Plan and track your renovation budget

By Epidot Solutions AB Published July 7, 2026

A renovation is a hundred small decisions and just as many receipts, and it is surprisingly easy to lose track of what it all actually costs. Renovations are notorious for running over budget: the invoices arrive in waves, the receipts pile up in a drawer, and by the time the dust settles it is hard to say where the money actually went.

EpiHem does not price your renovation or promise a saving. What it does is turn the whole job into a tracked project, so the budget, the receipts and the checklist all live in one place and you can see where the money is going while the work is under way, rather than adding it up at the end.

Before you start

A little planning up front saves the most grief later. Decide exactly what is in scope and what can wait, so the job does not quietly grow once it begins. Get a few quotes rather than one, and agree the order the work needs to happen in, since one trade often has to finish before the next can start. Keep a buffer for the surprises that almost every renovation throws up. Then put the whole thing in a project, so the budget, the receipts and the checklist stay in one place and nothing gets lost.

Turn your renovation into a tracked project

A project starts with one total budget, set in your own currency (EpiHem supports many), plus a description, tags and an optional deadline. Under that you build up the rest: categories with their own sub-budgets, the expenses, the receipts and a checklist. Nothing is imposed on you: there is no template to fill in, and you add only the pieces you need.

A budget and a curve that warns in time

At the top you set a total budget for the project, and EpiHem keeps working out how much has been spent and how much is left. Below those numbers the spending is drawn as a curve over time, against the budget as a dashed line, so you see not just how much has gone but how fast it is going. The line turns amber as the spending closes in on the budget and the curve turns red if it passes it. You do not have to wait for every invoice to arrive to realise the kitchen is getting expensive.

Categories with sub-budgets: seeing where the money goes

A lump sum does not tell you where the overrun is. So you split the budget into categories with their own sub-budgets, for example Carpenter, Materials and Appliances. Each category gets its own budget bar, so you see straight away that the appliances stayed on budget but the carpentry ate up more than planned. That is the difference between knowing the budget is slipping and knowing exactly where.

Scan the receipt and allocate it to the project

Expenses are at the heart of the tracking. You can add them by hand, but the smoothest way is to scan the receipt in Receipts and allocate it to the project on the right category. You choose what counts: the whole receipt, a percentage of it, or a fixed amount. The actual cost then builds up on its own, with the amount and date pulled from the receipt. One trip to the builders' merchant rarely belongs to a single job, so the same receipt can be allocated across several projects at once, and anything you leave out stays unallocated rather than being forced onto a project.

The stages of the job become a checklist

The stages of the renovation, from demolition through the wiring and plumbing to the final fit-out, become a checklist in the project. You can create a new checklist right in the project or link in one of the household's existing lists, so everyone sees what is done and what is left. EpiHem does not impose an order or dates on you; it just gives you a simple list to tick off.

The whole project lives on the phone as readily as on the web, so whoever is on site can add today's receipt and whoever is at home sees the same budget and the same expenses.

You do not have to go hunting for it either. The dashboard keeps track of your active projects on its own and lifts the most recently updated ones to the top, and Statistics has a combined project budget view across all your projects. That keeps the renovation in sight without you having to dig for it.

Not just renovations

The project space in EpiHem has no renovation template and no predefined project types. It is fully generic: a budget, categories with sub-budgets, expenses, linked receipts, a checklist and a deadline. That sounds simple, but it is exactly why the same space works for far more than a renovation.

A trip. Set a travel fund as the budget, split it into accommodation, transport and food as categories, and link the receipts as you go.
A wedding or a party. Venue, food, clothes and music as categories, with a checklist for everything to book and a deadline on the date.
A move or a bigger purchase. Keep the cost of the moving company, boxes and deposit together, or the budget for a new sofa, all in one place.

Getting started

Creating projects, setting a budget, adding categories and expenses, linking receipts and adding checklists are part of EpiHem Premium, where one subscription covers the whole household. Reading and exporting projects you already have is free. Start with a budget and a couple of categories, then let the receipts fill in the real cost while the work is under way. EpiHem works as a renovation budget tracker for the whole household, in the app and on the web.

More on how the projects and the receipts work is on the feature pages, and if you are splitting the costs between yourselves, the guide to scanning receipts and splitting costs will help you divide them fairly.

Common questions

How do I track a renovation budget?

Set a total budget for the project in your own currency, then break it into categories with their own sub-budgets, such as Carpenter, Materials and Appliances. EpiHem keeps working out how much has been spent and how much is left, and plots the spending as a curve against the budget, drawn as a dashed line. The line turns amber as the spending closes in on the budget and the curve turns red if it passes it, and each category bar turns red when that sub-budget runs over. So you see the kitchen getting expensive while you can still do something about it, not when the last invoice lands.

Can I scan receipts into a project?

Yes. Scan the receipt in Receipts and allocate it to the project on the right category: the whole receipt, a percentage of it, or a fixed amount. The amount and date come straight from the receipt. Because a single shopping trip is rarely all for one job, the same receipt can be allocated to several projects at once, and whatever you do not allocate simply stays unallocated. Either way the real cost of the renovation builds up on its own as the receipts come in.

Can I use the project space for things other than a renovation?

Yes. The project space in EpiHem is fully generic: it has no renovation template and no predefined project types, only a name, a budget, categories, expenses, receipts, a checklist and an optional deadline. The same building blocks work just as well for a trip, a wedding, a move or a bigger purchase. Renovation is simply the most common example.

Is EpiHem free?

Reading and exporting projects you already have is free. Creating projects, setting a budget, adding categories and expenses, linking receipts and adding checklists are part of EpiHem Premium, where a single subscription covers everyone in the household rather than one seat per person.