In this tutorial, you will learn how to track project finances by creating a folio that tracks cost and revenue for a project, associating the right skills and resources with the folio, and planning costs and revenues. You need Budgets by Tempo to complete these tasks.

Step 1: Creating a project

Beverly and her team are developing a small app for another company. Beverly wants to use Budgets by Tempo to plan employee salaries and expenses, approve a baseline, and plan for revenue.

First, she creates a project to hold her Jira issues. She calls this project UMBRELLA.

To create a project in Jira server...

Step 2: Creating issues and providing original estimates

Beverly has a pretty good idea of how much work will be required for this project. For each development task, she creates an issue in the UMBRELLA project and estimates the number of hours of work required in the Original Estimate field.

To create issues in Jira for Server...

Tempo Budgets for Server will automatically total the hours in scope to calculate both costs and revenues, as needed.

Step 3: Creating a folio

Next, Beverly uses Tempo Budgets for Server to create a folio to track her costs and expenses.

She defines the folio's scope using the project she's just created, and decides to track both cost and revenue. She sets the currency as USD, sets the start and end dates for the folio, selects the Umbrella project, and chooses herself as the manager for the folio.

To create a folio in Tempo for Server...

To create a new folio in Budgets, you need to have Tempo Budgets Super Administrator permissions:

From the Tempo menu, click more... in the FOLIOS section.
On the Manage Portfolios page, click the Create New Folio button or Create a folio link in the sidebar.
Select a folio scope. The Folio scope is a list of Jira issues, defined by a Jira saved filter. Select from:
1. Jira projects – All issues from the selected Jira projects will be part of the folio's scope. A private filter will be created under the folio's creator.
2. Issues – All selected issues will be part of the folio's scope. A private filter will be created under the folio's creator.
3. Jira Saved filter – All issues derived from the Jira saved filter will be part of the folio's scope. The filter is reused as is.
4. Custom JQL (Advanced) – All issues derived from the custom JQL will be part of the folio's scope. A private filter will be created under the folio's creator based on the entered JQL.
5. Customers – All issues associated with an account linked to at least one of the selected Tempo customers. A private filter will be created under the folio's creator.
6. Accounts – All issues associated with at least one of the selected Tempo accounts. A private filter will be created under the folio's creator.
Select what to track:
1. Simple Costs – Plan and track costs only.
2. Costs and Revenue – Plan and track costs, revenue, and profitability.
3. Earned Value – Plan and track costs using the Earned Value Management (EVM) technique.
Enter information about the new folio:
1. Name – Enter a name for the new folio. Note that the ampersand (&) character is not supported as part of a title for folios or portfolios. Instead, type the word 'and' within your title.
2. Main Currency – Select a default currency for your folio.
3. Start Date – Select the start date for the folio. The start date and the end date for the folio will determine which worklogs are included in the folio cost and revenues.
4. End Date – Select the start date for the folio. The start date and the end date for the folio will determine which worklogs are included in the folio cost and revenues.
5. Projects – Select one or more projects to include in the folio. The issues in the project(s) will determine which worklogs are included in the folio cost and revenues.
6. Portfolios – If you want to include this folio in a larger portfolio, select it here.
7. Project Manager – Select a project manager.
8. Risk Level – Select a risk level for this folio:
  1. High Risk
  2. Medium Risk
  3. Low Risk
9. Description - Enter a description of the folio (maximum 500 characters).
Click Create.

Any folio that you create will automatically grant you Folio Administrator permissions for that folio.

Step 4: Planning salary costs based on scope

Now that Beverly has created a folio, she can use Budgets by Tempo to plan for costs. For the development, she decides to plan the costs using Plan from Estimates, which automatically plans how many human resources are needed based on the time frame and the amount of work in scope.

Beverly estimates that the human resources will cost approximately $35 USD per hour. For the effective date, she selects the Folio's start date.

Beverly clicks Plan, and Budgets estimates that the project will take four full-time developers to complete it in the time allotted.

To plan human resource costs...

To plan human resource costs in Tempo Budgets for Server based upon estimates you need to be a Folio Owner or Folio Administrator:

From the Tempo menu, click the folio name. You can also click more... to open a list of all folios.
Click the Costs tab, and then click Planned at the top-left.
Click Plan from Estimates.
Under Select effort to plan for, select either the entire scope of the folio, or narrow it down using a filter or JQL function.
Under Plan Staff:
1. Name - select a name for the positions created.
2. Role - select a role for the positions created.
3. Cost Rate - select a planned Cost Rate for the positions. This rate is individually set, it doesn't necessarily conform to the global user rates.
4. Effective Date - select a date for the work to start, or choose the Folio's start date.
Click Plan. Tempo Budgets for Server will set human resources based on the folio's scope.

Step 5: Planning salaries costs based on start and end dates

Beverly still needs a project manager for this project, so she clicks on Plan a human resource. Because she doesn't know exactly how much time will be needed, she sets the salary dates equal to the start and end date of the folio, sets the Cost Rate at $50 USD/hour, sets the Planned Effort to 100%, and allows Budgets by Tempo to calculate the rest.

Given the scope, Tempo Budgets then estimates the planned time at 344 hours total, and the total salary costs at USD $17,200.00.

Step 6: Planning expenses

Now Beverly needs to add some expenses to her folio to account for one-time project costs. Expenses refers to any kind of expense that isn't a salary.

She clicks on Add an expense and adds expenses for software licensing, food, and onsite travel.

Step 7: Approving a cost baseline

With her project costs planned, Beverly submits this baseline for approval. A baseline is a simply a fixed set of costs or revenues that results from planning. All baselines can be consulted from the Planned tab and be compared under the Forecast tab.

Approving a budget sets it as a new baseline.

Step 8: Planning a revenue

Now that her baseline of planned costs has been approved, Beverly can plan for revenues. For this project, she's expecting the revenue to come from a contract as well as from hourly consulting fees for development.

She adds the planned revenue from the contract using Plan a revenue.

Step 9: Planning consulting revenue

Next, Beverly uses Plan a Consulting Revenue to set revenue from four consultants, and selects the dates to match the folio start and end dates.

She sets the Planned Effort at 95% (giving some room for meetings and other administrative time) and sets the Price Rate at $95 USD per hour.

Using these projections, Tempo Budgets for Server calculates the total revenue as USD$ 124,184.00.

Step 10: Approving a revenue baseline

With her project revenues planned, Beverly submits the revenue baseline for approval. She now has an estimate of the planned costs of the project, the planned revenues of the project, and the expected profitability.

Step 11: Adding staff

Beverly got approval to move forward with the project, and now it's time to add actual staff members to the folio. Since Beverly does not have a Tempo Team configured for this project, she'll add configure staff members individually.

Beverly adds Gregory Nolan as a developer, using the default Weekly schedule and Holidays. She sets the From and To dates equal to the folio's start and end dates, and sets his availability to 100%. Budgets by Tempo plans 344 hours of development time for Gregory based upon his schedule and the dates of the folio.

After she has added Gregory to the project, she does the same for three other developers.

Step 12: Setting cost and price rates for the folio

For this project, Beverly wants to follow the established pricing for both costs and consulting revenues.

Therefore, she sets the Cost Rate for each employee as synchronized with the Cost Rates table. If she prefers, Beverly can de-synchronize the folio from the cost rates table using the the Folio Accounting options.

Now that Beverly has set the cost rate synchronized with a global Cost Rate table, she can do the same thing for revenues. She sets the price of consulting to synchronize with a Price Table.

Step 13: Adding revenues to a folio

The project is approved, the contract is signed, and the cheque clears!

Beverly clicks on the planned revenue from the initial contract and selects Copy to actual (V) to copy the planned revenue and post the first income for the project.

Alternatively, she can copy items of planned revenue into actual revenue.

Step 14: Adding a consulting revenue

To add consulting revenues to the folio, Beverly must now select which of the folio staff to add as consultants. The revenue added to the portfolio from consulting will also depend on the start and end dates of the consultancy, the billable ratio, and the individual price rate or price tables.

Step 15: Synchronizing the folio with billed hours

Beverly has assigned some of the folio staff members as contractors, but they won't be working on contracting work all the time, so she would like the team to divide their work between billable and non-billable hours. She sets this option using the Folio Accounting screen.

Tracking project finances in Tempo Budgets for Server