plotpace helpBuild a trip budget
Use estimates to see whether your plans fit your budget. Prices remain your own research: saving an amount does not check availability or make a booking.
Owners and Planners with an editing licence can work with financial details from Plan onward. Viewers cannot see amounts or financial records.
Set the broad budget
Open Edit trip → Budget. Add an optional target, contingency and Daily estimate (whole party).
The daily estimate covers everyday spending for everyone, such as meals and drinks. Beside it, Trip shows the calculated trip days and Daily estimate shows the days used for this allowance. Opening and closing flights, including connecting legs, are excluded from the allowance; overlapping dates count once. Missing durations or exchange rates leave the total incomplete rather than being treated as zero.
The reporting currency belongs to the trip and is fixed when it is created. Your own home currency can also be used for equivalent amounts.
Estimate stays and activities
Add the estimate while editing the accommodation or itinerary item.
- Accommodation uses Per night or Entire stay. A nightly estimate follows the number of nights; an entire-stay estimate stays fixed when dates change.
- Activities use Overall or Per traveller. Overall is the combined price; Per traveller multiplies the entered unit price by the checked trip travellers.
Blank means unknown. Zero means free. With no checked travellers, a Per traveller total is unavailable. Changing participation updates estimates, but does not rewrite agreed costs or payments.
Add a pass or another expense
Choose Add expense in Trip budget, or from a segment's ⋯ menu. Enter a name, category, amount, currency and pricing basis.
Expand Segments to choose where it belongs. A segment is already selected when you open the form from its menu. Select several segments for a shared pass, or none for a trip-wide expense.
To reuse a saved purchase, edit that expense in Trip budget and change its segment selections. Do not create a second purchase for the same ticket. Shared purchases count once, even when they cover several segments or travel legs.
Use Display notes, a website and documents for practical pass instructions. These can appear in trip views without revealing financial amounts to Viewers. Segment dates do not establish a pass's validity period.
Find and review costs
The Daily allowance row shows your full-trip total in the daily-estimate currency, followed by an italic home-currency equivalent when the currencies differ: € 3,840.00 | $ 6,228.48 AUD. Its pricing basis shows the saved daily rate and eligible days. Existing meal adjustments are retained and identified. Under Segment grouping, find this row in Trip-wide / unassigned; under Expense type, find it in Daily costs. It is already included in the budget total.
Use a cost row's ⋯ menu for Edit booking or Payments. Payments appears once booking details have been saved; otherwise use Edit booking → Save and open payments. An included cost opens its parent purchase. The daily allowance has estimate-review actions instead of booking or payment actions.
Segment budget in a segment's menu opens its budget group with other segments collapsed. Segment-wide expenses appear first. Shared purchases appear once under their first linked segment.
Warnings identify missing prices, dates or conversions. Untracked travel legs do not count as missing prices. Open the warning and source editor to resolve an issue.
Use currency conversions
Enter the original provider amount and currency. Update exchange rates refreshes eligible reference conversions across the trip. Saved manual rates and recorded payments are retained.
Review saved currency conversions explains a saved rate, its source and date. A conversion is an estimate, not a bank or card quote; it excludes fees. Missing rates are shown as unknown. Opening a trip does not automatically revalue all its saved prices.
When you book, move on to agreed costs and payments. Changing a budget price also updates an existing unpaid agreement. Once any payment has been recorded, review and change the agreed price in Bookings instead. Clearing an estimate never clears an agreement.