In addition to tracking the time spent against your budgets through reports or by viewing the progress bar within the budgets themselves, you can set up automated notifications to alert you when the budget is close to being used up.
Enabling Automated Time Warnings
1) Open the budget sidebar
Navigate to the budget you want to monitor.
Open the budget sidebar, select the Settings tab (marked by the gear ⚙️ icon) and navigate to the Time warning section.
2) Set the time warning threshold
In the text box, enter the desired percentage of billable time compared to estimated hours at which you want to receive a notification (e.g., 80%). The changes are saved automatically.
👉 Find out more about time estimations in Adding Time Estimates to Budgets.
This setup means that once 80% of the billable time (not worked time) has been tracked against this budget, the budget owner will receive an email notification.
👉 Find out more in The Difference Between Billable and Recognized Time.
Changing the Budget Owner
To change the budget owner, and thereby the person receiving the time warning:
Open the budget sidebar, select the General budget info tab (marked by the home icon 🏠), and click on the Edit general budget info option.
Select the new budget owner from the dropdown and click Update budget to save the changes.
Setting Default Time Warnings
Admins can set a default percentage for all budgets in Settings > Budget > Time Warning. This way, every new budget will automatically include these time tracking settings. If needed, you can still adjust them individually in the budget sidebar.
Bonus: Using Automations for Multiple Budget Usage Thresholds
Time warnings track billable time, but if you’d like to monitor overall budget usage, you can set up multiple automations.
For example, you can create automations that notify your team when budget usage passes certain thresholds: green at 30%, yellow at 50%, and red at 90%. This way, you’ll receive clear updates as the budget progresses, not just when billable time reaches a set percentage.
👉 Find out more in Automations: Examples and Best Practices.
Important Considerations
Time Approval Impact
If the budget requires time approval, only approved time counts towards the time warning. 👉 Read more about time approval here.
Percentage-Based Warnings Only
You can only define time warnings as a percentage of the billable time, not as a fixed number of hours. For instance, set the warning for 80% of the time logged, but not for 8 out of 10 hours.
Budget Level Warning
The warning is set at the budget level, meaning you cannot receive warnings for individual services within the budget, only for the total across all services.
Recipient of Warnings
Time warnings are sent only to the budget owner. As a budget owner, you should receive the warning promptly, typically within a minute, but occasional slight delays may occur.