Understand budget forecast and What-If simulation

Open Budgeting → Forecast. Projects with an active budget can appear even without recent time entries. For a positive burn rate, the project needs completed, billable time entries within the eight-week window. For a runway, it additionally needs an active budget with a positive hour limit. A pure fixed price gives no exhaustion date here from its money amount.

Burn rate is the average of the most recent up to four weekly blocks with time entries within the last eight weeks. Empty weeks aren't padded in as zero weeks. Trend compares this average against the up to four weekly blocks available before that. More than a 15% increase gives a rising trend, more than a 15% decrease gives a falling one. If older comparison weeks are missing, the trend is shown as stable when data exists.

The formula is: remaining hours ÷ average weekly usage. With a 100-hour limit, 60 hours counted, and 10 hours per week, that leaves roughly four weeks. Once the limit is used up, the runway becomes 0. The color coding is red up to and including two weeks, yellow up to and including five weeks, and green after that.

The value subtracted as used in forecast also only comes from the eight-week window. Older project time is missing there, even though it counts in the general budget overview. As a result, forecast can show too much remaining budget for longer-running projects. For monthly budgets, weekly blocks are additionally filtered by period start; a week that starts before that can partially lose matching time. So compare the projection against the actual total or period usage.

In the What-If area, choose a project with an hour budget and an existing positive burn rate. Enter additional weekly hours, or a negative value for fewer hours. 10 hours per week becomes 15 with +5. With 40 hours remaining, the computed runway drops from four to roughly 2.7 weeks. The simulation doesn't save a budget change and doesn't assign any tasks. Without an existing burn rate, even a positive extra figure won't produce an initial projection.

Capacity sums the stored weekly capacities; people with no capacity entry don't automatically count as 40 hours in this total. Utilization compares all logged hours from the last four weeks, divided by four, against this capacity. The revenue outlook for Owner/Admin equals capacity × average stored bill rate. That's a computed potential at full capacity, not a forecast from confirmed client orders. No currency conversion is applied here.