---
name: mohitagw15856/team-budget-tracker
source: https://app.decimal.ai/s/mohitagw15856-team-budget-tracker@1/SKILL.md
source_sha256: 94ba4837838f
---

# Team Budget Tracker Skill

Team budgets surprise their owners for one structural reason: the official number tracks *invoices* (what finance has processed), while the truth includes *commitments* (the signed contract not yet billed, the accepted quote, the hire with an offer out) — so a team can be "under budget" while being catastrophically over-committed. The tracker runs three lanes — **spent** (invoiced), **committed** (contractually owed), **planned** (intended but not yet signed) — against the budget line, at the [budget-tracker-design](../budget-tracker-design/SKILL.md) statement-grain, with the monthly close and its one-sentence read. The remaining-to-spend number the team actually needs is budget − spent − committed, and most surprise stories are the word "committed" going untracked.

## What This Skill Produces

- **The three-lane tracker** — spent / committed / planned per category, with true-remaining computed
- **The commitment intake** — the rule that signatures, POs, and offers enter the tracker at commitment-time ([contract-renewal-tracker](../contract-renewal-tracker/SKILL.md) intake logic, budget edition)
- **The monthly close** — reconcile with finance's actuals, roll the lanes, write the one sentence
- **The forecast method** — the year-end projection: run-rate + committed + planned, with the honesty bands

## Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:
- **The budget and its shape** — the number, its categories (matched to how finance reports back — reconciliation dies across mismatched taxonomies), and what's in/out (headcount usually tracked separately — confirm)
- **The current commitments, hunted** — the signed-not-billed contracts, the annual licenses ([the renewal inventory](../contract-renewal-tracker/SKILL.md) supplies these), the accepted quotes, the outstanding offers; the first tracker build is mostly this archaeology
- **The spend flow** — who can commit money (everyone who can sign is a tracker input source), and where invoices land
- **Finance's rhythm** — when actuals arrive, in what format; the close reconciles against them monthly

## Framework: The Tracker Rules

1. **Three lanes, one truth:** spent (finance's actuals) + committed (signed/ordered/offered, dated by when it bills) + planned (the intended spend, explicitly soft) — and **true remaining = budget − spent − committed** (planned shown but not subtracted — it's intention, not obligation). The lane discipline is the entire fix; every budget surprise autopsy finds a commitment that lived in someone's inbox instead of the tracker.
2. **Commitments enter at signature, not invoice:** the intake rule — any signature/PO/offer creates its tracker row *that day*, with its billing schedule (the annual license bills once; the contractor bills monthly) — because the gap between commit-day and invoice-day is exactly where the surprise gestates.
3. **The monthly close is reconcile-roll-read:** finance's actuals vs. the spent lane (mismatches chased — often a mis-categorized invoice, occasionally a real leak) → committed items that billed move lanes → the one sentence ("on track; true remaining $84k; the Q4 contractor renewal is the next big commit") ([budget-tracker-design](../budget-tracker-design/SKILL.md) ritual discipline, team edition).
4. **Signals fire on the *combined* trajectory:** the variance thresholds watch spent+committed against the year's elapsed fraction — a team 40% through the year with 70% committed is in trouble *today*, whatever the invoiced number says; that's the signal the invoice-only view structurally cannot fire.
5. **The forecast is arithmetic plus honesty bands:** year-end = spent + committed + (planned × its confidence) + (run-rate for the unplanned residual) — with the band stated ("$310–335k against $320k — the range is the planned-lane uncertainty") and the [proposal-skeleton](../proposal-skeleton/SKILL.md)-grade honesty when the answer is "over": early bad news buys options ([saying-no-kindly](../saying-no-kindly/SKILL.md) tradeoff boards for the spend that must move); November bad news buys apologies.

## Output Format

# Team Budget: [team] — [$X] for [period] · true remaining: [$Y]

## The Three Lanes
| Category | Budget | Spent | Committed | Planned | True remaining |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|

## Commitment Intake
[The at-signature rule · the sources (who can commit) · the billing-schedule field]

## The Monthly Close ([date])
[Reconcile vs. finance → roll billed commitments → the one sentence, written]

## The Forecast
[Year-end arithmetic with the confidence band · the trajectory signal status · the early-warning conversation if warranted]

## Quality Checks

- [ ] True remaining subtracts commitments, not just spend
- [ ] Every signature/PO/offer has a same-day tracker row with its billing schedule
- [ ] The close reconciles against finance's actuals monthly, mismatches chased
- [ ] Signals watch spent+committed trajectory, not invoiced-only
- [ ] The forecast carries its band and bad news ships early

## Anti-Patterns

- [ ] Do not track invoices and call it a budget — commitments are where surprises live
- [ ] Do not let signers bypass intake — everyone who can commit money is a tracker source or a leak
- [ ] Do not skip the finance reconcile — two diverging truths get discovered in the worst meeting
- [ ] Do not subtract planned spend from remaining — intentions aren't obligations; the lanes exist to keep them distinct
- [ ] Do not sit on an over forecast — November's honesty is just an apology with a spreadsheet