Labor Budgets
See whether each job is on track by comparing planned hours with published shifts and completed work, then review results by job or client.
Questions this report answers
- Which jobs are on track, at risk, or over budget?
- Which clients have jobs at risk or over budget?
- How do planned, scheduled, and completed hours compare?
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What this report shows
Use Labor Budgets to compare the hours you planned for each job with scheduled and completed hours. This helps you see which jobs are on track and which need attention.
- Planned is the labor budget saved for the job and date range.
- Scheduled is the time in published shifts assigned to the job. Published open shifts count; draft shifts do not.
- Completed is time from completed time entries, minus unpaid recorded breaks.
- Open now is elapsed time from clock-ins that have not ended. It stays separate and does not affect budget status.
Use By job for a quick status by job, By client to see which customers need attention, or By budget period to review each budget separately. Job and client totals use the most urgent status included in the total.
How status works
- On track means scheduled and completed hours are both within the planned hours.
- At risk means scheduled hours are over the plan, but completed hours are not.
- Over budget means completed hours are over the plan.
Hours equal to the plan remain on track. A zero-hour budget can still have a status, but its percentage stays blank because there is no planned time to calculate against.
Choose what to review
Choose dates that overlap the budgets you want to review. If your selected dates cover only part of a budget, the report still compares the full budget with all scheduled and completed hours from that budget's date range.
Use the Client, Job, and Status filters to narrow the report. No client includes jobs without a client. Archived jobs and clients stay labeled so past results keep their context.
Add and update labor budgets
- Open Jobs.
- Open a job's actions and choose Labor budgets.
- Press Add labor budget.
- Choose the dates and enter the Planned hours.
Before you add the first budget, the dialog shows the job's current client. Make sure it is correct. Adding the budget locks that client assignment so past reports always stay with the right customer. If future work belongs to a different client, create a new job for it.
If the plan changes, choose Change hours. Clockspot keeps the previous amount and your reason in History, so you can see what changed. Void a budget when it should no longer affect reports or schedule warnings. Voiding keeps its dates, planned hours, and history instead of deleting them.
The job must be active to add a budget or change planned hours. You can still review or void saved budgets after archiving the job. The workspace must have a time zone before you add a budget. A budget can cover up to 400 days and cannot overlap another active budget for the same job. This prevents the same scheduled or completed time from counting against two plans.
Export and access
Open Export to download the current report as CSV, Excel, or PDF. You can also add Labor Budgets in Scheduled Reports for recurring email delivery.
Because this report uses company-wide labor hours, it is available only to owners and administrators with access to every employee.
Common questions
- Why did a budget appear when my dates cover only part of it?
The report includes budgets that overlap any selected date, then uses each budget's full date range. This keeps a full-period plan from being compared with only part of its hours.
- Why is a job at risk instead of over budget?
At risk means its published shift hours are over the plan while completed hours are not. It becomes over budget only when completed hours exceed the plan. Open clock-ins are shown separately and do not affect status.
- Why can't I add a labor budget?
Check that the job is active and your workspace time zone is set in Settings. The new date range also cannot overlap another active budget for the same job.
- What happens if the workspace time zone changes?
Existing budgets keep the time zone they were created with, so their start and end dates do not shift. Clockspot shows the saved time zone only when it differs from the current workspace or report time zone.
- Why can scheduled and completed hours differ when shifts include breaks?
Scheduled hours count only the part of each published shift within the budget dates. They do not subtract planned breaks because shifts do not store them. Completed hours subtract unpaid breaks recorded with the time entry.
Clockspot keeps clock-ins, corrections, approvals, and payroll-ready hours connected so owners and managers can review the workweek before payroll.
Want to simplify how your team tracks time? See how Clockspot works.