Plan Budget — Overview and when to use it – Uptempo Help Center

Short Description Plan Budget is an optional, lightweight budgeting layer at the Plan, Campaign, or Program level — separate from Finance Budget. This article explains what it does and when to use it.

What this article answers

What Plan Budget is.
Where you can set it.
When to use Plan Budget vs Finance Budget.

What Plan Budget is

Plan Budget is a budgeting capability built into the Plan hierarchy itself. Unlike Finance Budget — which lives under Menu → Finance Budget and has its own object structure — Plan Budget sits directly on Plans, Campaigns, and Programs.

You can think of it as a "soft" planning budget: useful for marketing teams that need a budget number on a plan or campaign but don't need full finance integration with hard limits, transactions, and reconciliation.

[SCREENSHOT NEEDED — Plan Inspection Window with Plan Budget section]

Where you can set it

Plan Budget appears on:

Plans — total budget for the plan.
Campaigns — budget allocated to a campaign within a plan.
Programs — budget allocated to a program within a campaign.

It does not sit on Tactics or Line Items — those use Planned Cost (rolled up) and Finance Budget links instead.

When to use Plan Budget

Plan Budget is the right choice when:

Your team needs a top-down budget number on a plan or campaign for planning purposes.
Reconciliation against finance ledgers happens elsewhere (e.g., in your finance system, not Hive9).
Hard limits and Finance Budget complexity aren't needed.
You want a quick way to compare planned cost roll-up against an allocated budget.

When NOT to use Plan Budget

If your finance team needs:

Hard limits to prevent overspending.
Transaction-level tracking.
Integration with invoices and POs.
Audit-grade reconciliation.

…then use Finance Budget instead. The two can coexist — many instances use both, with Plan Budget for the marketing planning view and Finance Budget for the finance reconciliation view.

Enabling Plan Budget

Plan Budget is toggled at the instance level by your admin under Admin → Org Setup → Budget Configuration.

When enabled:

Plan, Campaign, and Program Inspection Windows show a Plan Budget section.
The Plan Grid can include Plan Budget columns.
Filters and reports can use Plan Budget values.

Changes to the Budget Configuration are recorded in the audit log.

Plan Budget vs roll-up

Plan Budget is the allocated amount (top-down). Planned Cost roll-up is the committed amount (bottom-up from Line Items).

A common workflow:

Set Plan Budget at the Plan or Campaign level.
As your team adds Tactics and Line Items, their Planned Costs roll up.
Compare the roll-up against the Plan Budget to see how much is allocated vs. how much remains.

Common questions

Does Plan Budget enforce hard limits? By default, no — it's primarily informational. Some instances configure it more strictly; check with your admin.

Can I have both Plan Budget and Finance Budget on the same plan? Yes — they're complementary. Plan Budget gives you a marketing-team view; Finance Budget gives you the finance-team view.

Will Plan Budget appear if my admin hasn't enabled it? No — the section is hidden in instances where Plan Budget is off.

Does Plan Budget show in standard dashboards? Yes, in dashboards that support budget views. Specific dashboard support depends on your instance.

Plan Budget — Overview and when to use it