Plans 💳 : Premium, Unlimited

User Permissions 👥: Admins, Managers, Team Leads

For legacy plans, please refer to the article here.

Timely's recurring budgets feature allows you to track your budget spending in monthly or weekly intervals for a set period, or over the life of your project. It's super helpful if you regularly work on rolling projects and retainers, but also if you want to control how you divide resources across your different projects. It's also a piece of cake to set up! 🍰 

Let's dive right in!

1. From the Project page, create a new project or edit an existing one. 

You can only add recurring budgets to brand new projects, or to existing ones that don't already have one set. Once you set a recurring budget live on a project, you will not be able to edit it. 

2. Expand the 'Budget' section and choose your budget type.
Select Time or Money, and enter the budget amount you'd like to set for each interval. 

3. Choose your recurring budget interval - either Weekly or Monthly.
Selecting "None" keeps your budget as a total lifetime budget for the project, which won't recur.

4. Set a start date for your recurring budget (required)
The logged time or money will reset automatically on the first of the month for Monthly budgets or every Monday for weekly budgets. 

Note: If the weekly recurring budget is selected with a mid-week start date, Timely will automatically change the start date to the previous Monday

5. Set an end date for your recurring budget (optional)
If an end date is not specified, the "End" field will display "Until Archived". This means that the budget on your project will continue to reset on a Monthly or Weekly basis until you archive the project. 

The start and end dates only apply to your budget; you can still log time to your project outside of the recurring budget time period.

Track recurring budgets

The quickest way to see the current budget status for your project is from the Project page in the 'All Projects' tab. It shows the budget overview for all your active projects in one place. 

But if you want to see the monthly or weekly budget status for a specific project, click on the project's name to redirect to its Individual Project page. 

From the 'Status' tab you will see the budget overview for the Month or Week interval. 

The 'Budgets' tab provides a month-over-month or week-over-week overview of your recurring budgets from the 'Start date' of your recurring budget. 

Blank logs for a given interval means no time was logged to the project during that period. 

Report on recurring budgets over time

Want to see the total budget spent over several months, or for the total life of your project? No problem! From the Reports tab, select the time frame you want to review, and wham-o: you'll get an instant update on the total logged hours, plus a breakdown for money and time logged per User and Tag for your selected period. 

It is not possible to edit a project with a recurring budget. You will need to archive the existing project and create a new version of the project for your new recurring budget. 

2. What happens with a project with a recurring budget is reactivated?
If a project with a recurring budget is archived then restored, the budget will resume and continue to reset every week or month until the "end date" has been reached or until it is archived again. If the "end date" for the recurring budget has passed, the budget will no longer reset. 

3. Why can't I set a recurring budget on my new project?
The recurring budgets feature is currently only available on Company level subscriptions. Upgrade your plan to get access to recurring budgets from Settings > Subscriptions tab. Just click the "Switch my plan" button and follow the steps to access a ton of awesome Timely features!