Currently the budget features do not apply to invoices, which makes the budgeting feature largely ineffective. We have clients that ask us to propose fixed budgets. While TimeSolv allows you to create budgets, those budgets are not applied or even reflected on the invoices that are generated from the system. In other words, even if you create a "budget" using the current features, the budget is not applied to the invoices and so the client still gets an invoice with an amount that exceeds the budget.
It would be immensely helpful for our accountants (and for the attorneys) if the budgets would be reflected and applied to invoices. When we create new matters in the system, we want to be able to set the budget and have that cascade through invoicing as well, so it's never an issue that needs to be addressed again.
For example, if I set a budget of $5,000 for an attorney for a matter, the invoice should reflect all of the attorneys' times and his normal hourly rate. However, the invoice should also indicate that there is a budget, how much of the budget remains. It should also prevent the amount due from exceeding the budget, since that's the entire purpose of having a budget in the first place. I think it's important for clients to see what they would normally have paid for the work and what they paid because we agreed to budget. Clients appreciate that they are getting a good deal, and that is one way to make it clear that they are getting a good deal.
Likewise, if I set an invoice budget of $5,000, it should show all of the hours/money billed by each attorney, but the total line should also cap out at $5,000 and indicate it is a budgeted cap.
These would be very helpful features. As it stands currently, we just have to remember which cases have budgets. The budget feature doesn't even indicate in the invoice drafts that a budget exists in the system.
