# Live Margins Live Margins is the real-time financial panel in the project sidebar. It adapts to wherever you are in the project — a financial overview of the estimate when you're building or reviewing it, live budget expense tracking when you're in the budget. Open it with the sidebar button at the top right of the project, then choose **Live Margins** from the selector at the top of the sidebar. There's no single right answer to what belongs in this panel — a producer pricing a job and a controller reviewing margin want different numbers in front of them. So the panel is configurable. You choose which figures appear, how the rows group, and you save that arrangement for next time. For the same panel at full page width alongside the estimate and budget breakdowns, use the [Project Finance](./Project-Finance.md) page. --- ## Configuring the Panel Live Margins behaves like a PAI grid. Its arrangements live in **saved views**, shown as a strip at the top of the panel with **Add View** at the end. In an estimate the sidebar ships with **Totals** and **Margin**; in a budget, with **Totals** and **Variance**. The Live Margins tab on the Project Finance page ships with **Resources**, **Categories**, **Departments**, and **Items**. Hover a view to see what it's set to (for example, "Grouped by Department"). A **Display Options** control sits at the top right: - **Included Overages** — when the project has approved overages, choose which to include in the figures (see [Overages and Change Orders](../03-Winning-the-Job/Overages-and-Change-Orders.md)) - **Views** — manage the panel's saved views - **Columns** — choose which figures appear - **Group** — set how rows group, and in what order - **Show Margin Percent** — toggle the margin percentage alongside margin dollars **Expand All** and **Collapse All** (at the top of the panel and in the **Group** menu) handle the grouped rows. The shipped **Totals** view groups by **Department**, so its figures are blended. Configure the panel the way you want it, then save it to the view — it persists exactly like a saved grid view. See [Working with Tables](../00-Understanding-PAI/Navigating-PAI.md#working-with-tables) for the shared mechanics. > [!tip] > Build a view per job you do rather than one view that shows everything. A pricing view with external, internal, and margin; a spend view with working total and variance. Switching between two focused views beats scanning one crowded panel. --- ## Grouping Is the Structure The panel has no fixed sections. There's no permanent in-house box, no standing out-of-pocket rollup — what you see is whatever your grouping produces, and the roll-up rows follow from it. **Resource Type** — the In-House / Out-of-Pocket cost track — is one of the groupings available, alongside **Department**, **Department Group**, **Category**, and **Item**. Put Resource Type at the top level and the panel splits into an in-house block and an out-of-pocket block, each rolling up to its own figure; that's how you read one track on its own. Leave it out and the panel is free-form: grouped by whatever else you chose, rolling up to blended totals. Nest them to any depth, in any order: - **Categories → Resource Type** — what each cost type costs, split by track - **Resource Type → Departments** — each track broken out by department - **Items → Resource Type** — line-item detail with the track underneath - **Departments → Categories → Items → Resource Type** — the whole hierarchy, if that's the question There are no disallowed combinations. Build the grouping that answers what you're actually asking, then save it to a view. > [!important] > Because the structure follows the grouping, so does what any total means. A grand total is blended unless your grouping has separated the tracks. If you need a figure for one track on its own, group by Resource Type — otherwise in-house and out-of-pocket are being added together. --- ## What the Figures Show Every row reads in the same columns, whether it's a group, a subgroup, or a roll-up. Choose the columns under **Display Options → Columns**; which ones apply depends on where you are in the project. ### In an estimate **Estimate External**, **Estimate Internal**, and **Estimate Margin** ($, plus % when **Show Margin Percent** is on): what you're billing, what it truly costs, and what you stand to make. Below the grouped rows, the panel rolls up through **Subtotal** (the grouped rows added together, fringes included; fringes are broken out only on printed estimates), the **Markups** total (expand it to see each markup), and **Grand Total**, inclusive of all modifiers and scoped to whatever the grouping has separated out. When the project has a discount, a **Discounted Subtotal** row (Subtotal minus the discount) sits between Subtotal and Markups; without one, the row doesn't appear. > [!note] > The floating totals box over the estimate grid is the quick read on the same underlying numbers: External, Internal, Margin $, and Margin %. Live Margins is where you go for the breakdown behind them. Without View In-House Internal Cost, the box gives the same **Out Of Pocket** read as the panel's **Out Of Pocket Total** row. See [Building an Estimate](../02-Bidding-a-Project/Building-an-Estimate.md#the-floating-totals-box). ### In a budget The figures shift from projection to live cost tracking. Rows read as **Estimate Internal** (the approved baseline from the estimate), **Working Total** (live spend so far), and **Working Variance** (Estimate Internal minus Working Total: how much budget remains). The estimate columns are still available under **Columns** if you want revenue and margin alongside. **Working Total** counts every expense line regardless of where it is in its lifecycle: planned (Draft), committed (Confirmed, Posted, Requested, Rejected), or incurred (Approved, Payment Scheduled, Paid, Refunded). For that split, see [Project Finance](./Project-Finance.md). --- ## Without View In-House Internal Cost Users without the **View In-House Internal Cost** permission see a fixed version of the panel. It's always split by **Resource Type**, so in-house and out-of-pocket figures never mix, and **Group** isn't offered under Display Options. Every in-house internal dollar figure is hidden behind an eye-slash: internal cost and anything derived from it, so margin in an estimate and internal, working total, and variance in a budget. An **Out Of Pocket Total** row at the bottom gives the out-of-pocket figures on their own. Out-of-pocket rows are unaffected and shown in full. In short, these users can see and manage every external and logistical number without seeing what internal labor costs the organization. See [Users and Permissions](../01-Organization-Setup/Users-and-Permissions.md#view-in-house-internal-cost). --- ## Reading the Numbers **Working Variance tells you where the budget stands.** A positive variance means you're under the approved internal budget; negative means you've exceeded it. Regroup by category or department to see exactly where the variance is coming from. **Working Total is your most honest operating figure.** It includes every expense regardless of payment stage — projected costs not yet committed, commitments not yet paid, and money already out the door. Nothing is excluded until a line is removed from the budget entirely. **Blended figures are where in-house labor changes the story.** A project can look healthy on out-of-pocket margin alone and tighten considerably once internal labor is counted. That's the number to act on, because it's the one that reflects what the project actually costs to deliver — so however you group the panel, make sure you're reading a blended total somewhere. For Working Margin and the full cross-view of estimate vs. budget performance, see [Project Finance](./Project-Finance.md).