Plans Updater - Managing Active Budgets
The Plans Updater view appears automatically when your marketing budget transitions from draft to active status. This view helps you track your budget’s performance against planned values and make necessary adjustments as your marketing activities progress.
Accessing Plans Updater
The system displays the Plans Updater view automatically when a budget becomes active. You can also manually switch to this view from the header navigation when viewing an active budget.
Key Features
Budget Status Calculation
The Plans Updater features a Budget Status Badge in the bottom-right corner of your screen that provides real-time insight into your budget performance. This badge combines actual spending and planned values to give you an accurate picture of your budget’s health.
What the Badge Shows
- Status Indicator: Shows whether you’re “On Target,” “Under Budget,” or “Over Budget”
- Amount Difference: Displays the exact amount you’re over or under budget in your default currency
- Percentage Difference: Shows the deviation as a percentage of your total target budget
The badge uses color-coding for quick visual assessment:
- 🟢 Green: Under Budget
- 🔵 Blue: On Target (when the difference is negligible)
- 🔴 Red: Over Budget
How the Budget Status Is Calculated
The budget status calculation compares your target budget against a combination of actual and planned spending:
Budget Status = Target Budget - Actuals and Plans Combined
Where:
- Target Budget: The total annual budget amount set for your marketing plan
- Actuals and Plans Combined: The sum of all line item values, using actuals where available and plans for the rest
The system follows these steps for each line item:
- Checks each month to see if there’s an actual amount recorded
- Uses the actual amount if it exists (even if it’s zero)
- Falls back to the planned amount if no actual exists
- Converts all amounts to your default currency using established exchange rates
- Sums these values across all line items and all months
This hybrid approach gives you a more accurate picture of your overall budget status than looking at plans or actuals separately.
Example Calculation
Here’s a simplified example with two line items across three months:
Target Budget: $10,000
Line Item 1: Social Media Ads (USD)
- January: $1,000 actual (recorded)
- February: $1,200 actual (recorded)
- March: $1,000 planned (no actuals yet)
Line Item 2: Content Creation (EUR, exchange rate 1 EUR = 1.1 USD)
- January: €800 actual (recorded) = $880 USD
- February: €900 planned (no actuals yet) = $990 USD
- March: €900 planned (no actuals yet) = $990 USD
The Total Combined Amount would be: $1,000 + $1,200 + $1,000 + $880 + $990 + $990 = $6,060
Therefore: Budget Status = $10,000 - $6,060 = $3,940 under budget (39.4%)
Since this is under budget, the status badge would show green with “Under Budget: $3,940 (39.4%)”.
Working with Plans Updater
Updating Future Plans
When actuals come in higher or lower than expected, you may need to adjust plans for future months to stay within your overall budget:
- Identify months where actuals have already been recorded (these cells appear with a light blue backround)
- Make adjustments to future months by clicking on cells where actuals haven’t been entered yet
- Use the fill functionality to quickly distribute budget across multiple months
Note it’s impossible to edit plans for months that have actuals already provided.
Collaborative Planning
The Plans Updater view fully supports all collaboration features:
- Comments and mentions work the same as in the regular budget view
- Access controls and permissions remain consistent with your existing settings
- Changes are tracked and can be reviewed in the activity history
Best Practices
- Regular Reviews: Check your Budget Status Badge weekly to stay informed about your budget performance
- Proactive Adjustments: When actuals come in over budget, adjust future month plans to compensate
- Collaborative Decisions: Use comments to discuss significant plan adjustments with stakeholders