Budget items

Budget headers and budget items

A budget has:

  • Budget items: a budget item calculates the cost for a specific item. You can enter:
    • The description of the item
    • Its duration and duration unit: for instance to calculate wages: 12 months
    • Its quantity: for instance ‘5 items ‘or ‘3 persons’. You can select an existing unit from the drop-down list or enter a new one.
    • Its unit cost:
      • Unit cost expressed in the default currency: simply enter the unit cost of the item
      • Unit cost expressed in a local currency: enter the number and select a currency from the Currency drop-down list. If the currency you need is not available, use the Exchange rates window to add new local currencies.
  • Budget headers: these group a series of budget items. A budget header can also group other budget headers and you can create as many levels as you like. Logframer automatically calculates the totals of the budget header:
    • The total duration: a total will only be made if the duration unit of all the items is the same
    • The total quantity: a total will only be made if the number unit of all the items is the same
    • The total local currency: a total will only be made if the local currency of all the items is the same
    • The total cost

You don't have to fill out all the cells for a budget item. You can:

Enter

Total cost is

Cost/unit only

Cost/unit

Quantity and a cost per unit

Quantity x Cost per unit

Duration and a cost per unit

Duration x Cost per unit

Duration, quantity and cost per unit

Duration x Quantity x Cost per unit

A special kind of budget item is the Ratio budget item. With a Ratio item, you can specify that one cost equals to a certain percentage (ratio) of another item or budget header. To create a ratio item:

  • Make sure the Details pane is visible (if not, go to the Lay-out toolbar and in the View section click on Show Details).
  • On the Type tab of the Details pane, set the Type to ratio using the drop-down list
  • In the table that appears, select the reference row that will be the source for your item
  • Specify the ratio as a percentage of the amount you're referring to

A ratio item

A ratio item is practical if you have for instance administration costs that are a fixed percentage of the total working costs, or if you want to calculate an amount for contingencies as a percentage of other costs.
 

Moving items around

To select a single budget item, click on it with the left mouse button. To select more than one item, press the left mouse button and drag. The red selection rectangle will expand to include other cells, but you can only select cells within a single section.

To move items, press the right mouse button within your selection (red selection rectangle) and drag it to the place where you want to insert the items. A green indicator line will appear and show the current location. When you come close to the top or bottom border of the logframe, it will scroll up or down. Release the right mouse button to insert the items you selected.

Another way to move items is to use the Move Up and Move Down buttons in the Lay-out ribbon tab.
 

Copying and pasting budget items

You can cut, copy and paste items in three different ways. First select the items you want to copy paste (see ‘Moving items around’).

  • Use the Cut, Copy and Paste buttons of the Items ribbon tab.
  • Press Ctrl+X to cut; Ctrl+C to copy and Ctrl+V to paste
  • Right click into the red selection rectangle and move the green indicator line to where you want to copy the item(s) (see ‘Moving items around’). But this time hold the Ctrl button when you release the right mouse button. This will copy the selected item(s) instead of cutting and pasting them.