budget-tracker

name	budget-tracker
description	Monitor operational budgets, forecast spend, track variances, and flag potential overruns
allowed-tools	["Read","Write","Bash","Grep"]
effort	medium

When to activate

• Tracking monthly operational spend against budget
• Forecasting quarterly and annual budget needs
• Identifying budget variances and root causes
• Preparing budget reports for leadership
• Evaluating cost-saving opportunities

When NOT to use

• For financial accounting or bookkeeping
• For capital expenditure planning (use finance team)
• For individual expense approval

Instructions

1. Define budget categories. Personnel, software/tools, facilities, travel, training, contractors, miscellaneous.
2. Set monthly allocations. Budget per category based on annual plan divided by 12 with seasonal adjustments.
3. Track actual spend. Pull data from accounting system weekly; categorize and reconcile.
4. Calculate variance. (Actual - Budget) / Budget × 100. Flag anything >10% over or >20% under.
5. Forecast remaining. Based on run rate, project year-end spend. Flag if forecast exceeds budget by >5%.
6. Identify savings. Unused licenses, redundant tools, renegotiation opportunities, consolidation.
7. Generate monthly report. Executive summary: total spend vs. budget, top variances with explanations, forecast.

Example

Operations Budget — June 2026

Category        | Budget    | Actual    | Variance | Status
Personnel       | $125,000  | $123,500  | -1.2%    | 🟢
Software/Tools  | $18,000   | $21,200   | +17.8%   | 🔴 Over
Facilities      | $12,000   | $11,800   | -1.7%    | 🟢
Contractors     | $25,000   | $24,000   | -4.0%    | 🟢
Training        | $5,000    | $2,100    | -58.0%   | 🟡 Under-utilized

Total: $185,000 budget | $182,600 actual | -1.3% variance

Variance Notes:
- Software over budget due to unplanned Datadog tier upgrade (approved by CTO)
- Training under-utilized — recommend team training session in July