Manage retainer budgets and monthly periods

As Owner or Admin, open the project and Set up budget. Choose Retainer, enter hours and/or a total amount, and add the project client rate if needed. Enable Reset monthly for monthly allowances and save. A budget newly created here starts active.

Completed, billable project time is factored in. Without a monthly reset, it's counted over the entire duration. With a monthly reset, time is counted from the stored period start. Money usage is based on the stored bill rates of the time entries. If both a money and an hour limit are set, the money amount takes priority for the usage percentage; without a money limit, the hour limit is used.

The scheduled server run sets the period start to the first day of the current month in UTC for active budgets with a monthly reset. Time entries aren't deleted in the process. The next reset date shown in the UI is derived from the stored period start. If an old date sticks around, have the server run checked; the date alone doesn't confirm the reset has already run.

Retainers from other flows can appear as a draft, for example after a CRM handoff. The retainer list shows such entries with a note. However, the current budget dialog has no dedicated activation action; just saving the values doesn't activate an existing draft. Resolve a stuck draft with your organization admin or support. The general budget overview leaves drafts out, and forecast only factors in active budgets.

The general budget overview uses the project's total billable usage and doesn't limit it to the monthly period the way the Retainers tab does. A pure hour retainer can also appear there as No limit, even though the Retainers tab evaluates its hour allowance. For period-level control, use the Retainers tab and check the amount, hours, and start date together.