A budget or forecast is an estimate of the financial performance of a project. You can create budgets and forecasts to plan and manage the financial performance of projects throughout the project life cycle. You can create multiple budgets and forecasts for a project to model the financial impact of different planning alternatives. You can also utilize budgets and forecasts to track ongoing project performance and project status by comparing budget and forecast amounts to actual amounts using reporting tools such as Project Performance Reporting and Project Status Inquiry.