Say I have a task like "Install Machinery". For that task I will have to buy cable, buy other materials, pay a subcontractor, etc. What I have done until now is to budget the total for the task, which I can then review at a project level or rolled up and see budgets across several projects. However, if the material list changes I have to go to another tool, such as a spreadsheet, sum up the expenses again, and plug the new number into Clarizen. If I only buy part of the materials during the scheduled task, and postpone buying part of them to another task, it becomes more complicated as I have to verify and re-calculate expenses for several tasks. This becomes unwieldy when managing several projects at once.
Is there a better way to deal with this, preferably some way which would allow me to have a detailed budget for each task?