Budgets (Alpha)
Budgets (Alpha)
Budgets give you a dedicated way to track planned spend against actual cost, right alongside your headcount planning. Set a budget once, and ChartHop shows you how you're tracking on the Budgets page and inside any scenario that touches it.
Budgets is an early-access feature in Alpha, so some of what's below may shift as it evolves. This article walks you through turning it on, creating a budget, and seeing it come to life in a scenario.
Budgets vs. Budget Scenarios: These are two different features. A Budget Scenario is a scenario type in Headcount Planning built around a single fixed budget number. Budgets is a standalone feature with its own list and detail pages and its own cost tracking over time, and it also shows up inside your scenarios. If you already use Budget Scenarios, nothing changes: Budgets is an addition, not a replacement. To learn about Budget Scenarios, see Use Case: Budget Scenario.
Before you start
- Budgets is part of the Headcount Planning module (or ChartHop Premium).
- The Budgets page is visible to users with one of these access roles by default: Cash Comp Viewer, Comp Viewer, Equity Comp Viewer, Org Editor, or People Ops Admin. If someone on your team can't see Budgets after it's turned on, their access role is the first place to look.
- Because Budgets is in Alpha, your ChartHop CX team (CSM, IS, or Support) is the best place to bring questions, feedback, or anything that looks off.
Turn on Budgets
- Go to Settings > Labs.
- Turn on Budgets.
- Go to Planning > Budgets.
If you don't see Budgets in Labs, reach out to your ChartHop CX team (CSM, IS, or Support) and they'll get you set up.
The Budgets list
The Budgets list shows every budget in your org, with:
- Budget Name
- Status: Draft or Active (the Status filter defaults to "Active and Draft")
- Usage %: a progress bar showing how much of the budget has been used
- Amount Used
- Budget: the total budgeted amount
- Variance and Variance %: how far usage is from budget, in dollars and as a percent
- Groups: the departments or teams the budget applies to
- Owners
Filter the list by Period (defaults to Current), Status, Created by, or by typing a budget name.
Create a budget
- Go to Planning > Budgets and select Create.
- Fill in the budget details:
Field | Required? | What it does |
|---|---|---|
Budget Name | Yes | A label that identifies the budget across ChartHop |
Budget Date Range | Yes | Choose a range type (such as Custom date range) and set the start and end dates |
Owners | No | The people accountable for this budget. You can add more than one |
Groups | Yes | The departments or teams whose jobs count toward this budget. You can add more than one |
Cost basis | Yes | How the budget's cost is measured: Org default, Annualized, or Total cost over period (see below) |
Active | No | Unchecked by default. Leave it unchecked to keep the budget as a Draft, or check it to activate |
- Select Save changes.
Draft vs. Active
A new budget saves as a Draft unless you check Active. Drafts show usage and budget numbers for reference, but they don't appear in any scenario until you activate them. When you're ready for a budget to start tracking variance and showing up in scenarios, edit it and check Active.
Choosing a cost basis
The cost basis controls how ChartHop measures the cost that counts against a budget. You have three choices:
- Org default: Follows your organization's default cost basis. The option label shows what that default currently resolves to, for example "Org default (Total cost over period)."
- Annualized: The ongoing yearly run-rate for everyone in scope, no matter how long the budget itself runs. Use this to track the standing cost of a team.
- Total cost over period: The cost that actually falls inside the budget's start and end dates. ChartHop prorates each person's run-rate month by month across that range, and counts open roles only from their planned start date. Use this when you want spend to match the real cost of a fixed time window.
Here's how that plays out. A role with a $120,000 annual run-rate, filled all year, shows as $120,000 on an Annualized budget. On a Total cost over period budget that runs for six months, the same role contributes about $60,000, because only half the year falls inside the budget's dates.
Your budget's detail page
Open any budget from the list to see:
- Budget Usage: Amount Used, Budget, and Budget Remaining, with a progress bar and usage percentage.
- Budget Usage Over Time: A chart plotting Budget, Usage, and Forecast across the timeline. While a budget is a Draft, a banner reminds you to activate it to capture a baseline and start tracking variance.
- Details panel: Owners, Groups, Timeline (shown as a fiscal year, such as FY 2026), and Cost basis.
- Header actions: Edit Budget, plus icons to add collaborators, archive, or delete the budget.
Budget Breakdown Per Job
Below the usage chart, the Budget Breakdown Per Job table gives you a per-job, per-month view of what's counting toward the budget:
- Header stats: Total jobs in the budget's groups, how many are filled vs. open, and a count of jobs missing comp data (with a toggle to show only those).
- Columns: Job, Person, Total Annualized, a column for each month, and Total Applied to Budget.
- View on Data Sheet: Jumps to the same jobs in Data Sheet view.
This is a great place to answer team-level or line-of-business questions about where budget dollars are going.
Share a budget
Budget figures are compensation-adjacent, so it's worth a quick look at sharing before you invite others in. From the budget's detail page, select the share icon and choose a Sensitivity setting:
- Org Public: Visible to everyone in your org.
- Highly Sensitive (default): Visible only to org owners and users who already have access to view sensitive data.
The share dialog also lists the people who currently have access and their role, such as Owner.
Budgets in scenarios
Once a budget is Active, it shows up in any Headcount Planning scenario that touches the budget's groups. In the scenario's Data Sheet view, under the changes and annual cost summary, you'll see a chip for each applicable budget.
A budget appears in the scenario header only if it is Active, its groups overlap with the groups affected by the scenario, and you have permission to view it.
Each chip is built from three figures:
- Current usage: How much of the budget is used in your live org today, before any scenario changes.
- Scenario impact: The net cost change the scenario would add to, or remove from, the budget.
- Total amount: The full budget limit.
Visually, each chip shows the budget name, a progress bar for amount used against the budget (for example, "$45M / $50M"), and a status badge:
- Under budget: A green checkmark with the percentage under, such as "10% under."
- Over budget: The bar turns red, and the badge shows a warning icon with the dollar amount over, such as "$219k over."
If your scenario spans groups with different budgets, you'll see one chip per budget, and each one can independently show under or over. Going over budget doesn't block Submit for approval. Think of the red chip as a heads-up for whoever is building the plan.
Hover over the small (i) icon next to a budget chip to see the formula behind its cost calculation, such as totalComp. It's a handy check if a number looks different from another view of the same jobs.
Scenario cost view
The scenario's own cost summary, next to Submit for approval, has a dropdown to view the scenario's cost as Annual cost, Fiscal year, or Quarter. These totals prorate automatically based on each job's start and end dates and update as soon as you switch views. Your scenario's cost always starts from an annualized total, so this setting is separate from a budget's cost basis.
Good to know
- Budgets is in Alpha. Expect ongoing improvements, and share what you'd love to see with your ChartHop CX team (CSM, IS, or Support).
- A budget must be Active, not Draft, before it shows up in scenarios or tracks variance.
- Who can see a budget depends on access role, budget owners, and sharing settings, so double-check these if a teammate can't find a budget.
- Budget usage is calculated using your org's Scenario Cost Calculation, which you can configure under Admin > Financial Settings. If you change it, review your budgets so your amounts and usage figures stay on the same basis.