Funding Envelopes
Set aside money for each Line of Business, tag where it comes from, and link project and intake budgets to the envelopes that fund them.
A funding envelope is a pool of money that belongs to a Line of Business. Projects link their budget to envelopes, so you can see how each LOB's money is being put to work and where it came from.
Each LOB can have several envelopes, for example one per budget line, program or funding source. The LOB's Budgets tab lists them with a total for the LOB.
- Each envelope belongs to one LOB.
- Envelope amounts are in the LOB's currency.
- Each envelope is tagged Internal or External.
- Money is drawn from envelopes by projects, and can be linked on intake requests before a project exists.
If Lines of Business are new to you, start with Lines of Business Overview.
Create an envelope
Open All LOBs, click the LOB, and go to the Budgets tab. Click Add, enter the envelope's name and amount, and tag it Internal or External.
The envelope is available as soon as it is saved. There is no approval step.
Only users with permission to edit the LOB's budget see Add and can change envelopes.
Internal and external funding
Tag each envelope by where its money comes from:
- Internal, funded by your organization.
- External, funded by a customer or another outside party.
The Budgets tab shows separate totals for internal and external funding alongside the LOB total, so customer-funded work is visible without being mixed into your own budget.
The tag lives on the envelope, not on individual expenses. Project managers do not need to classify each expense, because the envelope a project draws from already says where the money came from.
Link a project budget to envelopes
In the project's budget, add a funding row for each envelope the project draws from. Each row holds an amount and the envelope it comes from.
Use the add-row action to add more rows, so one project can draw from several envelopes. Amounts are entered by hand, and the envelopes offered are those of the project's LOB.
If a project's funding changes, edit the amount on the existing row or add a row for the new envelope, rather than removing the history of where the money came from.
Link funding on an intake request
Intake requests use the same funding component as projects. Add a funding row for each envelope the request would draw from, with an amount on each, so approvers can see where the money will come from before the project is created.
Linking funding at intake is especially useful when intake is the only way new projects are created, because funding is agreed as part of the approval.
How portfolios show funding
Portfolios do not draw from envelopes. A portfolio is a unified view of its projects, so its funding figures come from the funding rows on those projects. Link funding on each project and the portfolio reflects it automatically.
Drawing funding in projects only means the same money is never counted twice, once at the project and again at the portfolio.
Who can change funding
There is no approval flow for adding or changing envelopes or funding rows. Instead, permissions control who can edit each field, and every change is kept in the history, including who changed the numbers and when.
