Category: Budget & Finance

Compare your planned budget to actual spending.

Budget vs actual report

1. Go to Budget & Finance
2. View the main dashboard showing:
   • Budget — Planned amount
   • Allocated — Committed (linked issues)
   • Spent — Actual costs
   • Variance — Budget – spent (+ or -)

Category	Budget	Spent	Variance
Engineering	$600k	$550k	+$50k (under)
Design	$200k	$220k	-$20k (over)
Total	$800k	$770k	+$30k (under)

Drill down by team

1. Click a team budget
2. See that team’s budget vs. actual breakdown

Drill down by area

1. Click a team
2. Click an area
3. See that area’s budget vs. actual

View variance trends

Budget vs. actual reports often show:

• Month 1: $50k spent of $200k budget (25%)
• Month 2: $95k spent of $200k budget (47%)
• Month 3: $180k spent of $200k budget (90%)

This trend helps you forecast if you’ll go over budget.

Analyze variance

If you’re over budget:

1. See Manage budget overruns

If you’re under budget:

1. Consider reallocating funds to other areas
2. Or confirm the budget is still aligned with plans

Export for reporting

1. Click Export in Budget & Finance
2. Choose Budget vs Actual
3. Download CSV or PDF

Share with leadership or stakeholders.

Set variance alerts

Some companies set alerts:

• Alert if spending exceeds 85% of budget
• Alert if spending is on track to exceed budget by quarter-end

Check Settings > Alerts or Notifications if configured.

Monitor how your team’s spend aligns with budget.

Link issues to budget

Issues can be tagged with cost categories (optional):

1. Create an issue
2. In the detail panel, set:
   • Budget area — Which budget this work belongs to
   • Estimated cost (optional) — How much this issue will cost
3. Click Save

View spending by team

1. Go to Budget & Finance
2. Click a team budget
3. See:
   • Budget amount — The cap
   • Allocated — Money committed to active work
   • Spent — Actual costs incurred
   • Remaining — Budget – allocated – spent

Track by area

Click a team budget to see its areas:

• Backend API area: $80k budget, $65k spent, $15k remaining
• Frontend area: $70k budget, $52k spent, $18k remaining

Track by person

Click an area to see its members:

• Alice: $30k budget, $22k spent, $8k remaining
• Bob: $40k budget, $38k spent, $2k remaining

Update actual spending

1. In Budget & Finance, click an area or person
2. Click + Add spending or Log expense
3. Enter:
   • Amount — How much was spent
   • Category — What it was spent on
   • Date — When it was spent
   • Notes — Details
4. Click Save

Bulk update spending

If you have many expenses:

1. Export a CSV template from Budget & Finance
2. Fill in amounts and categories
3. Upload the CSV
4. Spending updates automatically

See allocated vs. spent

• Allocated — Issues estimated at $X for this budget
• Spent — Actual expenses logged for this budget

Allocated is useful for forward-looking planning. Spent is for tracking actual costs.

Budgets in Forest exist at multiple levels: project, team, area, user, and discipline.

Budget hierarchy

Project Budget
├── Team Budget (e.g., Engineering, Design)
│   ├── Area Budget (e.g., Frontend, Backend)
│   │   └── User Budget (e.g., Alice, Bob)
└── Discipline Budget (e.g., by functional area)

You don’t have to use all levels—start simple and add complexity as needed.

Create a project budget

1. Go to Budget & Finance
2. Click + New Budget or New Project Budget
3. Enter:
   • Name — Usually your project name
   • Total amount — Annual or quarterly budget
   • Currency — USD, EUR, etc.
4. Click Create

The project budget is now your top-level container.

Create team budgets

1. In Budget & Finance, click your project budget
2. Click + New Team Budget or + Team
3. Enter:
   • Name — Team name (e.g., “Engineering”)
   • Budget amount — How much this team can spend
4. Click Create

Team budgets nest under the project budget.

Create area budgets

Areas break down team budgets further:

1. Click a team budget
2. Click + New Area Budget or + Area
3. Enter:
   • Name — Area name (e.g., “Backend API”)
   • Budget amount
4. Click Create

Area budgets nest under team budgets.

Create user budgets

User budgets track spending by person:

1. Click an area budget (or team budget)
2. Click + New User Budget or + Person
3. Enter:
   • Name — Person’s name or ID
   • Budget amount — Their allocation
4. Click Create

Discipline budgets

Discipline budgets organize spending by functional area:

1. Create discipline budgets similar to team budgets
2. Assign people to disciplines in Settings > Disciplines
3. Budget & Finance shows discipline-level spending

Budget per quarter

Some teams set budgets by quarter:

Budget	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Engineering	$150k	$150k	$200k (hiring)	$200k
Design	$50k	$50k	$50k	$50k

Create separate budget entries for each quarter, or set a total annual budget.

Test hiring and staffing scenarios with budget impact.

Create a budget scenario

1. Go to Scenario Planning
2. Create a staffing scenario (e.g., “Hire 2 engineers Q3”)
3. Switch to Budget & Finance within that scenario
4. See how budget changes with the new headcount

Example

Baseline: 15 engineers, $600k annual budget Scenario: Hire 2 engineers mid-Q3

• Q1–Q2: $300k (baseline)
• Q3: $325k (4.5 months original + 1.5 months new hires)
• Q4: $350k (all 17 people)
• Total: $825k vs. $600k budget
• Delta: Need $225k additional budget

Compare budget across scenarios

1. Go to Scenario Planning
2. View multiple staffing scenarios
3. Create a comparison:

Scenario	Headcount	Annual Cost	Variance
Baseline	15	$600k	—
Hire 2 eng	17	$825k	+$225k
Hire 3 eng	18	$950k	+$350k
Attrition (-2)	13	$500k	-$100k

Make hiring decisions

Use budget scenarios to approve hiring:

• “We can hire 2 engineers in Q3 for +$225k”
• “Or defer hiring to Q4”
• “Or hire 1 now, 1 in Q4”

Commit scenario to budget

Once you’ve committed a staffing scenario:

1. The budget automatically reflects new headcount
2. Update your budget in Budget & Finance to match
3. Communicate the new budget to stakeholders

Adjust budget for scenarios

1. Create a scenario
2. Add/remove headcount
3. Update budget in Budget & Finance > scenario mode
4. See financial impact side-by-side with staffing

Monitor actuals against scenario budget

Once a scenario becomes baseline:

Forecast remaining spend for the year

Track spending against the scenario budget

Adjust actuals as hires ramp up

When spending exceeds your budget, take corrective action.

Identify overruns

1. Go to Budget & Finance
2. Look for red indicators (over budget)
3. Click to see details:
   • How much you’re over
   • Which categories exceeded budget
   • Overage %

Analyze the cause

Ask:

• Did scope expand (more work than planned)?
• Were estimates inaccurate (work cost more)?
• Was spending higher than expected (vendor costs)?

Corrective actions

Option 1: Request budget increase

1. Calculate the overrun amount
2. Document why (scope changes, estimate misses, inflation)
3. Request approval from leadership to increase budget
4. Update budget amounts in Budget & Finance

Option 2: Reduce scope

1. Review pending work in Board or Backlog
2. Defer low-priority work to next quarter
3. This reduces estimated costs

Option 3: Reduce spending

1. Negotiate vendor contracts
2. Optimize cloud spend
3. Pause non-essential subscriptions

Option 4: Reallocate from other budgets

1. Check if other budgets are under-running
2. Transfer budget from areas that don’t need it
3. Use it to cover the overrun

Prevent future overruns

1. Estimate conservatively — Add 10–20% buffer to uncertain work
2. Track spending regularly — Don’t wait until quarter-end
3. Forecast ahead — Use Budget forecasting and trends to predict overruns early
4. Communicate early — Tell leadership if you see an overrun coming

Communicate with stakeholders

Send a summary:

“Engineering is on track to exceed budget by 15% ($90k over). This is due to scope expansion on the payment system project. We recommend either increasing budget or deferring the notification system to Q4.”

Predict future spending based on current trends.

View spending trends

1. Go to Budget & Finance
2. Look for the Trends or Forecast chart
3. See monthly spending over time:

Q1:  $50k (month 1) → $90k (month 2) → $130k (month 3)
Q2:  $60k (month 4) → $100k (month 5) → $140k (month 6) → projected $180k (month 7)

Forecast future spending

1. Click Forecast or Trending
2. See a projection of where you’ll end at quarter-end or year-end

If the trend continues:

• Current spending: $500k through month 9
• Projected year-end: $650k
• Budget: $600k
• Projected overrun: $50k

Adjust forecast parameters

Some forecasts let you adjust:

1. Burn rate — Spending velocity per week/month
2. Headcount changes — Adding/removing people affects spend
3. Project timeline — If a project extends, spending extends

Change parameters to see how they affect forecast.

Early warning

Use forecasting to catch overruns early:

1. If forecast shows a $50k overrun in month 8, you have time to:
   • Request budget increase
   • Defer work
   • Reduce scope
2. Don’t wait until month 12 to react

Incorporate scenarios

If you’re using Scenario Planning:

1. Create a budget scenario for each staffing scenario
2. See how hiring affects your spend
3. Use this to make hiring decisions

See Scenario-based budget planning.

Share forecasts

Export your forecast:

Use in planning meetings

Click Export in Trends

Share with leadership