Use of Contingency by budget4cast users

Image of a call center with a man sitting in front of a computer viewing budget4cast software
Image of a call center with a man sitting in front of a computer viewing budget4cast software

An analysis of the budget4cast project database, shows two key facts about the use of Project Contingency Budgets by our user base:

  • A fairly high proportion of all project budgets managed in budget4cast do in fact have a Contingency Budget:  65.4% of all projects managed in the app have at least some portion of the budget currently reserved for Contingency.
  • budget4cast‘s users generally utilize a lower percentage of total project towards contingencies, than the industry average.  (See chart below.)

The histogram to the right show the distribution of the Contingency Percentage (Contingency Budget / Total Project Budget) for projects managed within our project budget management app.  Note that over 80% of all projects managed in budget4cast have a Contingency Percentage 10% or less.  The median Contingency Percentage utilized, across all projects managed in budget4cast is 4.4%.

Graph of contingency percentage distribution
Graph of industry contingency percentage
Another interesting finding, on construction projects managed within the budget4cast app, is in comparison with the overall construction industry. budget4cast users are more likely to use a lower contingency percentage on their construction projects, than the industry overall. budget4cast project managers are equally as likely as their counterparts in the construction industry to use a Contingency Percentage of 20% or more (roughly 18% of all projects.)