Budget Tracker (EVM)

Phase: Monitoring and controlling | Audience: Internal | Project: WEB-2026-01 Corporate Website Development

Understand it first

In simple words: The Budget Tracker uses Earned Value Management (EVM) to answer: are we spending more than planned for the work done, and are we behind schedule? It then forecasts the final cost.

Think of it like: You planned to paint 4 rooms for ₹40,000 in 4 days. After 2 days you have painted 1.5 rooms (earned ₹15,000) but spent ₹18,000. You are over budget and behind schedule.

When is it created?	Weekly during the project
Who prepares it?	Project Manager
Who approves or uses it?	Reviewed with Delivery Head fortnightly
What happens next?	Red status is escalated and a recovery plan agreed

How it connects to other documents

Planned value comes from the Budget and Schedule.
Actual cost comes from Timesheets and invoices.
Thresholds come from the Project Management Plan.

The sample document

Below is the actual document for project WEB-2026-01. Read the purpose first, then go through each numbered section.

Issued by: [Your Company] Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

Purpose: Weekly earned value analysis against the budget at completion (BAC) of ₹4,58,000. Indices are used unrounded in forecasts.

Item	Detail
Document no.	WEB-2026-01/EVM
Version	1.0
Date	30 Oct 2026
Owner	Project Manager
Audience	Internal
Phase	Monitoring and controlling
Status	Red

Item	Detail
Budget at completion (BAC)	₹4,58,000
Cost baseline (BAC + contingency)	₹5,03,800
Cost status	Red
Schedule status	Green

1. Weekly trend (cumulative, ₹)

Week ending	PV	EV	AC	CV	SV	CPI	SPI
9 Oct (W1)	28,000	28,000	29,000	−1,000	0	0.966	1.000
16 Oct (W2)	60,000	58,000	63,000	−5,000	−2,000	0.921	0.967
23 Oct (W3)	1,10,000	1,06,000	1,18,000	−12,000	−4,000	0.898	0.964
30 Oct (W4)	1,70,600	1,65,000	1,82,000	−17,000	−5,600	0.907	0.967

2. Forecast at week 4

Measure	Formula	Value
Estimate at completion (EAC)	BAC ÷ CPI = 4,58,000 ÷ 0.9066	₹5,05,188
Estimate to complete (ETC)	EAC − AC	₹3,23,188
Variance at completion (VAC)	BAC − EAC	−₹47,188
To-complete performance index (TCPI)	(BAC − EV) ÷ (BAC − AC)	1.062
Contingency available		₹45,800
Forecast vs cost baseline	EAC − ₹5,03,800	₹1,388 over

3. Actual cost by category to date (₹)

Category	Planned	Actual	Variance
Labour	1,46,000	1,64,000	−18,000
Non-labour	24,600	18,000	+6,600
Total	1,70,600	1,82,000	−11,400

Note: Why Red: the forecast (₹5,05,188) exceeds the cost baseline (₹5,03,800), meaning the whole contingency would be used and more. The non-labour saving is only timing (hosting bought in week 5), so the real cause is the designer's 20 extra hours. To recover, remaining work must run at a CPI of 1.06 (TCPI). Escalated to the Delivery Head on 30 Oct.

4. Recovery actions

Freeze designs: any further visual change goes through a billable change request.
Cap PM client-call time at 2 hours per week; move content chasing to email.
Use the approved CR-001 (₹12,000) to cover part of the design overrun in margin terms.
Re-forecast weekly; if CPI stays below 0.95 by week 6, request management reserve.

WEB-2026-01/EVM · v1.0 · Internal. Bracketed items such as [Client Name] are placeholders.

Key takeaways

PV = planned work value, EV = value of work done, AC = actual cost.
CPI = EV ÷ AC; SPI = EV ÷ PV. Below 1.0 is bad.
EAC = BAC ÷ CPI forecasts the final cost if nothing changes.

Common mistakes to avoid

Comparing only budget vs actual, without earned value.
Using rounded CPI in forecasts.
Waiting until the end to act on a Red status.

Next lesson: 32. Invoice and Payment Tracker