Only Admin and Manager users given financial data access can view the financial information in Runn. Learn more here.
Runn’s financial module is designed to support project planning, budgeting, and forecasting. They give you high-level visibility into estimates of revenue, costs, margins, and budget remaining so you can make informed resourcing and delivery decisions.
Because every project can be set up differently, financial metrics in Runn depend on a few key settings:
Pricing Model — how the project earns or tracks revenue
Budget Method — how the project budget is broken down
Project Rates — the hourly or daily rates used in revenue calculations
Other Expenses — non-labour charges and costs added to the project
This article explains how these concepts fit together, so you can choose the right setup and understand what you’re seeing on the Project Dashboard and in Reports.
💡 Important note about financial metrics
Runn’s financial metrics are intended for planning and forecasting. As we use a generic calculation method for our financial metrics, they may not exactly match your accounting or billing systems.
Review the definitions before using them for reporting, and visit our FAQ page to learn more about what options are available if Runn's calculation doesn't match yours.
How project financials work in Runn
There are three main setup choices that affect how project financials behave:
Concept | What it controls | Examples |
Pricing Model | How revenue is calculated or tracked |
|
Budget Method | How the project budget is broken down |
|
Project Rates | The hourly or daily rates used in revenue calculations |
|
💡 A simple way to think about it is:
Pricing Model determines how Runn calculates revenue.
Budget Method determines how the budget is organized.
Project Rates determine the hourly or daily values used in revenue calculations, but their role changes depending on the pricing model.
For example, two projects can both use Budget by Role, but if one is Time & Materials and the other is Fixed Price, their revenue and budget remaining metrics will behave differently.
Pricing Models
The Pricing Model is the most important financial setting because it determines how Runn calculates or tracks project revenue.
Runn supports three pricing models:
Time & Materials
Fixed Price
Non-billable
Each pricing model affects how revenue, budget remaining, and project rates should be interpreted.
👉 Time & Materials
Use Time & Materials when the client is billed based on the amount of work completed.
Revenue calculation
For Time & Materials projects, revenue of a given period is based on billable work and the project’s hourly or daily rates. This means project rates are central to how revenue is calculated.
Learn more about how to read the Project Dashboard of a Time & Materials project.
For the formulas for revenue, cost, profit, and budget remaining, see the Runn Metrics Glossary.
Project Budget
For Time & Materials projects, Project Budget is a target, estimate, or cap based on expected billable work.
It is the total monetary budget amount you manually allocate for the project from the Edit Budget page:
Budget remaining is the project budget minus revenue calculated from billable work.
👉 Fixed Price
Use Fixed Price when the client has agreed to pay a set amount for the project.
Revenue calculation
For Fixed Price projects, the project budget represents the agreed revenue for the project. Revenue is not calculated in the same way as a Time & Materials project.
Another concept is involved in revenue calculation for a Fixed Price project: the T&M Benchmark.
T&M Benchmark is what the project would have earned if it had been billed as a Time & Materials project at the regular project rates.
Runn calculates revenue for a given period based on the project’s fixed budget and percentage complete, measured by its T&M Benchmark:
Because Fixed Price revenue depends on the project’s overall progress and expected effort, revenue from a past period may change if more or fewer billable hours are scheduled or logged later.
⚠️ Important note about revenue calculation in Fixed Price project
Because Fixed Price revenue depends on the project’s overall progress and expected effort, revenue from a past period may change if more or fewer billable hours are scheduled or logged later.
If your organization is not calculating revenue this way, or if you are recognizing revenue by milestones, or if you would like to customize the revenue per time period, follow the instructions here: Customize Monthly Revenue in a Fixed Price Project
Did you set the right price? - comparing Project Revenue vs T&M Benchmark
The T&M Benchmark concept is especially useful when you are building the revenue estimate before the project starts, as it helps you determine if your fixed price project is generating more revenue than billing as Time & Materials
Project Budget
In Runn, Project Budget for a fixed price project is the revenue you'd expect to receive from the client.
It is the total monetary budget amount you manually allocate for the project from the Edit Budget page:
The budget remaining in a fixed-price project is the project budget minus the T&M Benchmark. The rationale is that you still have some breathing room to add more billable hours if the T&M benchmark does not exceed the project budget. If your T&M Benchmark exceeds the Project revenue, budget remaining becomes negative.
👉 Important: Project Budget is NOT the internal Cost Budget
If you need to track budget remaining against the Cost Budget based on Project costs, please note that you cannot refer to the Budget Remaining metric. If you need to set up a cost budget or a target margin, follow the instructions here.
Learn more about how to read the Project Dashboard of a Fixed Price project.
For the exact Fixed Price revenue and T&M Benchmark formulas, see the Runn Metrics Glossary.
👉 Non-billable projects
Use Non-billable for internal work or projects that are not billed to a client.
For Non-billable projects, there are no project revenue or monetary project budget. You may still use the project to plan effort, track work, and understand costs, but many revenue-based concepts will not apply.
Non-billable projects are often useful for:
Internal initiatives
Admin work
Training
Sales or pre-sales work
Internal product or operational projects
Learn more about how to read the Project Dashboard of a Non-billable project.
Budget Methods
Budget Methods is about how a project’s revenue is estimated, planned, allocated, and controlled throughout its lifecycle. Essentially, it defines how money will be earned and tracked in relation to project goals.
Learn more about different budget methods here.
Project Rates
Project Rates are the amount you charge your clients per hour/day. Runn uses Project Rates to calculate Project Revenue based on the workload added to the project, and compares the Project Revenue against your Project Budget to inform if you are over or below budget.
Learn more about Project Rates.
Other Expenses
In Runn, all project expenses that are not related to people's time and labour are referred to as Other Expenses. Add these to your project budget to get a full understanding of all the costs and revenues on your projects.
You'll be able to allocate your labour budget while taking all non-labour costs into consideration.
Learn more about Other Expenses here.
Tracking Financials on Project Dashboard
You can track Project financials from the Performance, Project Team and Phase panels on the Project Dashboard:
Learn more about how to read the Project Dashboard here.
Tracking Financials in Reports
Our highly flexible Reports Tool allows you to surface different financial metrics for reporting and analysis:
Check out the Project Overview Report and Project Financial Preset Reports here.