Budgets and Costs

Budgeting in HomeBuilder starts with Cost Details and Cost Groups. Generally, companies create 10-20 Cost Groups and 100+ Cost Details (examples shown later in this chapter).

Once you complete the HomeBuilder setup, adding Cost Groups and Details automatically creates Dimensions in Business Central. Any posting of any transaction in HomeBuilder will then split up your transactions by these codes at the GL, Lot, and all detail levels. You can then produce enterprise-level reporting if you like.

Even if you do not immediately plan to write these reports or cannot see a use for them right now; please create this cost structure. It does not require a lot of maintenance (if any) once setup and it does not put a noticeable burden on the system. The HomeBuilder Template already contains Cost Groups and Cost Details. You can just adjust them to your business situation.

Vendor Contracts is where the majority of the system setup takes place. (Sales pricing is covered in Lot Payments and Closing). They are used to create Budgets, control costs, and manage construction.

Payment Splits are used when you need to "split" a single Planning Line into multiple Planning lines. An example can be framing where there is an initial charge of 40% upon completion of floor one, 40% for floor two, and a final 20% upon completion.

Implementation and Update of Budgets explains the basic structure of Budgets in HomeBuilder.

Budget Control article outlines ways to stop or allow exceeding budgets.

Lot Budgeting and Costing section provides more details. It elaborates on the relationship between the Model and Lot Budget. The last article describes Lot Costing and Reports options.