Published: 1 June 2026
Audience
This article is intended for:
- Administrators configuring roles, cost rates, and financial settings required for accurate project profitability calculations
- Controllers monitoring project margins, validating financial performance, and ensuring profitability targets are met
- Project Managers tracking project performance, comparing estimated vs actual profitability, and taking action to stay within budget
Objective
This article explains how to view estimated and actual profitability for a project in PSOhub, including how to interpret the profitability fields and what drives the figures you see.
Prerequisites
You must have Admin, Controller or Project Manager access in PSOhub.
The project must already exist and be in Active stage
Roles and rates must be configured on your PSOhub account, including Cost Rate for each project member.
⚠️ Important: Without a Cost Rate assigned to each project member, PSOhub cannot calculate actual profitability. Go to the Team tab on your project to verify that each member has a Cost Rate entered.
💡 Tip: Project profitability data is also available in the PSOhub OData feed for custom reporting in Power BI or other reporting tools.
View the Estimated Profitability for a Project
📌 Note: Estimated profitability shows you the planned profit and margin based on your budgeted selling and cost rates, before any time or expenses are logged.
Steps
- Open the project you want to review.
- Click the Financials tab.
- Click Estimated Profitability.
- The view switches from the standard Contract view to the profitability breakdown. You will see Selling, Budget (Costs), Profit, and Margin % columns for each contract line and group.
Understanding the Estimated Profitability Fields
The following fields are displayed in the Estimated Profitability view:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Selling | Your budget based on the selling rate. For Fixed Fee, Retainer, and Expense Fixed Fee lines, this reflects your internal budget based on the selling rate. For T&M and Expense lines, this is the budget or estimate agreed with your client. |
| Budget (Costs) | Your internal budget based on the cost rate. Applies to both Fixed Fee and T&M lines. Can be entered manually or populated automatically via the Budget sheet. |
| Profit | Selling minus Budget (Costs). |
| Margin % | The calculated profit margin based on the Selling and Budget (Costs) values. |
📌 Note: If Budget (Costs) is populated via the Budget tab, hours are multiplied by the selling and cost rate of each role. The totals are posted automatically into Selling and Budget (Costs).
Modify Estimated Profitability Values Manually
Steps
- In the Estimated Profitability view, click the contract line you want to update.
- Enter the Selling and Budget (Costs) values.
- Click Save. Profit and Margin % update automatically once the values are saved.
View the Actual Profitability for a Project
📌 Note: Actual profitability becomes available once your team starts logging time and expenses on the project. It shows you the real financial performance based on what has actually been delivered.
Steps
- Open the project you want to review.
- Click the Financials tab.
- Click Actual Profitability. The view updates to show Amount, Used (Costs), Profit, and Margin % columns for each contract line and group.
Understanding the Actual Profitability Fields
The following fields are displayed in the Actual Profitability view:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Amount | The contracted or agreed value of the line (based on selling rate). |
| Used (Costs) | The total value of logged hours based on the cost rate. Calculated as: Cost rate per resource × hours logged. |
| Profit | Amount minus Used (Costs). |
| Margin % | The calculated profit margin based on Amount and Used (Costs). |
📌 Note: The Contract Totals row at the top of the view shows the overall Profit and Margin % across all contract groups.
Result
With estimated and actual profitability side by side, you can now see exactly where your project stands — and where it may be heading.
The Estimated Profitability view shows your planned margins based on budgeted rates, and the Actual Profitability view reflects the financial performance based on what has been delivered.
Use these views together to spot early warning signs before they affect your bottom line. If Used (Costs) is rising faster than expected, your team may be over-servicing, or the scope has grown beyond the original agreement. If Margin % in the Actual view is tracking below your Estimated Margin %, your project is experiencing margin erosion and may need corrective action.
Next Steps
✅ Track completion and recognize revenue
Use Completion Management to update progress on your contract lines and feed into revenue recognition reporting.
Completion Management and Revenue Recognition
✅ Invoice your project
Once delivery is confirmed and margins look good, create an invoice based on your contract lines and tracked activity.
Invoice your projects from the Invoices module
✅ Build a custom profitability report
Use the PSOhub OData feed to track profitability across all active projects in Power BI or Excel. OData (custom reporting)