Marketing Budget Planning

The Budget Planning Editor view allows you to manage your marketing team budget.

Budget Header

Budget Overview Sidebar

Located at the top navbar on the right edge, the Budget Sidebar provides comprehensive budget insights for administrators only. This panel includes:

• Overview of total marketing budget allocation
• Remaining budget to be planned
• Key metrics about your budget status

Total Budget Card

The Total Budget card shows your annual marketing budget allocation in your organization’s default currency. As an admin, you can click the card to adjust the total budget amount.

Remaining Budget

The “Left to Plan” card displays how much of your total budget remains unallocated. This automatically updates when you:

• Add new line items
• Modify existing amounts
• Change the total budget

A progress bar visualizes your current budget utilization, showing the percentage of your total budget that has been allocated across line items.

Budget Status Metrics

The sidebar includes several key statistics that help you monitor your budget:

• Total Categories: Shows the number of unique categories in your budget
• Total Line Items: Displays the count of all line items
• Draft Items: Shows the count of line items still in “draft” status
• Approval Rate: Displays the percentage of total items marked as “approved”

Filtering

The Filters Panel available at the top of the Budget Grid, allows you to refine which line items are displayed in the budget. It provides a powerful way to focus on specific aspects of your budget data.

Available Filters

You can filter your budget by multiple criteria:

• Category: Filter by specific budget categories
• Currency: Show only items in particular currencies
• Status: Filter by item status (draft, pending approval, approved, rejected)
• Owner: See items assigned to specific team members or unassigned items
• Total Cost: Filter items based on their total cost using various comparison operators
• Monthly Cost: Find items with specific monthly spending patterns

Using Filters To add a filter:

1. Click the “Filter” button in the filter bar
2. Select the type of filter you want to apply
3. Choose specific filter criteria or enter numeric values for cost filters
4. For cost filters, you can select comparison operators like “Equal to,” “Greater than,” or “Less than”

Multiple filters can be applied simultaneously to narrow down your view. Each active filter appears as a tag in the filter bar, and you can remove individual filters by clicking the “X” icon on each tag or clear all filters at once with the “Clear all” button.

Budget Grid

The main section where you manage your marketing budget data. It consists of overall totals and categories with their line items.

Categories

Categories organize your marketing budget into logical sections. Each category displays category totals and line items belonging to it.

Managing Categories

• To create a new category, click “Add Category” in the header
• To edit a category, click on the category name to modify:
  • Name
  • Description
  • Access settings for your teammates

Before deleting a category, note that this will:

• Remove all line items in the category
• Delete historical data
• Remove associated permissions
• Cannot be undone

Line Items

Creating Line Items

To add a new line item:

1. Click the “Add Item” button in the header
2. Fill in the required fields:
   • Name: Enter a descriptive name
   • Category: Select from existing categories
   • Currency: Choose from available currencies

Additional properties can be set up later by editing the line item.

Line Item Properties

Each line item includes:

Basic Properties:

• Name: Identifier for the line item
• Status: Track progress (Draft/Active/Completed)
• Owner: Assign responsibility
• Category: Organizational grouping
• Currency: Set specific currency for this item

Custom Properties: Based on your needs, you can add custom properties of the following types:

• Single-choice dropdowns
• Text fields
• Numerical values
• True/false options

Comments and Mentions

Each line item in your budget has a dedicated comments section that enables team collaboration. This feature allows you to discuss specific line items, track decisions, and notify team members when their input is needed.

• Comments appear in a thread format below the line item details
• Each comment shows the author’s name and timestamp

To add a comment:

1. Click into the comment box at the bottom of the comments section
2. Type your message
3. Press Enter or click the send button to post your comment

Mentioning Team Members

You can notify specific team members by mentioning them in your comments:

1. Type the @ symbol in your comment
2. A list of team members will appear
3. Select the person you want to mention
4. Complete your comment and post it

When you mention someone in a comment, they’ll receive a notification through Slack messages (if Slack integration is enabled for your organization).

The notification will include:

• Who mentioned them
• A preview of the comment content
• A direct link to view the comment in context

Currency Management

Etropo supports multiple currencies:

• Each line item can have its own currency
• All amounts convert to your default currency for totals
• Fixed exchange rates can be set in the currencies settings

More on currencies here.

Access Control

Etropo allows you to set category-based access to ensure sensitive financial information is only accessible to authorized team members. You can decide which parts of the budget each user can view and edit. There are types of user accounts: user, and admin.

Admin

As an admin, you have full access to the budget planning system. This means you can:

• See and manage all categories and line items
• Create new categories and modify or delete existing ones
• Control who has access to which categories
• View all budget insights in the Budget Sidebar
• Set and adjust the total planned budget
• Work with any line item in the system
• Access filtering capabilities

User

Your access to the budget depends on which categories you’ve been given permission to view. Here’s what this means:

• You’ll only see the categories you have access to
• You can only work with line items in your accessible categories
• You won’t have access to the Budget Sidebar
• You’ll still be able to use filtering capabilities on the line items you can access

When you don’t have access to all categories:

• You don’t see the Budget Sidebar
• You won’t see any data from restricted categories anywhere in the system

How to Manage Category Access

If you’re an admin, you can control access to categories:

1. Click on a category name
2. Go to “Manage Access”
3. Choose which users should have access
4. Save your changes

Good to know:

• Only admins can change who has access to categories
• You’ll need to set access for each category individually
• Users can’t tell if there are categories they don’t have access to