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Get alerted when a project goes over budget

Pro plan Owner, Admin, or Portfolio Manager

Two workflow triggers watch a project’s spend against its budget and fire an automation the moment it crosses a line you care about:

  • Budget threshold reached fires when spend crosses a percentage you set, for example 80% of the budget. Use it as an early warning.
  • Budget exceeded fires when spend crosses the full budget (100%). Use it as the “we are over, act now” signal.

Both live in the Projects family of triggers in the workflow builder, and both can run org-wide (across every project) or scoped to one project.

What “spend” means here

Section titled “What “spend” means here”

Actual spend is your approved timesheet hours priced at their rate-card rate, the same Actual Cost figure the EVM dashboard shows. Imported plan costs and draft (unapproved) time do not count. Spend is recomputed each time a timesheet entry is approved, and that is when these triggers evaluate.

For a project to raise budget alerts it needs both of these:

  • A budget set on the project. See Set budgets and currency.
  • A rate signal, so hours can be turned into money: at least one rate card, or an organization default hourly rate.

Without both, Onplana cannot compute spend and the triggers stay silent (no false alarms).

Each alert fires once, on the crossing

Section titled “Each alert fires once, on the crossing”

These triggers are debounced per project so they do not spam you on every approval once a project is over a line:

  • Budget exceeded fires the first time spend crosses the budget. It does not fire again as spend keeps climbing past 100%.
  • Budget threshold reached fires once when spend crosses the percentage that workflow is set to. An 80% alert and a 95% alert each fire once, on their own crossing. Neither re-fires while spend stays above its line.

If spend later drops back below a line (for example a rate change lowers Actual Cost) and rises again, that counts as a fresh crossing and the alert can fire once more.

Build a budget threshold alert

Section titled “Build a budget threshold alert”

  1. Open Workflows and select New Workflow.

  2. Name it, then pick the scope. Org-wide watches every project’s budget; project-scoped watches only the project you choose.

  3. Choose the trigger Budget threshold reached (Projects family).

  4. In the trigger card, set Budget threshold (%), for example 80. This is the percentage of budget at which the alert fires.

  5. Add the steps you want to run. Good choices are Send in-app notification, Send email, Call webhook, or Set project status.

  6. Save, then use Test Run to fire it once against the latest matching project and confirm the steps behave.

To alert at more than one level, build two workflows: one at 80% and one at 95%. Each fires once at its own crossing.

Prebuilt templates

Section titled “Prebuilt templates”

The template gallery on the New Workflow page includes two budget templates you can start from and adapt:

  • Budget Threshold Alert sends an urgent in-app notification and emails the project owner when spend reaches 80% of budget.
  • Budget Exceeded Emergency notifies stakeholders, emails the finance team, and sets the project to On Hold to freeze further work when spend crosses the budget.

Budget events have no triggering task

Section titled “Budget events have no triggering task”

Unlike a task-based trigger, a budget event is about the project, not a single task. That means task-level actions (set status, assign, add a subtask, and similar) have nothing to act on and are skipped, exactly like a scheduled workflow. Build these alerts from project-level and communication actions:

  • Send in-app notification
  • Send email (the {project.name} placeholder resolves to the project)
  • Call webhook
  • Set project status (for example, move to On Hold)

Troubleshooting / common pitfalls

Section titled “Troubleshooting / common pitfalls”
  • The alert never fires. Check the two prerequisites: the project has a budget, and the org has a rate card or default hourly rate. Without both, spend cannot be computed.
  • Nothing happened after I logged time. Time only counts once it is approved. Draft and submitted hours do not move Actual Cost.
  • It did not re-fire when spend climbed further. By design. Each trigger fires once on its crossing and stays quiet while spend remains above the line.
  • My “set status” or “assign” step did nothing. Budget events carry no task, so task-level actions are skipped. Use project-level, notification, email, or webhook steps.
  • The email said “Project” with no name. Use the {project.name} placeholder in the subject and body; it resolves for budget alerts.

How this combines with other features

Section titled “How this combines with other features”
  • Budget alerts + Finance. The spend these triggers watch is the same Actual Cost on the EVM dashboard.
  • Budget alerts + Timesheets. Approvals are what update spend. See Approve timesheets.
  • Budget alerts + Webhooks. Push the over-budget signal into an external system with Send webhooks.

FAQs

Section titled “FAQs”

Which plan includes budget alert triggers? They are part of Workflows, available on Pro and above. Owners, Admins, and Portfolio Managers manage org-wide workflows; a project owner or manager can build one scoped to their own project.

Does imported Microsoft Project cost count as spend? No. These triggers watch actual spend (approved hours at rate-card rates), not planned or imported cost. Imported cost drives planning views, not the alert.

Can I alert at 50%, 80%, and 100%? Yes. Build one Budget threshold reached workflow per percentage (50 and 80), plus a Budget exceeded workflow for 100%. Each fires once on its own crossing.

Will I get an alert every time someone approves time once we are over? No. Each trigger fires a single time on the crossing and then stays quiet while spend remains above that line.

Do these work on a project with no budget? No. Set a project budget first, otherwise there is nothing to cross.

Section titled “Related”