How to Use Project Funding

Project funding is the approved financial allocation that enables projects to progress from initiation to completion. It represents the total financial commitment to a project, ensuring that resources, materials, and other expenses are covered. Funding can be assigned at the overall project level or broken down by fiscal year to provide a more structured approach to financial management. 

For PMOs and project managers, having clear visibility into project funding is essential for budget control, financial planning, and governance. It ensures that projects are adequately resourced, financial commitments are monitored, and spending aligns with organisational objectives. Without proper funding oversight, projects risk budget overruns, funding shortfalls, or misallocated resources, leading to financial inefficiencies and potential project failure. 

To maintain accuracy and prevent errors, project funding in Fluid is managed through controlled uploads by users with Financial Administrator permissions. This ensures that funding updates are deliberate, traceable, and aligned with financial governance policies. 

In this article, we will walk through how to set up, maintain, and report on project funding, covering where to view funding in a project and how to update financial allocations.

Where to see Funding in the Project

Funding does not appear on a project unless populated by the Financial Adminstrator. Once the Project is created, the Financial Administrator will need to update the funding details, following the steps shown below.

This screen shot of the project details shows you a project that has not yet had funding applied.

On the same project shown below,  you can now see the overall project funding (1) is set to 150,000 USD . 

Funding can be set at Project level, or it can also be broken further to show annual Funding approved.

Where fiscal year funding is also used, as in the project below, the funding is shown in more detail. As well as the total project level funding (1), here you can see the funding to date (2) (this will show the current and any prior year funding) and also the funding by year (3).

How to Populate Funding Data 

The Financial Administration function has the permissions to input and update Funding information.

Using the Financial Administration Access, scroll down to Financials Upload and Reporting section.

From here download the Project Funding file as marked in red above.

This download will give all funding information on all projects in the instance.

Our top tip is to delete any projects you do not wish to change, to avoid any errors when uploading.

Once changes have been made or added to the excel file, save this, and upload back to the system (see below).

Preparing Data for Upload - Excel

Now let's look at the excel file and ways this can be edited to upload data to your projects.

When you first download this file, there will be no valid data - just the headings, shown below.

Field Description

Once some data has been populated, each download will give all project funding information, for the following categories.

Uploads will only apply to the projects listed in the upload, so any other existing data will stay as is - for that reason, we recommend deleting all data from the download, and just uploading the projects you want to add or revise. This step is not essential, but may avoid accidental changes to other data.

We recommend you always use populate column A or B, as these are unique idenitifiers, and will avoid changes being made to the wrong project. Whilst Column C can be used, it is not a unique identifier.

To apply or update Project level funding, you may do this by omiting the Fiscal Year. Any change made here will update the overall Project Funding Value. If you wish to make Fiscal year additions or changes, the relevant fiscal year must be quoted in column D.

Removing Project Funding

If you wish to remove funding from a project, do not simply delete the line in excel, as this will not affect a change. Instead leave the line details as populate, but change the value cells to zero. when you upload the file, this will update the value to zero.

Capex/Opex

Unless Capex is specified, all funding will assumed to be Opex.

If you go to Project Dashboards, and switch to Financials, and select Financial Dashboard, and scroll down, you will see the project funding breakdown by Capex and Opex - see below.

This dashboard enables you to control and report capex & opex spend accross your programs and portfolios.

Note - Please check with Admin if you cannot see these columns - visibility is available via a configuration setting.