
Additionally, you can quickly add a time entry or expense using the three-dot menu at the end of each service line item.
Time
The Time tab displays the logged time against services within the budget, along with the contributors.
👉 For further details on time entries within a budget, please check out this article.
Expenses
The Expenses tab shows all expenses linked to the budget. To log an expense directly from a budget, you'll need a service line item with its billing unit set to Piece.
👉 Learn more in How to Set Up an Expense Line Item in a Budget.
Invoices
The Invoices tab contains invoices associated with the budget, offering options for adding fields, grouping, and filtering the amounts and services you need to bill for.
The progress bar at the top helps you track available budget amounts, invoice statuses, and remaining amounts visually.
Purchase Orders
To start using POs in Productive, head over to Settings > Purchase Orders and enable the feature for your organization.
Scenarios
The Scenario Builder allows you to quickly prototype different budget and deal scenarios and evaluate their costs, profitability, and resource needs.
Recurring
The Recurring tab is used to manage recurring budgets for retainer or maintenance work. Recurring budgets can be set up manually from this tab, or created automatically when you win a retainer deal, in which case all budget periods are generated at the point of winning.
👉 See Recurring Budgets and Winning a Retainer Deal for more.
Activity
The Activity tab shows notes, emails, attachments, and changes for the budget in one place. Use it to leave a note, mention a teammate, or check what changed.
👉 Learn more about the Activity tab on deals and budgets.
📌 If the budget was created from a deal, use the dropdown at the top of the tab to switch between Sales and Production.
