Baseline, current, committed, actual — on the lumber line, on the framing phase, on the whole job. What you agreed to, what you’re planning now, what’s already promised, and what has actually left the account.
Full AI on the free plan · no cardMost budgets carry one number and a memory. This one carries four, and only one of them is ever allowed to turn red — the actual, when it passes the current plan, with an arrow so you see it from across the trailer.
| Line | Baseline | Current | Committed | Actual |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plumbing rough-in | 24,000 | 24,000 | 3,600 | 19,480 |
| Electrical rough-in | 31,000 | 33,500 | 4,200 | 22,150 |
| HVAC | 18,500 | 18,500 | — | 19,240 ↑ |
| Low voltage | 6,000 | 6,000 | 1,100 | 2,380 |
| Phase total | 79,500 | 82,000 | 8,900 | 63,250 |
Locked at kickoff and never edited again. It is the number you shook hands on, kept intact so that six months later you can answer “what did we say this would cost?” without opening an email thread.
The plan as of this minute. Electrical moved from $31,000 to $33,500 because the owner added a subpanel in the shop — and that sentence, with the date and the name attached, is stored on the line itself.
Approved and not yet spent. The $3,600 of fixtures sitting on a purchase order is money that is gone whether or not the invoice has arrived. It renders in indigo because BLT is holding it for you, and it is the number most builders find out about on the 30th.
Rolled up from receipts, crew hours, and sub payments. Never typed into a cell. If a dollar moved, there is a photograph or a time entry behind it, one tap away.
Every edit to a current figure writes a row: the amount, the person, the minute, and the reason they gave. The log is the whole defense of the budget at the end of a job.
Each line against its own current, against the same line on your last three builds, and against the estimate the purchase request was written from.
Move a number. BLT states the arithmetic and hands you one action. The change log only ever records a person.
You already have a budget. It lives in a workbook with your phase names, your column order, and four years of habit in it. Upload the file and map the columns once.
A phase is where money, hours, photos, and schedule all meet. Name them the way your crew already says them out loud, and every receipt, time entry, and inspection lands in the same bucket for the rest of the job.
Price the work by phase and category, send it, and let the accepted version set the baseline the ledger is measured against.
The PM raises it from the aisle, you approve it from the truck, and the amount moves into committed before the material is loaded.
Photographed at the counter, read into line items, posted to a phase with the picture kept alongside. See expenses
Close the week, split card charges from wire reimbursements, record the reference, lock the period. See settle & pay
Crew hours land on the phase they were worked on and roll into actual at the burdened rate you set. No second entry.
Move drywall three days in the planner and the cash it carries moves with it. See the planner
One project, every feature, no card. Import last month’s spreadsheet and have the ledger live by lunch.