Budget allocations (Dual budgeting)

This help page is for allocating Budgets for Analysis and Budget codes. This is only relevant if you have the dual budgeting functionality turned on by Arbor.

Here you can post budget allocations against individual budget and analysis accounts.

Although you can apply transactions to budget and analysis accounts before an amount has been allocated to it, it's strongly recommended to allocate amounts to budget and analysis accounts. This will help you to monitor expenditure against budget.

You can access the Budget screen from the Transactions menu. Here you can allocate amounts to budget and analysis accounts, a task which includes profiling the allocation.

To allocate amounts to budget and analysis accounts

1. From the Transactions menu choose Budget.
   The Budget transactions screen is displayed, with the Allocations sub-tab selected.
   
   Make sure that you have linked the Budget and Analysis codes before entering information in this screen. Click here for more details on how to do this.
   
   
   
   
   
2. Choose the Budget and Analysis Accounts for this allocation, by typing in the Budget and Analysis codes.
   You can enter a partial code and use the magnifying glass icon to select the required account from the search results.
3. Choose the Type for this budget allocation (Expenditure or Income).
4. By default today's Date is displayed. If required you can edit this entry to apply a different date to the allocation.
5. By default this allocation will be posted in the current period. If you want to choose a future period or to batch the allocation, click Options and then:
   
   
   
   • If you want to post it in a future period in this current year or the next year, choose the Future Period radio button. 
     This makes the Period field editable, and adds a Year field with the default value Current. 
     Enter the required Period and Year values for this allocation.
   • If you want to batch this allocation, choose the Batch transaction radio button. 
     This adds a Batch Reference field and removes the Profiling sub-tab. 
     Enter a Batch Reference for this allocation if required.

6. Enter the Amount to be allocated, and a short Reference and a line of Detail text for this allocation.

7. To choose a Funding Stream for this allocation, if applicable, click the magnifying glass icon and choose from the drop-down list.

8. To choose a Cost Centre for this allocation, if applicable, click the magnifying glass icon and choose from the drop-down list.

9. Click the Profiling sub-tab.
   (If you click Post instead, the Profiling sub-tab will only be displayed if one of the budget accounts needs to be profiled.)
   
   By default, the allocation will be divided into 12 equal amounts.

10. If you want to apply an existing profile to the allocation, choose it from the Auto Profile drop-down list.

11. If you don't want to apply an existing profile to the allocation, ensure that Auto profile is set to None, and set the profile as follows:

    • If you want to remove all the default entries from the month fields, click Clear (the X button). You can clear the entries at any time.

    • You can switch between entering amounts and percentages by clicking the % / £ Mode button.

    • Enter the predicted usage of the allocation in each month field (Month 1, Month 2, …). When you have finished the Total left to allocate will be zero.

12. Click Post to apply the allocation (If you want to cancel the allocation, click Reset.).
13. If you chose to batch the allocation (step 5 above) a confirmation pop-up is displayed; click Batch to confirm.

A green message bar confirms that the posting was successful.

Remove/Balance allocations

It is not possible to remove an allocation once it has been posted.

The action to balance an allocation posted in error will depend on whether allocations are posted manually or by using the Import Budget function:

1. For an allocation that was posted manually, a further allocation should be posted, of the opposite TYPE.
   For example:
   • if you originally posted an allocation of TYPE EXPENDITURE that you now want to remove/reduce, post a further allocation to the same budget account, changing the TYPE of allocation to INCOME.
   • If you originally posted an allocation of TYPE INCOME that you now want to remove/reduce, post a further allocation to the same budget account, changing the TYPE of the allocation to EXPENDITURE.
2. Where budget allocations are being done using the Import Budget function, any existing budget allocations will be overwritten when the new budget is imported.