Plan Budget vs Finance Budget — Which one am I looking at?

Short Description Hive9 has two distinct budget surfaces: Plan Budget (embedded in the Plan hierarchy) and Finance Budget (a separate object with its own grid). This article tells you how to distinguish them.

What this article answers

• The visual and functional differences.
• Which surface controls which behavior.
• How they relate when both are enabled.

At a glance

How to tell which you're looking at

You're in Plan Budget if…

• You're on a Plan, Campaign, or Program Inspection Window.
• You see a "Plan Budget" or similarly-labeled section/field.
• The value sits alongside attributes like Owner, Team, Start Date.

[SCREENSHOT NEEDED — Plan Inspection Window with Plan Budget field highlighted]

You're in Finance Budget if…

• You navigated via Menu → Finance Budget.
• The grid shows columns like Budget, Forecast, Planned, Actual, Line Items, Unallocated.
• You see a budget hierarchy that doesn't map directly to the Plan hierarchy.

[SCREENSHOT NEEDED — Finance Budget grid with column headers]

When both are enabled

Many instances use both:

• Plan Budget lives on Plans/Campaigns/Programs for marketing-team planning.
• Finance Budget is a separate structure used by finance for tracking, transactions, and reconciliation.
• Line Items on Tactics can link to Finance Budget lines — that's the bridge between the activity hierarchy and the finance hierarchy.

The two budgets are not the same. A Plan with $1M Plan Budget might draw from multiple Finance Budgets totaling much more (or less, if the plan only consumes part of each).

When they disagree

If your Plan Budget and the Finance Budget your Plan's Line Items link to show different totals, that's expected — they measure different things. Common reasons for the gap:

• Plan Budget is set top-down, often before Line Items exist.
• Finance Budget shows allocated + actual — drawn from Line Items as they're created and approved.
• Plan-side and finance-side budgets cover different scopes — a single Plan may consume from multiple Finance Budgets; a single Finance Budget may support multiple Plans.

If the gap is wider than expected, audit:

1. Which Line Items are linked to which Finance Budget Lines.
2. Whether Tactics in approval status are or aren't being counted in the Finance Budget Planned column (depends on your instance's rules).
3. Whether there are unlinked Line Items that should be linked to a Finance Budget.

Common questions

My instance only shows one of these. Which is it? Check whether you see a Plan Budget field on Plan / Campaign / Program Inspection Windows. If yes, Plan Budget is enabled. Open Menu → Finance Budget to see if Finance Budget is enabled separately.

Can I disable one and use only the other? Yes — both are independent. Some instances use only Plan Budget; some use only Finance Budget; many use both.

Why doesn't my Plan's Plan Budget show on the Finance Budget grid? Because they're different objects. Plan Budget is a value on a Plan record. Finance Budget is a separate hierarchy. The bridge between them is at the Line Item level, when a Line Item links to a Finance Budget Line.

Related articles

• Plan Budget — Overview and when to use it
• Finance Budget — Structure and Columns
• How do Line Items work?
• Finance Budget — hard limits and automatic distribution