Projects > Opened project > Project controlling > Budgets

When you use the New () function, or click on in the Budgets section (navigation area), a wizard opens. This wizard guides you through each step to create a new budget.

All the settings of an opened budget are saved under Configuration (Configuration area). To edit settings, click there in the corresponding section on .

Basic settings

First enter the basic settings for the budget.

Budget

Give the budget a name that is unique within the project.

Budget type

Set whether the budget applies to all the expenses of the project or only to expenses with certain properties.

Total project budget

A total project budget is valid for the entire project term. It applies to all the project expenses that are balance sheet effective. Overall project budgets are always planned in company currency.

Flexible budget

A flexible budget allows you to narrow down planned expenses based on different criteria:

▪You can restrict the validity to expenses that are assigned to certain fundings (donors) or that have been posted in certain journals.

▪You can also restrict the validity to a period, e.g. to a specific year.

▪The validity can be limited to a specific voucher currency or reporting currency.

▪It can also be limited to vouchers with the balance sheet effective or for information purposes voucher type.

Confidential budget

Here it is possible to indicate whether only those users who have access to confidential data may view the budget (user-specific setting in the User administration).

For example, if you post staff costs in confidential journals, the budget for these expenses must also be confidential in order to assign them to the budget.

PLEASE NOTE: This setting is only available if your organisation uses confidential data (Organisational setting) and you have access to confidential data.

Currency type

Choose whether you want to plan the budget in company currency, a voucher currency or a reporting currency.

All the voucher currencies that are used in released journals in the project are available for selection.

If you want to plan the budget in reporting currency, select the reporting currency scheme (RC scheme). All the RC schemes that are assigned to a funding of the project are available.

Reporting method

Define here how expenses in analyses are assigned to the broken down budget values – based on the voucher date, the accounting period or the reporting period.

Example:

▪A project staff member on a longer business trip refuels a vehicle at the end of November (voucher date) and pays in cash.

▪She gives the receipt i.e. the voucher to the project accountant after her return in early January. Since the year is already closed, she posts the voucher in January (accounting period).

▪The expenses from November have already been settled with the donor, but the reports for December have not yet been submitted. In the posting view the project controller therefore changes the reporting period to December so that the costs can still be assigned to the old year.

Depending on which reporting method you use, the payment is compared to the budget for November, December or January in an analysis.

Budgeted to

Determine a structure for the budget lines.

Budget structure	Choose a Budget structure to plan expenses on budget lines, e.g. according to a donor's requirements. All the released budget structures of the project are available. In the Level of detail field, you specify at which Budget level you enter budget values.
Cost categories	Select this setting to plan expenses based on the Cost categories of the chart of accounts. Set whether you will enter budget values for main accounts or sub-accounts. This setting is only available if the project chart of accounts has already been released.
Cost category group structure	When you create a Cost category group structure for the project, you can plan expenses for cost category groups.

Validity area (Flexible budgets)

For flexible budgets, define the period and the vouchers to which the budget applies.

Validity period

Set the period that the budget applies to.

Total project term	The budget is valid for the entire project term set in the project master data (including renewal/project extension).
User-defined term	Enter a different time period, e.g. if the budget should only apply to a certain year, quarter or number of months. In analyses, only expenses that occur in this period are taken into account.

Voucher type

Indicate whether you are budgeting costs that are balance sheet effective or for information purposes. Depending on what you set here, different journals are available.

Fundings

Set whether you are budgeting for expenses to be assigned to all, or only certain fundings. All the fundings are available that are at least in the Applied for Contract status.

When you select All fundings the setting also applies to fundings that will be created in the project in the future.

If fundings are shown in italics, they are archived fundings.

Journals

Set whether you want to budget expenses of all, or only certain journals. A journal is available if it meets the following requirements:

▪The journal is released.

▪The voucher type of the journal matches the voucher type of the budget.

▪If the budget is in voucher currency, only journals of this currency and the journal of the Project accounting (costs from external projects) journal class are available.

▪Confidential journals are only available if the budget is confidential.

Breakdown (total project budgets and flexible budgets)

Set the budget columns here. While the budget structure, cost categories or cost category groups determine how the lines of the budget are named, here you determine which values you plan on these lines and at what intervals.

Breakdown by

Set whether certain columns of the budget should be broken down using time criteria.

Without breakdown

If you do not break down the budget by time, you can enter a total value for each shown planning column.

Calendar year, quarter, month

Select one of these settings to create a column for each calendar year, quarter or period. You can enter annual, quarterly or monthly budgets.

User-defined

Select this setting to plan budgets for user-defined periods that do not depend on the start of the calendar year.

Example:

▪Some donors provide funds at intervals that are not based on the calendar year, e.g. every four months from the start of the project.
budget_breakdown_custom01

▪If you want to plan annual budgets that start each year in the month the project begins, set the interval to 12 months.
budget_breakdown_custom02

Budget

Select Breakdown to plan a budget value in each interval:

Choose Total to plan only one total budget value in the first column. If you have set a breakdown and do not break down the Budget column, at least one other planning column must be broken down.

Planning columns

If you are planning a budget that is based on a budget structure, you can enter further Planned values in the Quantity, Revenue, Contribution margin and Contribution margin (%) planning columns.

Select Total to only plan one plan value per line, regardless of the breakdown, and not to break down this column by time.

Select Broken down to compare the expenses with a planned value in each time interval.

When you select No planning the respective column is not displayed.

In the following example, the budget is broken down by Calendar year. The Budget column is broken down and the Quantity column is planned with the Total setting. All the other planning columns are not planned.

New budget

New budget

Validity area (Flexible budgets)

Breakdown (total project budgets and flexible budgets)