Vital to any project you are managing is the ability to be able to keep track of costs.  How are you tracking all the aspects of commitment and expenditure related to the various stages of your project?  Are you using a spreadsheet?  Or do you have a more advanced project management system?

If you are still using a spreadsheet or some other manual tracking system, you may want to consider a more advanced system.  A project management system will give you complete control of cash-flows, budgets and projects from start to finish.  You will be able to split budgets across multiple projects, divide as appropriate into categories and sub-categories, and run extensive reporting which will show commitment and spend progress at multiple analysis levels.  

If you have ever had problems with budgets when managing a project, it is worth looking at your budget controls and procedures and considering how you can implement a more structured system that also allows strong reporting capabilities for visibility throughout the project’s lifetime.