Using Budget Templates

The development budget in Valuation is organized into two primary groups: Hard Costs (site work, vertical construction, finishes, MEP, etc.) and Soft Costs (architecture, engineering, legal, permitting, financing costs, etc.). Each group contains collapsible sub-groups that you can expand or collapse to focus on the line items most relevant to your current task. To quickly populate the budget with industry-standard line items, click the Load Template button at the top of the budget section. The template will insert common line items with placeholder amounts that you can then customize to match your project.

Every line item in the budget supports 6 basis options for entering cost values: Total (lump sum), /Unit (cost per unit), /SF (cost per square foot), % Hard (percentage of total hard costs), % Soft (percentage of total soft costs), and % Total (percentage of total project cost). This flexibility lets you model costs in whatever unit your contractors, architects, or lenders provide. For example, a Development Fee at 3% of Hard Costs is entered as a regular line item with its basis set to % Hard and its value set to 3 — the dollar amount calculates automatically as hard cost totals change.

Each line item also includes an optional Contingency percentage field. When set, the contingency amount is calculated on top of the base cost and displayed in a separate column so you can clearly see your budgeted cushion. The Budget Summary at the bottom of the section aggregates all hard costs, soft costs, contingencies, and fees into a total development budget, showing both the aggregate dollar amount and per-unit and per-SF breakdowns. This summary feeds directly into the Sources & Uses section and the proforma cash flow.