Finalize a budget as an immutable baseline and prepare its line items for actual-spend matching
Approving a budget turns it into the fixed baseline MSPortal uses to compare planned costs with customer invoice spend. Approval also gives every line item a unique reference, so projects, purchases, licenses, labor and other costs can be traced back to the approved plan. This guide is for MSP staff whose role has the manage_budgets permission. Other readers can review the plan and ask their MSP to approve it.
Approval is permanent. You cannot edit an approved budget or return it to Draft. Review the budget carefully before you confirm.
Click … then Edit on the budget’s row. Check the company, fiscal year, currency, period type, lines and totals. Rejected lines stay visible after approval. They are left out of the approved amount and cannot receive actual spend. Draft and Pending lines count toward the baseline.
2
Review matching links
For a project cost, open the Planner item and check that it links to the right PSA project under Relationships (Link to Project). For a recurring license or service cost, check the product link. MSPortal records the matching links it finds at the moment of approval.
3
Set the status to Approved
Click Budget Details to expand it if it is collapsed. Change Status to Approved. The Lock Budget After Approval? warning opens.
4
Confirm the lock
Read the warning and click Approve Budget. Click Cancel to back out.
The warning opens before you save. After you confirm it, you still need to click Save.
5
Save the approval
Click Save. The budget locks only when the save succeeds. If Your changes were saved, but the budget could not be approved. Reload the page and try again. appears, reload and approve again.
6
Open Actuals
Open the budget with View and click the Actuals tab. The approved period and the line references are ready.
Quantities, prices, recurrence and annualized costs
Read-only
Categories and line statuses
Read-only
Linked projects and products used for matching
Captured in the baseline
Line order and which lines exist
Read-only
Delete budget
Not allowed. Archive it instead.
Duplicate, print and export
Allowed
Actuals review and exception resolution
Allowed with the right permissions
The Actuals period is fixed at approval. It runs from January 1 to December 31 of the fiscal year. Choosing Quarterly or Monthly as the period type does not shorten it.
Budgets approved before actuals tracking existed keep their locked plan but have no references or matching links. Use manual allocations for them, or duplicate the budget and approve the copy to get references for future billing.
Each approved line gets a short reference such as BR-26-1A2B3C4D5E. MSPortal looks for it in synced invoice, purchase order, project, contract and related details. It is an internal reference. It is not purchase-order approval or three-way matching. Only details your PSA integration imports can be searched. There is no custom-field mapping screen for references, so check that your chosen field reaches the synced invoice.
1
Copy the reference
Open Budget Details > Actuals. In Line outcomes, click the value in the Reference column to copy it.
2
Add it to the PSA
Paste it into the PSA field your team uses for that cost, such as a project PO, customer PO, invoice reference or a custom field that flows to the invoice.
3
Keep it with the billed work
Make the reference part of your project, purchasing or billing routine so it ends up on the synced invoice.
4
Check the result
After the invoice sync finishes, open Actuals and confirm the event matched the right line.
Use one budget reference per invoice event. If one event holds more than one reference, MSPortal cannot pick an exact match.
MSPortal records the identifiers on each line when you approve. It then matches actual spend in this order.
Exact budget reference
Linked project
Linked product
Product identity, such as SKU or product name
An exact reference wins over the other methods. If the best method points to more than one line, the event goes to Unmatched exceptions. A reference that does not name an eligible line in this budget also goes there. It does not fall back to a project or product match.
Archiving retires an approved budget and keeps its baseline and history. Only the planned baseline is frozen. Actuals still change when invoices sync or when authorized users change reconciliation decisions, even on an archived budget.
1
Open the approved budget
Click … then Edit. The budget is read-only and a banner reads Read-only - budget approved.
2
Click Archive
Click Archive in the banner. You need the manage_budgets permission.
3
Confirm
The dialog asks Archive Budget Title? and says the budget becomes read-only and shows as Archived. Click Archive. The status changes to Archived and the Actuals history stays.
Project cost. Open the Planner item, link the correct PSA project under Relationships, and add the item to the budget before approval. After approval, copy the reference into a PSA field your integration imports.
License or service cost. Add it from the product catalog when you can. Check the product link, SKU, name, quantity, price and recurrence before approval. MSPortal uses the product link or identity when the invoice line has no reference.
