# Budget routine

A budget routine is the few objects that keep spend in view between reviews: a budget per period, alerts that speak up when something moves, a channel they reach, and a report that arrives every week. Each step links to the page that owns the detail.

## Before you start

- A connection with at least a few weeks of history, so trends and forecasts have something to work with.
- The Owner or Editor team role in the workspace, and an organization role that can add notification channels; see [Access model](/concepts/access-model).

## 1. Decide what to budget

A budget in the product measures the whole workspace. If the routine is per team, give each team its own workspace, or create segment budgets through the Public API. See [Budgets](/planning/budgets).

## 2. Create the budget

Create a monthly budget with an amount based on the last few months. Check a cost report with **Show forecast** on first, so the amount starts from where spend is heading. See [Budgets](/planning/budgets) and [Cost amounts](/concepts/cost-amounts).

## 3. Add a notification channel

Add the Slack channel, Teams channel, webhook or email address where the team wants to hear about cost, and send a test. See [Notification channels](/planning/notification-channels).

## 4. Watch for sudden changes

Detected anomalies reach every enabled channel on their own. For a threshold of your own, such as spend rising by a percentage week over week, create a cost alert through the Public API and name the channel. Budget thresholds show in the product only. See [Alerts](/planning/alerts) and [Insights](/optimization/insights).

## 5. Send a weekly report

Save a cost report for the budget's scope over the current month, grouped by Service, and schedule it weekly to the team's email destination. See [Share and schedule reports](/cost-reports/share-and-schedule).

## 6. Review

Once a week, open **Alerts** for what fired, acknowledge the anomalies you have looked into, and compare the budget's status with the report. Adjust the amount at the start of a period, not in the middle of one.

## Related

- [Showback for teams](/guides/showback-for-teams)