How to Work with Planned and Real Incomes and Expenses in Budgets

Introduction

This guide will show you how to manually or automatically convert planned incomes and expenses into real values in Easy8. It also explains how to add new income or expense items. This is useful for comparing estimates with actual financial performance within your project budgets.

Target Audience

User

Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure you have:

Budgets module activated for the project
Permission to edit budget items
Defined planned incomes and expenses in the project budget

How to Add Incomes and Expenses

Step 1: Open Project Budget

Go to the desired project
Open the Budgets tab in the top project menu
The page will display all planned and real income/expense items

Step 2: Add New Income or Expense Item

Click on New income or New expense in the budget page. In the form that opens, you can choose whether the item should be recorded as Planned or Real using the corresponding dropdown selector
A form will appear where you can define the item
Fill in key fields such as:
- Name: Descriptive label for the item (e.g. "Approved budget - to be invoiced")
- Amount: The expected financial value
- Comment: Additional notes or purpose (optional)
- Linked Project: Connect the entry to a different project if needed
- Cost type or category if applicable (based on plugin configuration)
Once filled, click Save to add the item to the list

How to Manually Convert Planned Values into Real Values

Step 1: Access the List of Budget Incomes or Expenses

In the project budget view, click on either the Planned incomes or Planned expenses section
You will be redirected to a detailed list of budget items for the selected category

Step 2: Use Context Menu Options to Convert

In the list, right-click on any item to reveal the available options:
- Edit: Modify the item details
- Project: Open the linked project if applicable
- Copy to real: Copy the item’s value into the real column while keeping the planned one
- Move to real: Move the value into the real column and remove it from the planned one
- Delete: Remove the item from the list

How Automatic Conversion Works

Real expenses can be updated automatically from time spent (if internal cost rates are set)
Real incomes can be updated from issued invoices (if CRM & invoicing plugin is used)
The system will automatically reflect these values in the real columns

Corner Situations

Conclusion

You have successfully learned how to add and convert income and expense values in Easy8 budgets. These features help you keep your project finances up to date and aligned with real-world performance.