Jira budget tracking with forecasts and alerts

Biller Plus adds Jira budget tracking that looks ahead. Forecasts show where each budget ends up, and alerts tell you before a project goes over.

Acme Portal Rebuild

Fixed fee, sample data

Expected cost at finish

$14,420

Work done48%

Budget spent56%

Expected cost against budget111% of $13,000

$6,720 spent on people + 90 remaining hours × $80 + $500 expenses = $14,420

Spending runs ahead of the work, so the alerts fire before the budget is gone. The marks show the alert levels: 50, 75, 90 and 100% of the budget.

Spend against work done

The sample project has spent 56% of its budget and finished about 48% of the work. At this pace the budget runs out on Nov 11, 2026.

A sample project overview: a warning that spend runs ahead of work, money so far, and the expected cost at finish. — Budget spent against work done, and the expected cost at finish. When spend runs ahead of the work, Biller Plus tells you the date the budget runs out.

Four ways to forecast

Each project uses one method. A forecast is never lower than the actual cost, and the forecast total cost adds expenses to date.

Method	Forecast cost
Actual ÷ % complete (default)	With the hours method, this equals actual + remaining hours × blended rate
Remaining estimates	Actual + remaining estimate × blended cost per hour so far
Weekly burn	Actual + average weekly burn (last 4 weeks) × weeks until the end date
Manual	Actual + expected remaining hours × blended rate, or a manual forecast cost

In the sample: $6,720 + 90 hours × $80 = $13,920. Add $500 of expenses and the forecast total cost is $14,420, which is $1,420 over the $13,000 budget.

What triggers an alert

Alerts name the Epic that caused them.

The project reaches 50, 75, 90 or 100% of its budget. On the sample budget, those are $6,500, $9,750, $11,700 and $13,000.
The forecast goes over budget.
Margin drops.

Where alerts arrive

No alert contains the rates of individual people. The privacy policy lists what each alert sends.

Jira	Alerts appear under Notifications.
Email	Each person turns this on and confirms the address with a 6-digit code. Off until then.
Slack or Microsoft Teams	A finance admin adds a channel webhook. Choose one message per project each day, or one per alert.

Project health

Two checks decide the label, and the worst check wins. You can change the thresholds per project and in Settings.

Check	Healthy	At Risk	Over Budget
Forecast ÷ budget	≤ 90%	≤ 100%	Above 100%
Margin	≥ 35%	≥ 20%	Below 20%

Budget changes leave a trail

The current budget is the original budget plus approved changes. Finance approves each change, so the original and the current budget are both clear.

The Budget tab of a sample project: original budget, approved changes, current budget, and the change history. — Budget changes go through approval and keep their history.