Buildertrend Job Costing Budget: How to Manage Your Budget DURING the Project
Oct 09, 2026Most builders are great at estimating. Managing the budget once the project is moving is a different story. In this video, I walk through Buildertrend's Job Costing Budget, the one place to track a live budget on fixed-price or time & materials jobs. I also show how purchase orders, selections, and change orders flow through it to update your projected cost, cost to complete, and profitability.
This should be part of your process every week and every time you invoice a customer. Active budgeting is how you know where a job really stands before it's too late to fix it.
In this video:
âś… Locking your estimate with "Send to Budget"
âś… Original budget vs. revised budget, and why you shouldn't unlock the original
âś… Pending, committed, and actual costs explained
âś… Projected cost and cost to complete
âś… Job costing vs. client pricing views (including an owner view)
âś… Using purchase orders to tell the system what you'll actually spend
âś… Setting the projection reference correctly, and the "total costs" trap
âś… How selections and allowances hit the budget once you mark them complete
âś… Using change orders to document overages and extra labor
