Updating Job Budgets with Link Capacity

Manage Jobs is also where you can manage your Job Budgets, specifically how they relate to your capacity planning. The Job Budget syncs with Xero Practice Manager, so if you have Job Budgets set up in Xero Practice Manage these will pull through to Link. Similarly, if you update a job budget in Link, this will be updated in Xero Practice Manager.

Link has some additional budget fields that are not in Xero Practice Manager. These fields are:

• Job Budget (syncs with Xero Practice Manager)
• Allocated Disbursements
• Time Budget
• Allocated Budget
• Budget To be Allocated

Job Budget

The Job Budget field syncs with Xero Practice Manager, so if you have Job Budgets set up in Xero Practice Manage these will pull through to Link. Similarly, if you update a job budget in Link, this will be updated in Xero Practice Manager.

Allocated Disbursements

Allocated disbursements do not sync with Xero Practice Manager and have nothing to do with costs loaded in Xero Practice Manager. This is a value captured and stored in Link and is used to calculate the Time Budget for a job.

Allocated disbursements are where you enter any outsourced fees for the job. For example, if a job has a $5,000 budget and we have an agreement with our outsourced service provider that they will prepare the work for $1,000, we would enter $1,000 into Allocated Disbursements. This leaves $4,000 as our time budget which can be allocated to our local team.

Time Budget

Time budget is calculated as the Job Budget, less the Allocated Disbursements. It is not a field you can enter data into as it is calculated.. So if we have a $5,000 job budget, and enter $1,000 into Allocated Disbursements, Link would auto-calculate the Time Budget to be $4,000.

Allocated Budget

Allocated Budget is the sum of the allocated budget on all tasks on the job. The Allocated Budget on a task is calculated as the billable rate for the team member for the allocated month, multiplied by the number of allocated hours. This is then summed at a job level.  Let’s look at an example:

In this example, we have an allocated Budget of $4,100.00.

Budget to be Allocated

Budget to be Allocated is where all the magic happens. It is the Time Budget, less the Allocated Budget. Following on from the example above, we have a Time Budget of $4,000.00 and an allocated Budget of $4,100.00. This gives us a Budget to be Allocated of ($100.00). This means we have over-allocated our time to this job by $100.

Budget to be Allocated can be used to see which tasks have not yet been scheduled, or jobs which have been over-allocated. Following on from the example above, we have a Time Budget of $4,000 available, but we could have allocated 30 hours to the annual accounts task when scheduling. This would result in the allocated budget showing as $8,100.00, and the Budget to be Allocated as ($4,100.00). This means that we have planned to fail. We have planned to write off $4,100.00 on this job. 

Using Budget to be Allocated allows you to identify jobs that have been allocated too much time compared to their actual budget. Sorting the Table by Budget to be Allocated (low to high) will show you all the jobs you have planned to fail on at the top of the table. You can then speak with your job manager about why they have allocated so much time to the tasks and determine whether they have overestimated, or whether the client's fee needs to be raised. 

Once you have scheduled all your tasks in Scheduled Tasks, review your Budget to be Allocated and identify jobs you are planning to fail on and take action. The reductions in your practice write-offs will be unprecedented.