# Running Cost (RC) Navatom Running Cost plans each vessel's operating budget by category, compares it with verified invoices, and shows the budget on every invoice. URL: https://navatom.com/products/running-cost Category: [Finance](https://navatom.com/products/category/finance) Runs on: Office ## Overview Navatom Running Cost is the fleet-wide budget planning and expenditure tracking platform — enabling ship managers to build per-ship cost templates, create period-based budget estimations, and compare actual spending against planned figures as invoices are verified. It replaces disconnected spreadsheets, emailed budget reports, and ad-hoc cost tracking with a structured, template-driven system that gives your finance team, fleet superintendent, and technical managers a single source of truth for every vessel's operating expenditure. Built around a one-template-per-ship model with hierarchical expenditure categories, the module supports the full budget lifecycle — from draft template creation through publication, estimation setup with date ranges and per-category amounts, to real-time actual vs. estimated variance analysis. Invoices recorded in Bookkeeping flow in as actuals, and every invoice shows how much of the vessel's default budget its categories have already used. Multi-currency support with per-template currency selection handles mixed-currency fleet operations. A four-status expenditure lifecycle (Draft, In Progress, Verified, Cancelled) with per-category approval and review, supporting All, Any, or Not Required execution methods, ensures every cost entry is properly authorized before it counts as actual spend. Heatmap analytics with monthly and quarterly period aggregation reveal spending patterns vessel by vessel. A complete event history records every budget change with who made it and when, scaling seamlessly from a single vessel to a global fleet. ## Key figures - 4 Access Rights - 2 Period Aggregation Types - 3 Estimation Statuses - 3 Approval Methods ## Features - **Actual vs. Estimated Tracking**: Compare what each vessel has spent with what you planned. Open any active estimation and Navatom totals every verified invoice whose running cost date falls inside its period, split by the categories the invoice was distributed to and converted into the vessel's currency at the rate saved on the invoice. Each category shows its spend, its estimate and the remaining amount, on its own and as a total of everything beneath it, up to the whole vessel. Identify overspends before they become critical, spot underutilized budgets that could be reallocated, and export the same view to Excel. The actual vs. estimated view is the financial pulse of each vessel. - Verified invoices counted - Spend, estimate & remaining - Converted at each invoice's rate - Running cost date sets the period - Hierarchical rollup at every level - **Budget Check on Every Invoice**: See the budget while you approve. Every invoice for a vessel in Bookkeeping shows, for each category it is split across, how much has already been spent there during the period of the vessel's default estimation, as a percentage of the estimate for that category's top-level cost group. Two figures sit side by side: one counting verified invoices only, one counting every invoice that is not canceled. Reviewers and approvers see whether a cost fits the plan before they approve it, without opening Running Cost. When a vessel has no default estimation, the invoice says so. - Budget used, shown on each invoice - Verified-only & all-invoice figures - Checked against the default estimation - One figure per category on the invoice - No need to open Running Cost - **Per-Ship Cost Templates**: Each vessel in your fleet receives exactly one running cost template — a unique, controlled budget structure that defines how operating costs are organized for that ship. The one-template-per-ship model enforces consistency and prevents duplicate or conflicting budget structures from proliferating across your fleet. Templates follow a draft-to-published lifecycle. Build your category structure, configure approval rules, and refine the template in Draft status. When ready, publish it to make the template available for live budget estimations. The published template becomes the authoritative cost structure for all estimations created against that vessel. - One template per vessel - Draft → Published lifecycle - Controlled category structure - Single source of truth per ship - **Budget Estimation System**: Create budget estimations for specific date ranges — annual budgets, quarterly plans, or any custom period your organization requires. Each estimation references the ship's published template and captures per-category budget amounts in the vessel's currency, exact to that currency's decimal places, so no rounding errors accumulate across hundreds of line items. Multiple estimations can exist simultaneously for different periods, and one active estimation is marked as the default that every invoice is checked against. The estimation system supports the full lifecycle: create an estimation, populate category budgets, track actuals against estimates, and archive completed periods — all while maintaining a complete history of every budget figure change. - Date-range based estimations - Per-category budget amounts - Exact to the currency's decimals - Multiple simultaneous estimations - Default estimation flag - **Hierarchical Category Tree**: Organize your vessel's operating costs into a hierarchical tree of expenditure categories — parent categories contain child categories, and budgets roll up cumulatively from leaves to root. This tree structure mirrors real-world cost breakdowns: Crew costs contain subcategories for wages, overtime, travel, and provisions; Technical costs break down into maintenance, spares, repairs, and class surveys. Each category in the tree carries a code, its own estimated amount in every estimation, and its own reviewers and approvers. The hierarchical rollup shows total estimated and actual spending at every level, from a single leaf category to a top-level cost group or the vessel total. Add and rename categories at any time, before or after publishing, and a rename carries through to every invoice that already uses the category. - Parent-child category nesting - Cumulative budget rollup - Per-category reviewers & approvers - Unlimited tree depth - Renames carried to past invoices - **Approval & Review Configuration**: Configure per-category approvers and reviewers with three execution methods: All (every designated person must approve), Any (any single approver is sufficient), or Not Required (skip the approval step entirely). This flexible model lets you enforce strict oversight on high-value categories while streamlining low-value routine expenses. Set multiple approvers and multiple reviewers per category. The execution method determines how the approval chain resolves — unanimous consent for critical budget items, first-available approval for routine items, or direct processing for pre-approved categories. Reviewers and approvers are set on the template's categories and apply to every invoice share posted to that category in Bookkeeping. Assign them to many categories at once; one person is never both reviewer and approver of the same category. - Per-category approvers & reviewers - Three execution methods (All, Any, Not Required) - Multiple approvers per category - Applied to every invoice share - Flexible oversight per cost tier - **Expenditure Heatmap Analytics**: Visualize spending patterns with heatmap analytics that aggregate a vessel's invoices by month or quarter across its top-level categories. The heatmap view reveals seasonal spending peaks, recurring heavy periods and cost anomalies that warrant investigation. Select a vessel, monthly or quarterly period grouping and a range of whole years, and count verified invoices only or every invoice that is not canceled. Each cell totals the invoices dated in that period, with every subcategory rolled into its top-level category and converted into the vessel's currency. - Monthly & quarterly period grouping - Top-level category aggregation - Multi-year date range support - Verified-only or all invoices - Visual spending pattern detection - **Multi-Currency Support**: Set the operating currency per template, supporting fleets that operate across multiple currency zones. Each vessel's running cost template carries its own currency designation, and all budget amounts and actuals within that template are denominated in the selected currency. Invoices can be in any currency. Each one saves the exchange rate for its invoice date into the vessel's currency in Bookkeeping, and actuals are converted at that saved rate, so past figures stay accurate when rates move. The currency is set before the template is published and then stays fixed, keeping every estimation and every actual for the vessel in one currency. - Per-template currency designation - Mixed-currency fleet support - Invoices converted at their saved rate - All amounts in template currency - **Multiple Estimation Periods**: Manage multiple budget estimations per vessel across different time periods. Active estimations track current spending, archived estimations preserve historical budget data for trend analysis and year-over-year comparison, and deleted estimations move to their own list with their history intact. The three-status estimation lifecycle (Active, Archived, Deleted) ensures you always have a clean view of current budgets while retaining full historical data, and an archived or deleted estimation can be restored to active at any time. Switch between estimation periods to compare spending patterns, analyze seasonal variations, and build more accurate future budgets based on actual historical performance. - Active, Archived & Deleted statuses - Year-over-year comparison - Seasonal variation analysis - Archived & deleted restorable - **Default Estimation Selection**: Mark one active estimation per vessel as the default: the budget that every invoice for that vessel is checked against in Bookkeeping. Reviewers and approvers see how much of each category's budget is already spent without leaving the invoice. Change the default estimation at any time as budget cycles roll over. When a new annual budget is ready, make it the default and every invoice check uses it from then on. The previous default remains accessible as a standard estimation for historical comparison. - One default per vessel - Used in every invoice check - Marked in the estimation list - Seamless budget cycle rollover - **Date Range Actuals Query**: See what a vessel spent in any period, with no estimation needed. Pick the dates and count verified invoices only or all invoices, and Navatom totals the spend for every category in the tree by invoice date, with totals at every level. Use it for a quarter-end check, for a period no estimation covers, or to compare all recorded spend with the verified part. Each view keeps its vessel, dates and filter in the page address, so it can be bookmarked or shared. - Any date range, per vessel - Verified-only or all invoices - Totals at every tree level - Shareable link per view - **Category Import & Cloning**: Bootstrap a new vessel's cost template by importing the category structure from another active vessel while the template is still a draft. The import runs in the background, copying the complete hierarchical tree, categories and subcategories with their codes, reviewers, approvers and approval methods, without blocking the user interface. Import is especially valuable when adding new vessels to your fleet. Rather than rebuilding the category structure from scratch, import from a similar vessel type and customize as needed. Large category trees are handled in the background, and the template is locked to other editors until the import finishes. - Import from another vessel - Runs in the background - Complete tree copy (categories + config) - Template locked during import - **Category Move & Delete**: When restructuring a published template, move a category's invoices and estimates to another category before deleting it. Navatom reassigns every invoice line to the target category, merging the two amounts where one invoice used both, adds the source category's estimates to the target in every estimation, and records the move in each estimation's history. This safe deletion model ensures no expenditure data is orphaned when categories are reorganized. Only categories without subcategories can be moved, and a category already used on invoices can only leave the tree this way. The move runs in the background with its progress shown, and the template is locked to other editors until it finishes. - Move invoices before deletion - Estimates merged into the target - Progress shown step by step - No orphaned expenditure data - Template locked during the move - **Excel Export**: Export any active estimation's actual vs. estimated view to Excel in one click. The workbook lists every category with its code and name, its spend and its estimate, the totals of each parent category, and a grand total at the foot. The sheet is set to landscape and fitted to the page, ready to print. For invoice-level detail, Bookkeeping's Excel exports list every invoice with its category split. Use Excel exports for board presentations, owner reporting and internal financial reviews, without reformatting. - One-click Excel workbook - Spend & estimate per category - Parent category totals - Grand total row - Print-ready landscape layout - **Comments & Event History**: Add, edit, and delete comments on any budget estimation to maintain a running dialogue between fleet managers, finance staff, and technical superintendents. Comments provide context that numbers alone cannot — explaining why a category was overspent, noting a one-time extraordinary expense, or flagging a budget reallocation request. Every change is recorded with who made it and when: on each estimation, its creation, amounts, dates, status changes, category moves and comments; on the template, new and renamed categories, imports, moves, the currency, publication and approval settings. The complete audit trail provides full accountability for every budget decision. - Estimation history - Template history - Full user attribution per event - Comment add, edit & delete - Complete budget audit trail ## Technical abilities - **Safe Template Changes While Work Runs**: Long-running operations (category import, renaming a category already on invoices, move-and-delete) lock the template while they run, so no one else changes it halfway through. Editors see a progress message, and the lock releases automatically when the operation completes or fails. - **Heavy Changes Run in the Background**: Importing a category tree, renaming a category used on many invoices, and moving a category's invoices and estimates all run in the background and report their progress on the template, keeping the user interface responsive during heavy operations. - **Heatmap Analytics with Period Aggregation**: The heatmap supports monthly and quarterly period types, expanding a range of whole years into discrete periods and totaling invoices per top-level category per period, with empty periods shown as zero so gaps are visible. - **Hierarchical Budget Rollup**: Estimated and actual amounts roll up cumulatively through the category hierarchy: leaf categories feed into parent categories, which feed into the top-level categories and the vessel total. The rollup is recalculated each time a view opens, ensuring that budget health at every level reflects the latest verified invoices without manual recalculation. - **Template-Based Cost Structure**: Each vessel has exactly one template, so there is never a second budget structure to reconcile. Publishing is one-way: after it, the currency is fixed and a category already used on invoices can only leave the tree by moving its invoices to another, ensuring that live estimations always reference a stable, approved category structure. - **Complete Event History**: Every change to a template or an estimation is recorded with who made it, when and what changed. The history powers the audit trail on every estimation, ready for any external inspection or internal review. ## Benefits - **Per-Ship Budget Templates for Consistent Cost Planning**: One template per vessel, one category structure per template. The controlled template model ensures every vessel's budget follows the same organizational standards — no more inconsistent spreadsheets with different category names, missing categories, or incomparable line items across your fleet. - **Actual vs. Estimated Variance at Every Level**: See how actual spending compares to budget at every level, from individual categories to top-level cost groups to the entire vessel, and see the budget on each invoice before it is approved. Budget overruns are caught early, underutilized allocations are identified for reallocation, and each vessel's financial health is always visible. - **Heatmap Analytics Reveal Spending Patterns Instantly**: Monthly and quarterly heatmaps turn raw expenditure data into visual spending intelligence. Spot seasonal peaks and recurring heavy periods, then switch vessels to compare their patterns, all from a single interactive view that transforms numbers into actionable insights. - **Budget Context on Every Invoice**: Reviewers and approvers see, on the invoice itself, how much of each category's budget is already spent, counting verified invoices only and every invoice not canceled. Spending decisions are made with the budget in view instead of being discovered at month end. - **Scales from Single Vessel to Global Fleet**: Per-vessel templates, imports from existing vessels, and background processing for heavy changes mean the module works the same whether you manage one vessel or five hundred. Grow your fleet without outgrowing your budgeting platform — every new ship gets its own template, its own estimations, and its own analytics. ## Frequently asked questions ### How does budget estimation work? Each vessel has one running cost template that defines its expenditure category structure. You create estimations for specific date ranges (e.g., annual or quarterly budgets) against the published template. Each estimation captures a budget amount for each category in the vessel's currency. One active estimation can be marked as the default, and every invoice for the vessel is checked against it in Bookkeeping. Estimations follow a three-status lifecycle: Active, Archived, and Deleted. ### Can we compare actual costs against estimates? Yes. Open any active estimation and Navatom totals the verified invoices whose running cost date falls in its period, per category and for the whole vessel, converted into the vessel's currency. The view shows spend, estimate and remaining amount at every level of the category hierarchy. For any other period, the date range view totals verified or all invoices between two dates. ### How are cost categories organized? Categories are organized in a hierarchical tree — parent categories contain child categories, and budgets roll up cumulatively from leaves to root. Each category carries a code and a name, an estimated amount in every estimation, and its own reviewers, approvers and approval methods. The tree structure can be as deep as your organization requires. ### What analytics are available? The module provides heatmap analytics with monthly or quarterly period aggregation across top-level categories and configurable date ranges, for verified invoices or all invoices. It reveals seasonal spending patterns and highlights cost anomalies. Additionally, actual vs. estimated variance analysis is available at every level of the category hierarchy, any date range can be totaled without an estimation, and the actual vs. estimated view exports to Excel. ### Can we import category structures from other ships? Yes. While a vessel's template is still a draft, the category import copies the complete hierarchical tree from any other active vessel: categories, subcategories, codes, reviewers, approvers and approval methods. The import runs as a background task to handle large category structures without blocking the interface. This is especially valuable when adding new vessels to your fleet. ### Is there an audit trail for budget changes? Yes. Every change is recorded, on estimations (creation, category amounts, date changes, status changes and comment actions) and on the template (category management, currency, publication, import, and approval and review settings). Each event carries full user attribution, timestamp, and contextual data. ### Can approvers see the budget when they approve an invoice? Yes. Every invoice in Bookkeeping shows, for each category it is split across, how much has already been spent in the period of the vessel's default estimation as a percentage of the estimate, once counting verified invoices only and once counting every invoice that is not canceled. Reviewers and approvers see whether a cost fits the plan without leaving the invoice. ### Which invoices count as actual spend? In the actual vs. estimated view, verified invoices whose running cost date falls inside the estimation's period, converted into the vessel's currency at the rate saved on each invoice. Draft and in-progress invoices are counted only where you ask for all invoices: in the date range view and in the heatmap. ### Who can change budgets and templates? Four access rights control it: viewing estimations, editing estimations, editing the running cost template, and publishing it. Publishing is its own right because it fixes the vessel's currency and makes the categories available to invoices. ## Related modules - [Bookkeeping](https://navatom.com/products/bookkeeping): Record and approve invoices, orders and payments, with costs split by vessel, category and department. - [Consumption & Waste](https://navatom.com/products/consumption-and-waste): Monitor fuel consumption, waste management, and environmental compliance across the fleet. - [Drydock](https://navatom.com/products/drydock): Plan and manage drydock projects, specifications, and yard coordination end to end. Start a free trial: https://app.navatom.com/trial Book a demo: https://navatom.com/contact