Hours Budget — Program Lead Guide
For the person who runs a contract and has to answer one question every month: how many hours did I give each person on each line, and how many have they used? Short version: you state the budget; Arcvue counts the hours, from the timesheets and the subcontractor portal, as they are entered.
For: program managers, division leads and the finance team · Time: ~8 minutes · You'll need: a contract you run, or write access to Accounting Contracts.
How to access
Two doors open the same panel:
- From the contract. Open the contract from Accounting → Contracts and choose the Hours tab.
- From My Programs. A contract you are assigned to as its Program Manager — or every contract in your division, if you are its Division Lead — carries an Hours button beside Estimate.
Who can set a budget: the contract's own Program Manager or Division Lead, and finance roles holding write access to Accounting Contracts. Anyone else who can open the contract reads the same panel without a Set budget button.
Part 1 — The ideas you need first (read once)
A budget is yours to state; the hours used are Arcvue's to count
You give each person hours on each line for a window — usually the contract year. Arcvue never edits those figures. What it counts is what was actually charged: employees' timesheet hours and subcontractor staff's portal hours on that contract, as entered. The month you are asking about is usually still open, so certified and uncertified hours both count; discarded timesheet rows and entries a reviewer returned to a subcontractor do not.
The columns
| Column | What it is |
|---|---|
| Budgeted | The hours you gave this person on this line for the window |
| Used before Arcvue | Hours already used before Arcvue tracked lines, which you state once with the date they run through |
| Used in Arcvue | Hours charged to the line inside the window, counted from the day after that date |
| Remaining | Budgeted, minus both kinds of use. It turns red below zero |
| % used | Amber at 80 percent, red past 100 |
| Days | Opens the person's entries on this contract, day by day |
Why "Used before Arcvue" exists. Hours worked before a contract's lines were tracked arrived with no line, so no query can say which line they belong to. You carry them from your own report, once, with the date they run through, and Arcvue counts every hour after that date. Once any budget in the window states such a date, every line counts from the day after the earliest one, so nothing is counted twice — the panel and the workbook both say which date applies.
Hours with no budget
A person who charged a line you gave them no hours on still appears, with no budget in italics where the figure would be, and the line's Hours with no budget total carries them. They are real hours and they count against the line. A person whose only hours on a line came before the date you stated does not get an empty row.
A change keeps the record
Setting a budget for the same person, line and window again replaces it and keeps the earlier figure on the record, with who set each and when. Retire budget takes an allocation off the live set without deleting it: the hours stay, and show as no budget from then on.
Part 2 — How to use it
Step 1 — Pick the window
The window control opens on Current contract year, read from the contract's base and option periods and its period of performance. An option the period of performance covers counts as exercised, and when the period of performance runs past the last dated option, the missing years are filled in a year at a time, with a note under the title that their dates were derived; nothing is filled in past the period of performance end. Choose another recorded period, or Custom dates… with a Window start and Window end. If the contract carries no recorded periods, the panel falls back to the period of performance, then to the calendar year, and says so under the title. Every figure, every month across and the workbook follow the window.
Step 2 — Set the budgets at the start of the period
Press Set budget. The Set an hours budget panel asks for one person, one line and one window at a time:
- Person — employees authorized on the contract and subcontractor staff staffed on it, plus anyone who has already charged it.
- Line — a line open for time charging on the contract's Billing tab. A contract that charges whole budgets against No line (whole contract).
- Window start and Window end — filled in from the window you picked.
- Budgeted hours — the allocation, for example 1,880.
- Used before Arcvue and Through — only if this person already used hours on this line before Arcvue tracked lines.
- Note — optional: where the figure came from, for the next reader.
Press Set budget to keep it. To change one later, click its row: the panel reopens on that person and line, and Save change replaces it while keeping the earlier figure on the record. Retire budget turns into Click again to retire, and only that second click retires it. Cancel closes without saving.
Step 3 — Read it through the period
By person and line lists every allocation and every charge, sortable and filterable by person or line. By line adds up every person on each line.
Days on a row opens that person's entries on this contract for the window: the Date, the Line, the Hours, Where the work was done (Onsite or Offsite, on a contract that bills by place of work), the Note, and the entry's State:
- for an employee: Entered, Certified or Approved;
- for subcontractor staff: Saved, Submitted, Approved or Returned. Returned entries are listed and not counted.
You see only this contract. Nothing on the panel shows a person's work on other programs.
Step 4 — Pull the monthly report
Workbook downloads it: a sheet by person and line with the months across, a sheet by line, and a sheet stating what was counted. The file is named for the contract and the window.
Part 3 — When something looks wrong
| What you see | What it means → what to do |
|---|---|
| Nothing in this window | Nobody has charged the contract in this window and no budget is set. Pick another window, or Set budget. |
| No Set budget button | You read this contract but do not run it. Its Program Manager, its Division Lead or finance sets budgets. |
| A line you need is not in Line | It is not open for time charging. Open it on the contract's Billing tab. |
| A person shows no budget | They charged a line you gave them no hours on. Give them a budget, or ask why they charged it. |
| Remaining is red | More hours used than budgeted. The workbook shows which months did it. |
| Used in Arcvue looks low early in a period | Hours count as entered, so time people have not entered yet is not there. A subcontractor's returned entries are not counted until they are corrected and sent again. |
| The hours budget could not be loaded. | A load failure, not an empty contract. Reload. |
| The budget could not be saved. or The budget could not be retired. | Nothing changed. The message under it says why. |
Related
- My Programs (FP&A guide) — the program dashboard where the Hours and Estimate buttons live.
- Contract Register (controller guide) — the contract record, its Billing tab and the lines open for time.
- Timekeeping (employee guide) and Subcontractor Portal — where the hours this panel counts are entered.