Overview

The Budget tab in ProLine is your go-to place to track project financials. It gives you real-time visibility into revenue, costs, commissions, service taxes, and overall profitability. This article walks you through the Budget tab step by step, showing how everything works and how you can use it to manage project finances efficiently.

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to help users understand how to access and use the Budget tab within a project to track and manage financial performance. It explains how revenue, costs, commissions, service taxes, and profitability are calculated, how variances are displayed, and how this data integrates with QuickBooks and ProLine dashboards. The goal is to give users the knowledge to confidently manage project finances from start to finish.

Accessing the Budget Tab

To view and manage a project’s budget:

Go to the Boards item on the left hand side panel.
Click on the Project you want to manage.
Open Project Details.
Click the Budget tab.

Once you open the Budget tab, you will land in the Project Analysis section, which provides a high-level overview of your project’s financials.

Project Analysis Overview

At the top of the Budget tab, the Project Analysis section provides a snapshot of the project’s financial health. It includes:

Contract Value
The total dollar amount from all signed quotes for the project, whether signed internally by your team or externally by the contact.
Revenue
Total payments collected to date for the project.
Cost
Total actual costs incurred on the project.
Commission
Total commission owed, calculated based on the assigned commission profile. This number updates dynamically as revenue and costs change.
Service Tax
Taxes applied to the project. These can be inherited from the quote or added manually at the project level.
Gross Profit
Revenue minus total costs, commissions, and service tax, displayed as a dollar amount.
Gross Margin
Gross profit expressed as a percentage of revenue.

1. Revenue

Clicking on the Revenue dropdown reveals:

Gross Revenue: This is the total of all money collected for this project
Merchant Fees: If ACH or Card fees were charged to you, the contractor, for this quote you will see the final cost here.
- This will only appear for transactions using ProLine’s internal payment processing.
Refunds: If any money is returned to the customer, the total amount will be shown here.
- This is only available for payments being processed and refunded through ProLine’s internal payment processing.
Chargebacks: If a customer were to start a dispute on a card transaction processed in ProLine this is the total that would be given back to the customer.
- This will only appear for transactions using ProLine’s internal payment processing.
ACH Returns: If the ACH transaction fails to fully process or it is rejected by the bank, that value will be listed here. Common reasons could be:
- Insufficient funds
- Incorrect account information
- Authorization issues
Net Revenue: This is the total money collected after all fees/charges have been accounted for within the sections above.

Important note: All logged payments, whether processed internally or externally, contribute to revenue totals. These payments are listed on the billing tab within the same project.

2. Costs

This section shows the overall total cost on this project. When you push on the dropdown option it will present a detailed view of:

Cost Category totals

Detailed breakdown of each cost category is listed within the “Cost Line Items” section below. These are the costs associated with the signed quote and any manual entries to the Cost Line items after the quote has been signed.

Cost Category Variance Percentage

This is the colored bubble shown to the right of each category total.

It shows the difference between:

Planned costs – The original quoted amount.
Actual costs – Planned costs plus any costs manually added in the Cost Line Item section after signing.

Clicking the variance percentage opens a detailed view with the quoted amount in dollars for easy comparison.

Color Indicators

Before the project is marked as Closed:
- The bubble appears gray.
- Only the subitems in the Cost section display color at this point. These colors come from the Cost Category settings you configured in your Price List under Company Settings.
After the project is marked as Closed:
- The variance percentage bubble will show either Green or Yellow color.

How the Colors Work

Green – Percentage is less than or equal to 0%, meaning you stayed within or under the planned budget.
- A negative percentage means you spent less than planned.
Yellow – Percentage is greater than 0%, meaning you went over the planned budget.

Cost Line Items

This section at the bottom of the Budget tab is where all bills and expenses are entered. If you’re using detailed pricing quotes (where all materials, labor, and additional costs are itemized), these entries will be added automatically from your signed quote. but you can also add entries manually. To do so:

Click the Add Cost button
Enter the name of the cost item (ex. ABC materials, Decking, Home Depot)
Enter the amount of the cost item
Select the type
- This is where you will assign the category this cost item is associated with, for example, is it material or labor cost?
Enter the due/paid date (optional)
Select if you want to Add to QuickBooks Now for the cost to be pushed over to QBO.
- See item 7 in this article for more details on sending cost line items to QuickBooks.
Once all is entered, click Save

3. Commission

The Commission section shows what the overall commission is to the assigned user, but also how that number was configured below it. When the drop down is opened, the details go:

(1) Job Total Commission
This is the percentage you’ve set in the commission profile, applied directly to the total revenue.
- Example: If your revenue is $10,000 and the commission profile specifies a 10% of job profit (with a 50/50 split), then the Job Total Commission would be $1,000.
Job Profit for Commission
This is the revenue minus the Job Total Commission and costs.
- Example: If costs are $250, then:
  $10,000 – $1,000 – $250 = $8,750
(2) Company Overhead
This deduction is calculated using the percentage and method defined in the commission profile. That percentage is applied against the Job Profit for Commission.
(3) Job Profit Commission
This is the percentage of the job profit, after the overhead deduction, that will be paid as commission.
Total Commission (1 + 3)
The final commission is the sum of the Job Total Commission and the Job Profit
Commissions Paid – On any project with commission enabled:
- Record commission payments directly in the commission breakdown.
- Admins or users with permission can view all commissions paid in the Leaderboard.
- Clicking a paid commission number opens a list of associated projects.
- From this list, you can quickly open any project to record payments.
Assigned User: Which user is getting this commission for the project
Assigned Commission: This will show the assigned commission structure that the assigned user has attached to their ProLine profile.

Note: If you’re using the Job Total Commission method, only the Job Total Commission (1) will be calculated for the payout. The other fields won’t be factored into the Total Commission (1+3).

Commission profiles are configured at the “manage teams” section, to see a more detailed breakdown of how commissions work and are calculated, please follow the article here!

4. Service Tax

Service tax will be inherited from the quote but can always be modified or added within the budget tab. Click the filter icon next to the Service Tax title to add or remove a service tax.

Should there be more than one service tax attached to a project you will be able to click on the dropdown of this section to see all the taxes that are associated with the project. Each tax will show its percentage being charged and what that equals to in dollar value.

5. Gross Profit

This section will tell you the dollar amount of your gross profit. This is calculated by taking your revenue and subtracting your costs, commissions and service tax of the project:

Gross Profit = Revenue - Costs-Commission-Service Tax

Gross Profit Variance

You can also see a Gross Profit Variance **** (Percentage next to Gross profit dollar amount), which displays:

Planned Profit– calculated as Revenue minus Planned Costs, initial commissions, and taxes.
Keep in mind: your commission value might be affected if you add cost line items after the quote is signed or if you transfer the commission to another user.
Actual Profit – This is your Gross profit calculated as Revenue minus Actual Costs, commissions, and taxes

Clicking the variance percentage opens a detailed view with the quoted amount in dollars for easy comparison.

Color Indicator

Before the project is marked as Closed:
- The bubble appears gray.
After the project is marked as Closed:
- The variance percentage bubble will show either Green or Yellow color.

How the Colors Work

Green – Percentage is greater than or equal to 0%, meaning you met or exceeded the planned gross profit.
Yellow – Percentage is less than 0%, meaning the gross profit fell below the planned amount.

6. Gross Margin

This section will tell you the percentage amount of your gross margin. This is calculated by taking your gross profit and dividing it by your revenue.

Gross Margin = (Actual profit / Revenue) * 100

IMPORTANT: Both of these figures provide quick insight into project profitability in real time. This is a dynamic feature that is changing based on money coming in and out of a project throughout its life cycle in ProLine.

7. QuickBooks Integration

View the Entire Project in QBO

Click View in QBO from the Budget tab to open the full project in QuickBooks Online.
See all project transactions, costs, and revenue in real time.

Send Cost Line Items to QBO

For any Cost Line Item:

Click the QBO icon.
In the pop-up, enter:
- Name – Cost item name (e.g., materials, labor, vendor)
- Cost Amount – Dollar value
- Type – Material, labor, or other
- Due Date – Optional
Click Next to choose:
- Bill – Payable to vendor
- Expense – Already paid
Assign vendor and category:
- Select vendor from QBO vendor list
- Choose expense category
- Set billable status
- Add or edit bill description
Click Send to QBO
- Icon turns green
- Click to view QBO reference number

Notes:

Pre-populate cost line items in QBO for recurring entries.
Updates in ProLine do not automatically update QBO unless re-sent.
Send individual or multiple items as needed.
Keeps ProLine and QBO project financials synchronized.
To learn how, check article: Integrations: QuickBooks (Step 4: Bills & Expenses)