Budgeting & Expenses
Full project financial management — from bid calculation and currency conversion to mobile receipt capture and accounting integration. Track every dollar across multiple currencies, from the field to the finance report.
One Financial Workflow, Two Platforms
Excavata's budgeting system spans desktop and mobile. Build bids, manage budgets in any currency, capture receipts in the field, track grant expenditure, and export to your organisation's finance system — with no data lost in between.
Bid Calculator
Build detailed project bids with labour, materials, oncosts, and margins. Generate a client-ready fee proposal that hides your internal rates, or export the full internal breakdown for your own records. See how the bid flows into the full project lifecycle →
Build Your Bid
Line-by-line cost assembly with automatic totalling
Labour
- ●Add staff roles with daily or hourly charge-out rates
- ●Specify days or hours per role
- ●Apply oncosts (superannuation, insurance, overheads) as a percentage
Materials & Other Costs
- ●Line items for equipment, travel, consumables, lab fees, subcontractors
- ●Quantity and unit rate per item
- ●Categorise for reporting
Margins & Markup
- ●Apply margin percentage to labour, materials, or both
- ●See subtotals, margin amount, and grand total at a glance
Export Options
Two distinct outputs for different audiences
Client Fee Proposal (PDF)
- ●Professional PDF formatted for the client
- ●Shows role descriptions and total fees per line
- ●Hides internal rates, oncosts, and margin calculations
- ●Clean presentation suitable for tender submissions
Internal Breakdown
- ●Full detail — rates, oncosts, margins, markup
- ●Available as CSV or PDF
- ●Use for internal review and project setup
Rates Library
- ●Save and reuse rate cards for common labour categories
- ●Consistent pricing across multiple bids
Budgeting — Desktop
The Budgeting tab lives inside each Project on the desktop app. It is password-protected so only authorised team members can access financial data.
Choose the project type that matches your funding structure:
Contract Projects
Commercial archaeology, consulting, and developer-funded work
Project Costs
- ●Track labour, equipment, consumables, travel, subcontractors, and lab fees
- ●Categorise every expense with provider and approval tracking
- ●Filter by category to see spend breakdown
Billing & Payments
- ●Create and track invoices with due dates
- ●Record variation orders
- ●Monitor payment status and outstanding balance
Dashboard
- ●Contract value vs total spend
- ●Profit / loss at a glance
- ●Labour costs vs material costs
- ●Outstanding invoice summary
Academic / Grant Projects
University research grants and other funded research
Grant Details & Milestones
- ●Record grant name, funding body, and reference number
- ●Set grant period with start and end dates
- ●Track reporting milestones and deadlines
Budget Categories
- ●Define budget lines with allocated amounts
- ●Track allocated vs actual spend per category
- ●Default categories for common grant structures
Expenditure & Dashboard
- ●Full expenditure tracking with eligibility flags
- ●Audit trail with approval records
- ●Days remaining and spend forecast
- ●Category breakdown with percentage used
Personnel & Payroll
Shared across both project types — manage your team's rates and track labour costs against the budget.
- ●Staff directory with daily and hourly rates
- ●Log labour hours by staff member, site, and date
- ●Automatic cost calculation from rates
- ●Oncost tracking (superannuation, insurance, overheads)
- ●Export staff and labour records separately
Mobile Expenses
The Expenses tab lives inside each Project on the mobile app. Designed for fast data entry in the field — log an expense and snap a receipt in under 30 seconds.
Quick Expense Entry
Date, description, amount, category, and tax toggle — all on one screen. Tap save and move on.
Receipt Capture
Take a photo, choose from your camera roll, or attach a PDF — even before the first save. Multiple receipts per expense, with thumbnails and sync status badges.
Works Offline
All data is stored locally. No internet needed in the field — expenses sync automatically when you connect to your team's network.
Automatic Sync
Expenses and receipt files sync to the desktop Budgeting module over your local network. No cloud account required.
Currency & Exchange Rates
Set your home currency to any currency worldwide and get live exchange rates for international fieldwork. Excavata compares four conversion tiers so you always know the real cost of spending abroad.
Home Currency System
Universal — works with any base currency, not just AUD or USD
Live Exchange Rates
- ●Rates refresh automatically with a 4-hour cache
- ●Rate variance alerts when rates shift more than 3%
- ●Works with 150+ currencies
Four Conversion Tiers
- ●Mid-market rate — the interbank benchmark
- ●Card rate — typical credit/debit card margin (default 2.5%)
- ●ATM rate — cash withdrawal margin (default 3.5%)
- ●Money changer rate — airport/bureau margin (default 5.0%)
Customisable Margins
- ●Adjust each tier's margin to match your bank or card provider
- ●Compare all four tiers side by side to find the cheapest option
ATM Fee Database
Pre-loaded withdrawal fees for 51 countries
Per-Country Defaults
- ●Local ATM operator fee per withdrawal for each country
- ●Override with your own fee if your bank charges differently
- ●Fees factored into the ATM tier comparison automatically
Inline Rate Display
- ●See the current exchange rate directly on expense entry screens
- ●Tap to expand the full four-tier comparison
- ●Rate and tier data available wherever you enter amounts
Rate History
- ●Cached rates preserved for offline use
- ●See when rates were last refreshed
Grant Foreign Spend Tracking
For academic projects with international fieldwork — track foreign currency expenditure against your grant budget in real time.
- ●Record expenses in the local currency of the country you are working in
- ●Automatic conversion to your grant's home currency at the day's rate
- ●Running total of foreign spend vs budget allocation
- ●See remaining grant budget in both home and foreign currencies
- ●Supports multiple foreign currencies within a single grant
Field Trip Planner
Plan the currency budget for an upcoming field trip. Enter your destination, duration, and estimated daily spend — the planner calculates costs across all four exchange rate tiers so you can choose the cheapest way to pay.
- ●Select destination country and currency
- ●Set trip duration and estimated daily spend in foreign currency
- ●Four-tier cost comparison table (mid-market, card, ATM, money changer)
- ●ATM fee breakdown showing per-withdrawal cost and optimal withdrawal amount
- ●Lowest-cost tier highlighted automatically
- ●Results displayed in your home currency for easy budgeting
Receipt Management
Attach, view, and organise receipt files for every expense — on both mobile and desktop.
- ●Multiple receipts per expense (photos and PDFs)
- ●Capture receipts during initial expense creation — before the first save
- ●Choose from camera, photo gallery, or PDF file picker
- ●Drag-and-drop upload on desktop
- ●Thumbnail grid with sync status badges
- ●Full-screen image viewer with pinch-to-zoom
- ●Missing receipt warnings on expense lists
Tax Tracking
Toggle tax per expense and the system calculates the tax component automatically. Configurable for any tax rate — GST, VAT, sales tax, or any other regime.
- ●Tax toggle on every expense entry
- ●Automatic tax component calculation
- ●Tax amounts included in all exports
- ●TechnologyOne export splits ex-tax and inc-tax amounts
Export & Accounting Integration
Export budget data in standard formats or directly into your organisation's finance system. Excavata remembers your last-used export format for each data type, so repeat exports are a single click.
Standard Formats
- ●CSV (universal)
- ●Excel (.xlsx)
- ●PDF report
- ●Receipt Bundle (ZIP) — expenses CSV + receipt files
Accounting Software
- ●Xero CSV
- ●MYOB CSV
- ●QuickBooks CSV
University Finance
- ●SAP Concur CSV
- ●Oracle PeopleSoft CSV
- ●TechnologyOne CSV
- ●Workday CSV
Exportable Data
- ●Expenses
- ●Invoices
- ●Labour records
- ●Staff directory
- ●Budget summary
- ●Bid (client or internal)
How They Work Together
A single workflow from field to finance report.
Bid
Build a detailed bid with labour, materials, and margins. Send a client fee proposal or keep the full breakdown internal.
Capture
Log expenses and snap receipts on your phone or tablet in the field — in any currency.
Sync
Connect to your team's local network. Data and receipt files transfer automatically.
Export
Generate reports for your organisation — CSV, PDF, Excel, or direct to your finance system.
There is no distinction between mobile and desktop data. Every expense, receipt, and labour record appears in the same export regardless of where it was entered.
Password Protected
Budget data is sensitive. The Budgeting tab requires authentication before access — separate from the main app login.
- ●Password protection with lockout after 5 failed attempts
- ●5-minute cooldown before retry after lockout
- ●Admin PIN for password recovery
- ●Email-based recovery as a backup option
- ●Budget data is not visible to non-authorised team members
- ●Financial data syncs only between authenticated devices
From bid to balance sheet
Excavata brings your project finances into the same tool you use for recording, analysis, and reporting — with full multi-currency support for international fieldwork.
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