Managing a project budget in a spreadsheet might have worked when teams were smaller and scopes were simpler. But in today’s fast-moving, multi-stakeholder environments, manual tools simply don’t keep up.
If you’re tracking costs across clients, departments, or service lines, budgeting is no longer a one-off task. It’s a living, collaborative process that evolves as the project unfolds. That’s why more finance and operations teams are turning to dedicated project budgeting tools that offer real-time tracking, automation, and better control.
Spreadsheets are flexible, but that’s also their downfall. Without version control, approval workflows, or alerts, budgeting in Excel is risky business.
Here are just a few problems teams face with spreadsheet-only budgeting:
In complex projects or fast-growing teams, these gaps lead to overspending, missed alerts, and misaligned expectations.
That’s why a dedicated project budgeting tool or planner is essential. It keeps everyone working from the same playbook, ensures visibility across cost centres, and turns your budget into a living, trackable framework, not just a one-time estimate.
When evaluating project budgeting tools, look for features that support flexibility, control, and scalability, especially if your team works across multiple clients or projects.
Here are the must-haves:
Different people need different levels of access. A project lead may need visibility into their own lines, while finance needs to manage the overall structure. Role-based access ensures the right people see the right data and prevents unauthorised changes.
Your budget tool should sync with expense approvals, vendor payments, and time-tracking tools. If it’s not connected to real-time financial activity, it’s just another static file.
Budgets should be structured by categories - personnel, tools, travel, vendors, etc. - so you can drill into spend and track variance accurately. Bonus points for tools that allow custom fields by project.
Set limits per category or overall budget. When a team nears its threshold, the tool should notify the budget owner automatically. No more guessing or waiting until month-end to see if you’ve gone over.
Want to see what this looks like in action? Explore how a project budget tracker works across services and operations teams.
When it comes to project budgeting, teams typically choose from four main categories of tools each with its strengths and drawbacks.
Spreadsheets, such as Excel or Google Sheets, remain the most familiar option. They’re flexible, affordable, and widely used across teams. But they come with serious limitations. Spreadsheets lack real-time data, version control, and automation features. This makes them risky for managing live budgets across multiple projects or departments.
Project management platforms, like Asana or Monday.com, offer great tools for scheduling, task management, and collaboration. However, budgeting is often treated as an afterthought. These platforms may support basic cost tracking, but they typically don’t provide the depth or control finance teams need to monitor budgets by category or track real-time spend.
ERP and accounting systems, including tools like NetSuite or SAP, provide powerful financial oversight and deep integration with company-wide processes. They’re excellent for managing enterprise-level finances, but often overcomplicated for day-to-day project budgeting. They tend to be expensive, require specialist support, and aren’t easily adopted by non-finance users managing client or internal projects.
Summit, on the other hand, is a lightweight and customisable budgeting solution designed specifically for service and operations-based teams. It delivers more structure and visibility than a spreadsheet, without the overhead of a full ERP. Summit gives project leads and finance teams the clarity they need to stay in control, whether managing five budgets or fifty.
Summit hits the sweet spot: intuitive enough for project teams to use independently, powerful enough for finance to trust, and built to scale with your business.
Even the best budget planner won’t reach its full potential if it’s not integrated with the rest of your tech stack.
Look for tools that connect easily with:
These integrations not only reduce manual entry, but they also help you build a single source of truth for spend tracking and financial planning.
For help building a connected process, check out our guide on project management and budget planning.
Summit was built with project and finance teams in mind. Whether you’re planning internal initiatives, client engagements, or department budgets, Summit gives you a flexible, scalable way to control costs and track progress in real time.
With Summit, you can:
1. Create custom budgets per project, team, or client
2. Set approval workflows and access controls
3. Track actual spend as expenses are submitted and approved
4. See live dashboards showing usage by category, project phase, or vendor
5. Receive alerts when costs approach limits, before it’s too late
6. Export reports for client billing, board updates, or internal reviews
Summit turns your budget from a spreadsheet into a command centre - one that supports agility, accountability, and accuracy at every stage of delivery.
Project budgeting doesn’t have to be a guessing game. With the right tools, you can forecast confidently, track effortlessly, and make informed decisions with zero surprises.
Summit helps you plan better, spend smarter, and scale faster. Talk to us today to see how we can help your team stay on budget, without slowing down.