Set up budgets and spending requests

Upload the year, publish it, and choose what happens when a request is over the balance.

Budgeting is a module. Start in Settings, Budgeting & approvals. Preview a preset (simple, standard or strict point-of-request control) to see every rule, workflow, request type and notice it would change, then apply it. You can still change any rule by hand afterwards.

Choose the rules. For Opex and Capex separately, choose what happens when a request is over the balance: no check, warn, block, or send it down the overspend route. Then choose what the balance is measured against, such as budget to date, the month, the year or the whole line. Keep your spending request types here too, with the details each one requires.

Name the heads. Under Settings, Reference data, Departments, use Heads and approvers to name a head for every department. A budget request is refused at submission when its department has no head.

Upload the year. Open Finance, Budgeting and use Budget upload. Download the template and fill one row per line: location, department, Opex or Capex, category, GL code, line code, description, the twelve monthly amounts, the Capex expected month and the approved control total. If any row is wrong, nothing is created and you get an error report by row, field and problem; fix the file and upload it again. A clean file creates draft lines. Publish makes them live and locks each line's Original budget. The upload history keeps who uploaded and published, when, and the source file.

Raise requests. Staff raise a spending request by choosing the request type, the line and the amount, and the form shows the line's balance before and after as they type. The amount is held on the line from submission and released if the request is rejected or cancelled. The approval chain is the Budget spending requests workflow in Settings, Approval workflows.

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