Project budget tracker template: budget, committed, actual, variance
An interior design project budget template that separates approved budget from committed spend and actual invoices, so an overrun shows up when the order is placed rather than when the invoice lands. Free CSV.
By Idan Mann, founder of NYA
The short answer
A project budget tracker separates three numbers most spreadsheets collapse into one: what the client approved, what you have committed on purchase orders, and what has actually been invoiced. Committed is the one that matters — it is where an overrun becomes visible while it is still preventable.
Budgets are almost never blown at the invoice. They are blown at the purchase order, weeks earlier, and discovered at the invoice — which is why a tracker with a single "spent" column always reports the bad news too late to act on it.
What each column carries
One row per category per room, plus rows for the project-level costs that belong to nobody's room.
| Column | What goes in it | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Furnishings, lighting, rugs, art, window treatments, freight, receiving, installation, construction, design fee. Use the categories your agreement uses. | Furnishings |
| Room / area | So an overrun can be traced to a decision rather than to the project in general. | Living Room |
| Budget | What the client approved for this line, and the only number in the row they signed off. | 45000.00 |
| Committed | Total of purchase orders raised against this line. Gone the moment the PO is issued, whatever the invoice says. | 38200.00 |
| Actual invoiced | What has really been billed by vendors so far. Always lags committed, sometimes by months. | 21400.00 |
| Variance | Budget minus committed — not budget minus actual. The second one flatters you right up until it does not. | 6800.00 |
| % committed | Committed ÷ budget. The column to sort by when you want to know what to worry about. | 85% |
| Forecast to complete | What you still expect to spend on this line, including items specified but not yet ordered. | 5200.00 |
| Cause / note | One line on why a variance exists. 'Client upgraded sofa fabric, CO-004' is a record; a bare number is an argument waiting to happen. | Fabric upgrade, CO-004 |
Where the numbers come from
- Budget comes from the approved proposal plus any signed change orders — never from a conversation.
- Committed is summed from your purchase orders. If your POs are numbered sequentially this reconciles in a minute.
- Actual comes from vendor invoices as they arrive, which is why it lags and why it should never be the column you steer by.
- Freight and receiving get their own rows. Folded into furnishings they are invisible until they are 8% of the project.
Whether freight and receiving are marked up or passed through changes what belongs in the client-facing version of this sheet — the markup calculator shows what each choice does to the margin before you commit to a clause.
Common questions
- Should the client see the budget tracker?
- A version of it, yes — clients who can see committed against budget make faster decisions and fewer late ones. Strip the columns that expose your net cost and markup, which on this sheet means sharing budget, committed and actual at client prices only.
- How is this different from the FF&E schedule?
- The schedule is per item; the budget is per category. You need both because the questions are different — 'what did we buy' is answered line by line, and 'can we still afford the dining table' is answered by a category with a committed total.