Guide: Set up and track financial data in Focus

The Funds tab on each focus area gives you a place to plan, track, and analyze the financial side of your strategic work. You can set budgets, forecast costs and benefits month by month, capture baselines, record actuals as real numbers come in, and watch how your plan is tracking over time through charts and summary tiles.

This guide walks you through everything from initial setup to reviewing your first set of charts. If your organization is new to financial data in Focus, start here.

Configure your site

Before anyone can start entering financial data, an app admin needs to configure a few site-wide settings. These choices affect every focus area on your site, so it's worth getting them right before teams start adding data.

Set your currency

Go to Focus admin settings, then select Currency and choose the currency your organization uses for financial planning. This is a site-wide setting that applies to all focus areas. You can only set one currency per site.

Set your fiscal year start month

Go to Focus admin settings, then select Fiscal calendar and set the month your fiscal year begins. This determines how months are grouped into quarters and fiscal years throughout the product. Charts, summary tiles, the time period picker, and CSV exports all follow this setting.

For example, if your fiscal year starts in July, Q1 runs July through September, Q2 runs October through December, and so on.

Create your cost and benefit categories

Your organization likely classifies costs and benefits using terms specific to your business. Set these up before anyone starts creating items, because every cost and benefit item needs to be categorized using options you've defined here.

There are three types of categories to configure:

• Cost sub-types are more specific labels within labor and non-labor costs. For example, you might create sub-types like "Full-time employees," "Contractors," "Cloud infrastructure," or "Software licenses."

• Benefit types describe the kind of value you expect to gain. Common examples include "Revenue increase," "Cost reduction," or "Productivity gain."

• Investment categories are strategic tags for why money is being spent. A typical setup might include "Run the Business" and "Change the Business," but you can define whatever categories make sense for your organization.

Go to Focus admin settings to create each of these. If someone tries to create an item or import a CSV before these are configured, they'll hit validation errors.

See Configure Focus for financial data for instructions on each of these settings.

Set up group permissions

Control who can view and work with financial data by configuring group permissions. Some organizations consider financial information sensitive, so this gives administrators fine-grained control.

There are four funds-specific permissions:

• View allows users to see the Funds tab and all financial data across every focus area. This is a site-wide setting: it's either on or off for a given group.

• Manage cost/benefit items allows users to create, edit, import, and delete cost and benefit items and enter their monthly values. This also requires "Can edit" access on the specific focus area.

• Manage baselines allows users to set and delete baseline snapshots. This also requires "Can edit" access on the specific focus area.

• Manage budgets allows users to set and edit budget amounts. This also requires "Can edit" access on the specific focus area.

App admins can always edit any focus area regardless of access controls.

See Manage user group permissions for steps on configuring these settings and how group permissions interact with focus area access controls.

Set budgets for your focus areas

With your site configured, the next step is to set the overall budget for each focus area you want to track financially. Budgets give you a reference point in the summary tiles for how much funding is allocated. They're set per focus area, per fiscal year.

1. Open a focus area and select the Funds tab.

2. Select the edit icon next to the Budget tile.

3. Enter the budget amount for the current fiscal year.

4. Select Set.

If the focus area has sub-focus areas, you can set budgets at each level. Budgets are set independently at each level. If you have sub-focus areas, set a budget on each one that reflects its share of the parent's total.

See Set a budget for a focus area for details on fiscal year navigation and sub-focus area budgets.

Add your cost and benefit items

This is where your financial plan takes shape. Cost and benefit items are the individual line items that make up your financial picture: things like "AWS hosting costs," "Design contractor," or "Expected licensing revenue."

There are three ways to get items into Focus, depending on where your data lives today.

Create items manually

This works best when you're starting from scratch or adding a handful of items.

1. On the Funds tab, find the cost items grid and select + Create in the last row.

2. Give the item a name that clearly identifies the expense, such as "Cloud infrastructure" or "Design contractor."

3. Categorize the item using the options your administrator configured: cost type (labor or non-labor), sub-type, expenditure class (CapEx or OpEx), and investment category.

4. Repeat for each cost item you want to track.

Then switch to the benefits view and do the same for benefit items. Name each expected benefit and select a benefit type.

You can also link cost and benefit items to Jira or Jira Align work items, which lets you see financial and delivery progress side by side.

See Create and edit cost or benefit items for the full workflow, including editing, tagging, linking to work items, and deleting items.

Import items with a CSV

If you already have financial data in spreadsheets, a timesheet tool like Tempo or Harvest, or any system that can export to CSV, you can bring that data into Focus in bulk.

1. Download the CSV template from the Funds tab, or use Transfer Data, then select Funds for a template that spans multiple focus areas.

2. Map your existing data to the template columns: item name, type, sub-type, expenditure class, investment category, monthly values, and either a Focus area ID or Focus area External ID. Every row needs one of those identifiers so Focus knows which focus area to import the data into.

3. Make sure every category value in your file matches exactly what's configured in Focus admin settings. Mismatches cause validation errors.

4. Upload the CSV from the Funds tab (single focus area) or Transfer Data, then select Funds (multiple focus areas at once).

5. Check the Funds tab on each affected focus area to confirm items came through correctly.

The CSV template requires a Financial Version Type column. Set it to FORECAST or ACTUAL, even when all monthly value cells are empty. If you're using CSV just to bulk-create items without entering values yet, set every row to FORECAST and leave the month columns blank.

See Import and export financial data with CSV for formatting rules, column reference, and troubleshooting.

Sync items through the public REST API

For organizations with established financial planning tools like Anaplan, Oracle, SAP, or Workday, the Focus public REST API lets you automate the flow of data into Focus. Common patterns include scheduled nightly syncs or event-driven updates triggered when data changes in your source system.

The API and CSV import are complementary. Many teams use CSV for initial bulk loads and switch to the API for ongoing automated syncs.

See Use the Focus public REST API for available endpoints and integration patterns.

Enter your forecasts

With your items created, the next step is to fill in your projected values. Forecasts are your best estimates of what each item will cost or return over the planning period.

1. On the Funds tab, find the item in the monthly data table.

2. Select a month cell and enter the forecasted value.

3. Repeat for each month you want to project.

Values save automatically. As you enter data, the summary tiles and trend chart above the table update in real time to reflect your projections.

A common starting point is to forecast a full fiscal quarter or fiscal year at once. For example, if you know a contractor engagement will cost $25,000 per month from January through June, enter that value across all six months.

See Enter forecast and actual values for cost or benefit items for details on how values feed into charts.

Set a baseline

Once your forecasts reflect an approved plan, lock them in as your baseline. The baseline is your plan of record. It is the snapshot you'll measure everything against going forward. Without a baseline, there's no variance to track.

1. On the Funds tab, select Baseline, then select Set.

2. Choose the start and end months for the period you want to baseline.

3. Confirm the action.

Focus copies your current forecast values into a separate baseline record. From this point on, any changes to the forecasts will be measured as variance against the baseline. This captures both explicit reforecasting and the effect of entering actuals.

Costs and benefits have separate baselines. Set each one independently from the cost and benefit views.

Setting a new baseline overwrites the previous one.

See Set and manage baselines for funds for when to re-baseline, how to delete a baseline, and how baseline values are calculated.

Track actuals

As each month closes, update your items with the real numbers from finance or timesheets. Actuals replace your forecasts for past months and give you a true picture of where you stand against your plan.

1. On the Funds tab, find the item in the monthly data table.

2. Select the cell for the month that just closed and enter the actual value.

3. Repeat for each item.

Actuals and forecasts live in the same data table. You don't need to switch views or modes. A typical cadence is to update actuals monthly: at the end of each month, enter actual values and adjust forecasts for upcoming months as plans change.

As you enter actuals, the trend chart updates to show how actual spend compares to your baseline. Where these diverge, you have variance worth investigating.

See Enter forecast and actual values for costs or benefits for details on how values feed into charts and what happens when you mix forecasts and actuals.

Review your charts

With data entered and a baseline set, the Funds tab shows a complete financial picture that updates as your data evolves.

• Summary tiles across the top show your budget, baseline, actuals to date, forecast, remaining forecast, and variance at a glance. Each cost tile also breaks down CapEx vs. OpEx.

• Trend chart plots three lines over time: your baseline, actuals, and forecast. The variance between these lines shows where actual spend is tracking above or below your plan. For example, if actual spend has been in line with the baseline for the first few months but the forecast drops for future months because of a contract renegotiation, the chart makes that shift visible immediately.

• Breakdown charts show how costs or benefits distribute across categories like cost type, investment category, or child focus areas. Toggle between actuals, forecast, and variance views to see different angles.

• Monthly data table below the charts shows the exact values for each item and month, so you can drill into what's driving the numbers you see above.

Use the time period picker to zoom into a specific quarter, view a full fiscal year, or set a custom range.

See Interpret financial charts and views for a full guide to each chart type and how to read them.

Ask Rovo about your financial data

Rovo can help you explore and make sense of the data on the Funds tab. You can ask Rovo to explain what's driving a variance, break down costs by category, compare items, identify trends, or summarize the financial position of a focus area.

To get started, select Explain on the Variance vs baseline tile for a quick summary. You can also open Rovo directly and type /analyze-funds followed by your question.

See Use Rovo to analyze financial data in a focus area for the full list of what you can ask and example prompts.

What to do next

• Plan your update cadence. Decide how often your team will refresh actuals. Monthly is typical: at the end of each month, update actual values from finance or timesheets, and adjust forecasts for upcoming months as plans change.

• Set up additional focus areas. Repeat this process for each focus area that needs financial tracking.

• Link costs to delivery. Connect cost and benefit items to Jira or Jira Align work items to see financial progress alongside delivery status.

• Re-baseline when plans change. If your organization approves a significant re-plan, set a new baseline to reset your variance tracking.