Budgeted Hours is how long you expect a job to take. Set a default for visits, meetings and to-dos, give each service its own hours, and change the hours on any visit that needs more or less time. The Budgeted vs Actual Hours report then compares what you planned with the time your crews actually clocked.
Why it matters: when every job has a target time, you can see which services are priced too low, which crews run efficiently and where time is going. Budgeted Hours also feed Pay for Performance.
Set your default Budgeted Hours
- Go to Settings > Preferences.
- Scroll down to the Budgeted Hours defaults.
- Enter your defaults for Default Budgeted Hours for Visit to Customer, Default Budgeted Hours for Meetings and Default Budgeted Hours for To-Do’s. Use hours, for example 0.75 for 45 minutes.
Every new visit, meeting and to-do starts with these hours. You can change them on any event.
Budgeted hours = total man-hours: with this setting on, a 1 BH job takes 2 people 30 minutes. The calendar counts BH once and time on site is BH ÷ people. With it off, BH is time on site, so 1 BH with 2 people is 2 man-hours.
Give a service its own Budgeted Hours
- Go to Resources > Items & Services.
- Click the service, then click Edit.
- Enter its Budgeted Hours and save.
Whenever you add that service to a visit, its Budgeted Hours fill in for you.
Change the hours on a visit
- Create or edit a visit and add a service under Services. Budgeted Hours fills in from the service.
- If this job needs more or less time, type the new hours on that service line.
- Save the visit.
A visit’s Budgeted Hours is the total of its service lines. A meeting or to-do has one Budgeted Hours field.
Compare budgeted to actual hours
- Go to Reports and click Budgeted vs Actual Hours.
- Pick the date range, and filter by employee or crew if you like.
- The top of the report shows your budgeted man-hours, clocked man-hours and efficiency.
- Each row is one visit, with its Budgeted Hours, People, Budgeted Man-Hours, Clocked Man-Hours, Time on Site and Efficiency.
Click Edit on a row to open that visit and change its budgeted hours, even after it’s completed. Edit series opens the recurring series: that changes visits that haven’t been created yet, and visits already on the calendar keep their hours until you edit them. Use Export to download the report.
Frequently asked questions
Do my crews have to do anything extra? No. Clocked time comes from the clock-in and job timers your crews already use in the mobile app.
Does changing a default update events I already created? No. Defaults fill in on new visits, meetings and to-dos. To change an existing visit, edit it or click Edit on its row in the report.