Actual Cost Ledger
The Actual Cost Ledger is the internal history of value recorded against a Budget Item. It answers a practical question: “What time, travel, expense, or adjustment has actually been recorded against this planned budget line?”
Think of each Budget Item as an envelope with a planned amount written on the front. The Actual Cost Ledger is the list of receipts placed inside that envelope.
What Creates An Actual Cost Entry
The Actual Cost Ledger can contain several source types, and the source tells you where an entry came from.
| Source Type | What normally creates it |
|---|---|
| Timesheet | Allocated desk time or travel time with a calculated fee. |
| Trip Expense | The allocated share of actual transportation or stay costs. |
| Project Expense | A project expense assigned to the Budget Item. |
| Manual | A user-entered adjustment added directly to the Budget Item. |
The ledger keeps the source, person or organization, activity, amount, description, and occurrence date. Source-linked entries open the original Timesheet, Trip, or Project Expense. Manual entries can be edited or deleted when permissions and commercial locks allow it.
How Project Blueprint Allocation Affects The Ledger
Project Blueprint settings decide whether desk time, travel time, and trip expenses may or must be assigned to a Budget Item.
- No cost allocation means the source does not create a Budget Item actual-cost entry.
- Optional cost allocation lets the user record valuable work without a Budget Item or choose one when appropriate.
- Required cost allocation means the user must select a Budget Item before saving the work.
One narrow rule takes priority: if the selected Service Revenue budget uses External invoicing with an Actual Costs basis, COMPASS requires allocation for that source. The customer-facing Invoice Position needs an internal ledger entry to point back to.
No Budget Item does not mean that priced work disappears. A Timesheet fee or Trip cost without a Budget Item creates neither an Actual Cost Ledger entry nor an Invoice Position. COMPASS shows it in Billing -> Open Items -> Billing decisions instead, where you can keep it internal, make it ready for customer invoicing, or assign it to a Budget.
How Timesheets Feed The Ledger
An allocated timesheet uses its hours and applied day rate to calculate a fee. COMPASS records that fee against the selected Budget Item.
Desk time follows the Project Blueprint's Desk Time allocation rule. Travel time follows Travel Time / Service Fees. The Timesheets table and detail drawer show whether the entry is Allocated and which Budget and Budget Item it uses.
A timesheet can have a fee without a Budget Item when allocation is optional. That work creates no Actual Cost Ledger entry and no Invoice Position. It can still be selected as Unallocated Work during manual invoice creation, where COMPASS protects it from being invoiced twice.
How Trips Feed The Ledger
Trips can create two different kinds of internal value.
- Service Fees (Resources) can record travel-time value using meeting days, preparation days, and a day rate. The fee can be assigned to a fee Budget Item.
- Expenses can record the actual transportation and stay cost after the trip. If a trip supports several projects, its cost-share percentages split the amount between those projects and their selected Budget Items.
The expense and service fee may use the same Budget, or separate Budgets and Budget Items when your reporting needs that detail. COMPASS keeps the project shares accurate when the trip allocation changes. Estimated trip costs help with planning and approval. The Actual Cost Ledger uses the final recorded cost when actual-cost tracking is completed.
How The Ledger Connects To Billing
The Actual Cost Ledger is always the internal truth, regardless of whether a customer is invoiced.
| Service Revenue budget setup | What happens to a new ledger entry |
|---|---|
| Internal only | The entry stays in the ledger and never becomes customer receivable work. |
| External invoicing + Actual Costs | The entry stays in the ledger and also creates an open Invoice Position. |
| External invoicing + Budgeted Amounts | The entry stays in the ledger, but Billing uses the approved budget remainder instead of individual positions. |
Marking an Invoice Position Not billable does not delete or reduce the Actual Cost Ledger. The work still happened. Only the commercial decision changes.
View The Actual Cost Ledger
Open a budget in Budget Estimator, select Budget Items, and open the actual-cost details for a line. The modal title reads Actual Cost Ledger - [Budget Item name].
The ledger shows Source Type, Who, What, Amount, Description, and Occurred On. Use Add Manual Adjustment only for a real correction or cost that has no connected source record.
Do not use a manual adjustment to copy a Timesheet or Trip entry that already exists. That records the same value twice and can also create duplicate commercial work.
What Changes After Invoicing
Open, billable work can still follow normal source edits. COMPASS updates or replaces the related open Invoice Position and carries any Not billable decision forward.
Once a position is Reserved on a draft or Invoiced, COMPASS protects the source actual-cost entry from changes that would rewrite the commercial history. Release or correct the invoice first when the workflow allows it.
Do Not Confuse Two Actual Cost Areas
The Budget Item Actual Cost Ledger and Finance -> Financial Plans -> Actual Cost are different records. The Budget Item ledger tracks operational values from budgets, time, travel, project expenses, and manual adjustments. The Finance page tracks P&L actual-cost lines in a financial plan.
Use the Budget Item ledger when you are tracing Billing or budget variance. Use the Finance actual-cost page when you are maintaining the financial plan.