Researching Budgeting and Cost/Time Allocation Sites

For overall support for Instructional Designers, not related to the blog assignment I would like to refer the reader to the American Society for Training and Development:

www.astd.org 

While doing this assignment I was looking for advice that I felt would benefit me, as a novice.  I think, in general, I am quite concerned that I will miss or overlook an important element tracking budget/cost and time throughout my project so I looked for advice given that would help me keep track through small steps.

www.executivebrief.com/project-management/project-scope-considerations-managing-project-budget/
The concept of Executive Brief is to break everything down to the smallest detail and then allocating your resources accordingly, at the task level.  No surprises.  A lot of detailed up-front work but avoiding pitfalls, along the way, and conducting what the author, Gina Lijoi calls "Accurate Time Capture."  She advocates "time sheeting" to compare costs and time at each task to both "Milestone Reconcile" at each point where the project is in relation to budgeted estimates in order to make corrections, if necessary, and to provide a yardstick for planning future projects. 

"While this task may seem overwhelming, it is within reach if you can breakdown work effort and measure profitability as you move through the project.  Ultimately, agility will provide you with options - and understanding where your budget is at each stage of a project will allow you to react and manage project scope successfully."  Gina Lijoi, Project Scope Considerations for Managing Project Budget, September, 2009.
"Executive Brief," the site that Ms. Lijoi published through seems to be scholarly and not selling software.  However, its resources include links to many other articles about Project Management, Software Development and other considerations for CEOs, project managers, etc. 

Next I considered less scholarly and more practical sites.  Looking for comprehensive software applications I found a company that provides detailed software links for many different sectors of the overall "project" industry, including construction, call centers, trucking, "talent" and, of course, project management.

I was interested in the whole site and because it includes Information Technology, Software Development, and Website and Content Management it will be a wonderful resource in the future.  For today's blog assignment, specifically, they have links for Task Management software, Time and Expense, Time Tracking, Gantt Charts (20) and many, many others, and listed through vendor and platforms (Windows, Web-based, Open Source, Mac, etc.

www.capterra.com/