Budgets Overview
Announcing the Release of the Budgets Module
Fall 2025
We are pleased to announce the launch of our budgets module. This module will help many design firms work more efficiently and enhance their communications with clients. However, not all design firms will want to use this module. For this reason, we encourage you to read this section about the module, and then decide whether your firm would like us to enable it.
We have to turn the budgets module on for you!
The budget module is free for any DesignSmart client, but we have to turn it on for you. Simply email Support@DesignSmart.Tech and let us know that you'd like to have it turned on.
What is the Budgets Module?
This module enables you to create a generic budget, or multiple budgets, for a project without specifying the actual items themselves.
A typical scenario would be when a client asks you to develop a budget for their project. At this stage, the client isn't interested in dimensions, colors, or finishes, but rather in how much your firm estimates the project would cost.
So your designers will create a project in DesignSmart, and enter an item for all of the things this project would require. And the list you enter will be very generic, as shown below.
Approving Budgets
Once you have entered all the items for the budget, you'll create a formal budget document to send to the client for approval. The budget will resemble a proposal, but will not contain as much detailed information.
Once the client approves the budget(s), you will mark the budget in DesignSmart as approved. Once you do this, you cannot exclude or delete any of the items included in the budget.
Next, your design team will start the actual specification process and replace the generic item names with the specific item names. For example, “Chair”, might become “Brown Leather Wingback Chair”. The budget amount of $500 will be replaced with the actual cost and markup for the actual price that will appear on the proposal.
Your designers will enter all of the item attributes, pricing and other relevant information in order to create proposals, invoices and purchase orders.
Why Use Budgets?
The primary benefit of using budgets is that you can establish a budget as the first step of a project. Once a budget is marked as approved, the budget amounts are locked and cannot be modified. This means you can go back and compare your budget estimates with the actual pricing so you can easily compare if the actual costs align with the budgeted amounts.
Power User Tip!
If you create a lot of budgets, then consider creating “model” or “template” projects. For example, you could create a project called “High End Budget Template” with 100 of the most common items with high-end pricing. Then you could clone that project and call it “Mid Tier Budget Template”. You'd change the pricing so that the budget estimates represent average pricing. You could repeat the process to create a “Affordable Budget Template” with pricing as low as your firm thinks appropriate.
Then when a client requires a budget, you could clone one, or more, of these “model” projects, adjust for the appropriate areas and quantities. With only moderate effort you could have a budget ready to send to your client!