Every budget in Productive is made up of services that define how work is billed and tracked.
You’ll find these details in the Services tab, where you set up service types, billing methods, and rates. Once services are in place, the Overview tab provides a financial snapshot of the budget as a whole.
The Overview tab combines three key insights in one place:
Budgeting snapshot – shows the remaining budget based on logged billable time.
Profitability snapshot – calculates budget profitability using cost rates and overhead (if enabled).
Forecasting charts – optional visuals you can show or hide to monitor projected spend and profitability over time.
This makes the Overview tab the main hub for monitoring both client-facing and internal financial performance.
Budgeting Snapshot
The budgeting snapshot pulls directly from logged time and billable rates. It includes three sections:
Time
Displays budgeted time, billable time (planned for invoicing, not always equal to logged hours), and remaining time.
Shows the percentage of the budget remaining.
Budget
Dynamically calculates the remaining budget as team members log time.
Updates in real-time (e.g., 5 billable hours × $100/h = $500 budget used).
Invoicing
Tracks how much has been invoiced and what remains to be invoiced.
Profitability Snapshot
The profitability snapshot is for internal insight and includes:
Time
Displays all tracked time, including estimated and non-billable.
Shows remaining time against the budget, taking into account the logged (worked) time.
Profit
Calculates profitability using employees’ hourly cost rates.
Factors in overhead if enabled.
Revenue = billable hours × service price.
Cost = tracked hours × cost rate.
Profit = Revenue − Costs.
Profit margin = (Profit ÷ Revenue) × 100.
📌 Example: A team member logs 10 hours at a cost rate of $30/h. This increases costs by $300. At the same time, revenue and profit are recalculated based on billable rates.
Invoicing
Mirrors the invoicing details from the budgeting snapshot for consistency.
Forecasting Charts
The Overview tab also includes Forecasting Charts, which help you anticipate how a budget will perform over time.
These charts compare scheduled time from the Resource Planner with logged hours, budget totals, and profitability projections.
For example, you can see when the forecasted budget burn will exceed the agreed total or check if profitability remains healthy even once the budget is fully used.
👉 For a detailed guide on chart elements and settings, see Forecasting and Profitability Charts on Budgets.
User Permissions
The visibility of these sections depends on the user's permissions:
Profitability Managers and Admins – see both the Budgeting and Profitability snapshots.
Managers – see the Budgeting only.
Staff and Coordinators – do not see either snapshot.
Custom permission sets can also be created to grant access to specific financial information.
Important Considerations
Overhead costs
When enabled, overhead increases the internal hourly cost of employees. This ensures profitability calculations reflect not just wages but also additional business costs.
Out-of-pocket expenses
Expenses logged against a budget affect both budgeting and profitability depending on whether they are billable or non-billable.
Billable expenses reduce the remaining budget, add to revenue, and are included in client invoices.
Non-billable expenses do not impact the client-facing budget, but when logged they still reduce profitability because they count as internal costs without bringing in revenue.
Bottom Line
Once services are defined, the Overview tab becomes your source of truth for budget health. As soon as hours are logged:
The budgeting snapshot shows the reduction in the client-facing budget.
The profitability snapshot shows the impact on your agency’s profit.
Together, these insights help you stay on top of both client obligations and internal performance.