Setting up your cost code structure

Before you build a budget, decide how you want your cost codes to read. Settings → Cost codes gives you two vocabularies: division numbers (the CSI 01–48 numbering scheme architects and commercial estimators expect) or plain-language categories (Foundation, Framing, Roofing, and so on). Whichever you pick, a budget line shows as a number plus a label — for example "06 · Framing & blocking."

One thing worth knowing: if you're importing a budget from an estimate or a spreadsheet, the matching logic looks for CSI numbers specifically, in both vocabularies — so an import goes smoothest when your source file uses division numbers even if you plan to display plain-language labels day to day.

Every project also carries a standing "99 · Contingency" line — it's excluded from your earned-value math on purpose, so your progress numbers reflect actual work, not the reserve sitting behind it.