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Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Small and medium business | Business Central, N... / Over budget Project
Small and medium business | Business Central, N...
Suggested answer

Over budget Project

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Posted on by AleAlonso 287
Hello, 
 
How is the Overbudget flag supposed to work? I have created a project with a budget of 20 day x 200 a day
 
. 
I then create the project journal for the resource for 22 days and post it
 
 
 
This has increased my Budget and Actual to 22*200, but has not marked the project as over-budget
 
 
Thanks
 
Alejandra
Categories:
Dynamics 365 Business Central migration
I have the same question (0)
  • Sahib Dino Profile Picture
    Sahib Dino 196 on at
    Over budget Project
      • Budget vs. Actual Behavior
        When you post 22 days instead of the budgeted 20, Business Central updates the budget to match the actuals—unless you’ve locked the budget or configured controls to prevent that. So instead of flagging it as overbudget, it quietly adjusts the numbers.

      • No Native Overbudget Alert
        Out of the box, Business Central doesn’t throw an error or warning when you exceed the budget. It’s more of a tracking tool than a control mechanism, unless you’ve implemented custom logic or workflows.

      • Job Planning Line Behavior
        If your job planning lines are set to “Both Budget and Billable,” posting more hours will increase the budgeted quantity. To prevent this, you’d need to:

        •  
       
      • Set planning lines to Budget only
      • Post job journals with Line Type = Blank

        This way, actuals are recorded without inflating the budget.
  • Suggested answer
    Jeffrey Bulanadi Profile Picture
    Jeffrey Bulanadi 8,431 on at
    Over budget Project

    Hi Alejandra

    You're right to expect the Overbudget flag to trigger when actual usage exceeds the planned budget. However, in BC, this flag doesn’t activate automatically just by posting more resource usage than budgeted. Here’s why:

    1. Budget vs. Actual mechanics

    • When you post 22 days at $200/day, the system updates both Budget and Actual to reflect 22 × 200
    • This happens because the journal line is marked as Budget, which increases the budget itself not just the actuals
    • So instead of exceeding the budget, you're inadvertently expanding it

    2. How to trigger Overbudget status

    • To test for overbudget, the original budget must remain fixed
    • Post the extra 2 days using a journal line type like Billable or leave the line type blank
    • This way, only the Actual increases, and the system can compare it against the static budget

    3. Best practice

    • Lock your budget using Project Planning Lines
    • Post actual usage separately and monitor the Remaining Quantity and Overbudget indicators
    • You can also use the Project Calc. Remaining Usage batch job to review discrepancies

    Here’s a helpful visual that shows how budget and actual usage interact in project journals:

    https://yzhums.com/21452/

    If you find this helpful, feel free to mark this as the suggested or verified answer.

    Cheers
    Jeffrey

  • Suggested answer
    YUN ZHU Profile Picture
    YUN ZHU 92,578 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at
    Over budget Project
    The following is the logic for updating this field, which mainly compares the "Total Cost (LCY)" in JobLedgerEntry with the "Total Cost (LCY)" in JobPlanningLine.
     
    Hope this can give you some hints.
    Thanks.
    ZHU

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