Budgeting with labor and equipment costs allows you to estimate the financial impact of a project, not just the hours involved. When cost columns are enabled, BusyBusy calculates actual labor and equipment costs automatically based on employee hourly rates and equipment rates, giving you accurate job costing throughout the project.
Before You Begin
Make sure the following Budget Settings are enabled:
Labor Hours
Labor Costs
(Optional) Equipment Hours
(Optional) Equipment Costs
To adjust settings, go to Settings → Budgeting and enable the cost columns you want to use.
Create a Labor & Equipment Cost Budget (Web)
Sign in to BusyBusy on the web.
From the left navigation menu, select Budgets.
Click on the project you want to create a budget for.
Select Create Budget on the top right.
On the far right side enter your planned Labor Hours and Labor Costs for the project.
Enter Equipment Hours and Equipment Costs (if enabled).
If using cost codes:
Click Add Cost Codes and select the cost codes for this project, then Submit.
You can enter labor and equipment hours/costs for each cost code.
Review the Budget Totals on the right side of the screen.
8. When you are finished adding that you want to all areas, select Save.
 | About the Autofill Toggle
When Autofill is ON, total labor and equipment costs will automatically update based on the cost code values you enter.
When Autofill is OFF, you can manually set your total hours or costs — helpful when adding buffers or rounding up. |
Where Labor & Equipment Costs Come From
Labor Costs
Labor costs are calculated automatically based on:
Employee hourly rates
Time tracked to the project or cost code
Equipment Costs
Equipment costs are calculated from:
The hourly rate you set for each piece of equipment in BusyBusy
Time tracked using that equipment
All actual costs update in real time — no manual entry is needed.
Best Practices
Small companies may benefit from tracking detailed labor and equipment costs.
Larger companies often use hours-only budgets for simplicity and faster setup.
Ensure employee and equipment hourly rates are accurate before using cost-based budgets.
Use cost codes with cost budgets when you want to understand which tasks drive project costs.
Good to know: |
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