It's the first week of the month, finance is asking for your cost to complete on every job you run, and you want to enter it in Procore and move on. The good news: there's a built-in place for it. The number you're after lives in the Forecast to Complete column inside Procore's Budget tool. That's just Procore's name for your cost to complete, your estimate of how much more it will take to finish each line of work.
To update your cost to complete in Procore, open the project Budget, find the Forecast to Complete column for the budget line you want, and switch that line's calculation method from Automatic to Manual or Lump Sum. Enter the amount you expect to spend finishing the line, then add a note explaining it. The one thing to know up front: switching a line back to Automatic deletes any number you entered by hand (Procore support).
This is the Procore-specific how-to for the monthly number you already know how to think about. If you want the plain-English version of what the number is and how to build it, start with the project manager's guide to cost to complete. This post is the part where you actually put it into Procore, and the part nobody explains: why finance keeps asking you for it.
How do you update your cost to complete in Procore?
Open the project, go to the Budget tool, find the Forecast to Complete column for the line you want, switch that line off Automatic, type your number, and add a note. That's the whole job. The detail that trips people up is the calculation method. Procore won't let you type a number until you've picked one.
Here's the step-by-step:
- Open the project Budget. Go into the job you're updating and open the Budget tool. The Forecast to Complete column is on several of Procore's standard budget views by default, so you usually don't have to add it (Procore support).
- Find the Forecast to Complete column for the budget line you want to update. You set the number per line, not for the whole job at once.
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Pick your calculation method. This is the step that matters — which method you choose changes the WIP number finance reports. Your options:
- Automatic (the default) — Procore just subtracts the actual cost from the budget. There's no judgment of yours in it. If you leave a line on Automatic, you haven't actually forecast anything; the system has only done arithmetic (Procore support).
- Manual / Itemized Manual — you enter your own figures, line by line, for overages or savings you see coming.
- Lump Sum — one number for the line, edited on the Forecasting tab.
- Monitored Resources — a time-and-rate method that draws the number down automatically; most PMs won't use this one for a monthly estimate.
- Enter your number — the amount you expect to spend to finish that line of work.
- Add a note. There's an optional note box on each line (Procore support). Use it. One line, like "includes $30K contingency for the outstanding sub claim," turns a bare figure into one you can defend three months from now when someone asks why it moved.
Procore's Forecast to Complete supports four calculation methods (Automatic, Manual, Itemized Manual, and Lump Sum), with Automatic as the default, which simply subtracts actual cost from the budget without any input from you (Procore support).
One trap to know before you start. If you enter a manual number and someone later switches that line back to Automatic, Procore deletes your manual entries (Procore support). It's not a bug; it's how the calculation methods work. But a number you spent real thought on can quietly vanish when a teammate resets a view. Worth knowing if your forecast ever seems to reset on its own.
Why does finance need this number from you every month?
Because your cost to complete is the one number finance can't get from any system. The contract value, what you've spent, what you've billed — that's all already in Procore. How much is left to finish isn't, because that's a judgment about the work ahead, and you're the only one on the job who can make it.
Here's what finance does with it. They use your number to work out how far along the job really is, not in feet of pipe but in dollars, which tells them how much of the contract the company has actually earned this month. If you want how finance turns that number into the percent-complete math, it's all there; you don't need it to do your part.
That earned figure then lands on a monthly report the bank and bonding company read to decide how much new work the company can take on next. So when finance chases you every month, it isn't to second-guess your job. It's because no system can estimate the work left without you, and the report they owe outside the company doesn't get built until your number is in. (The related explainer, for the curious: the difference between what the job will cost in total and what's left to spend.)
What the Procore budget cell doesn't give finance for that report
Procore does hold your number. The Forecast to Complete column is a real place to enter your cost to complete, and you should use it. The gap isn't that Procore can't forecast. It's that a budget cell is missing three things finance needs before that number can go on the report it sends out.
- No name on it. The column records the number, but not who entered it or when. Anyone with standard budget access can change it, and the permission is generic, not a named, timestamped submission from you (Procore support). When finance puts numbers on a report that leaves the company, they need to know whose call each one was.
- No deadline and no sign-off. There's no "submit by the 5th" built in and no review step. It's a passive cell, not a monthly workflow.
- It doesn't become the WIP schedule. Procore has no native WIP report. Ask Procore's own community where to find one and the answer is to build it yourself with custom calculated columns (Procore Community). So your budget number doesn't flow onto the WIP report finance builds from your number — they assemble that somewhere else, by hand.
Procore has no native WIP report — the answer from Procore's own community forum is to build it yourself using custom calculated columns (Procore Community).
None of that is a knock on Procore for tracking your budget. It just explains why, even after you update the Forecast to Complete column, finance still emails you. A quick number in a cell isn't the same as the attributed, dated estimate the report needs.
Frequently asked questions
How do you update cost to complete in Procore? Open your project, go to the Budget tool, and find the Forecast to Complete column for the budget line you want to update. Change that line's calculation method from Automatic to Manual or Lump Sum, enter the amount you expect to spend finishing the line, and add a note explaining it. Automatic just does budget minus cost with no input from you, so you have to switch off it to enter your own number (Procore support).
What is Forecast to Complete in Procore? Forecast to Complete is a column in Procore's Budget tool that holds your estimate of how much more it will cost to finish each budget line — what most people call cost to complete. It supports four calculation methods: Automatic (budget minus actual cost, no human input), Manual and Itemized Manual (you enter your own figures line by line), and Lump Sum (one number). It also has an optional note box (Procore support).
Does Procore have a WIP report? No. Procore has no native work-in-progress (WIP) schedule. Asked where to find one, Procore's own community forum tells users to build it themselves using custom calculated columns (Procore Community). Procore gives you the ingredients — contract value, costs, billings, and the Forecast to Complete column — but does not assemble them into the WIP schedule finance sends to the bank and bonding company.
Why does finance need my cost to complete every month? Because it is the one number no system can pull on its own — it is your call on how much work is left to finish the job. Finance uses it to work out how far along the job really is in dollars, which sets how much the company can count as revenue for the month. That figure lands on the monthly report the bank and bonding company read to decide how much new work the company can take on.
How WIP Ready helps
You don't need WIP Ready to update your cost to complete in Procore. The Forecast to Complete column does the job, and this post is meant to help you use it well. What WIP Ready handles is the part the budget cell doesn't: it emails each PM a one-screen form (no login, no extra Procore seat, under two minutes from your phone) that asks one question per job, like how much more to finish Harbor Point Tower. You type your number and add your note; it comes in with your name and the date attached and flows straight onto the WIP report finance sends to the bank and bonding company. The number stays yours; WIP Ready never calculates it. It just turns handing it over into a two-minute reply instead of an email you keep getting reminded about. The cost to complete you just learned to update in Procore is the input to that monthly report; if you field that request, see how the check-in works at wipready.com, or read whether Procore can generate a WIP report on its own.
