Phase 1: Plan your budget

To add a new budget, navigate to the Annual Budgets list and select Add Annual Budget.

Note: During planning and open stages, you can modify some of the budget settings you enter here.

Select the fiscal year for which you want to set up an Annual Budget.

Note: You can only have one Annual Budget for a fiscal year.

Enter the total of the year’s budget (required). Maximum is $1,000,000,000,000.00 (One trillion dollars).

The following options affect how the budget works during planning and open statuses:

• Require user to confirm before increasing budget total during planning stage: Select this check-box if you have a firm idea what your total annual budget is. During allocation, users won't be able to increase the total without first confirming the change. This enables you to do "bottom up" budgeting; you can enter the amounts of different Categories and have it add up to see what the total budget is.

• Allow budget item amounts to be adjusted: Select this check-box to allow budget items' amounts to be adjusted during open stage. This permits the total budget amount to be increased or decreased during the giving year.

• Allow movement of budget items in the hierarchy: If cleared, you cannot move budget items from one parent item to another when the Annual Budget is open.

  Note: Moving items around in budget tiers is always permitted during planning stage.

Each Reserve Fund in an Annual Budget is set either to permit a negative balance or not. During budget allocation, when "New reserve funds should default to allow negative balances" is selected, new Reserve Funds are set to permit this. It is changed in each case; this sets the default.

Select Assign Authorized Users? if you want to employ authorized user permissions during the budget year. Authorized users are established for Categories and Reserve Funds. (Each Line Item takes its authorized users from its parent Category.) Only authorized users assigned to a budget item are able to access the item for Payment appropriation and funds transfers, affording a higher level of control and security. The Budget Summary dashboard part only displays budget items to which the user is authorized. If you choose to use the feature, you must then decide how it should be employed:

• All users are authorized for unassigned items: This option works well if you have a relatively small number of budget items you need to restrict to certain users. By default, new budget items you add during allocation or open stage are open to all users. Only if you specify authorized users all other users become unauthorized.

• No users are authorized for unassigned items: If you plan to keep tight control on all or most of your budget, specifying in each case who may use an item, select this option. No one is able to use a budget item until you add them as authorized users.

Tip: Assign authorized users to Categories before adding child items. By default, a new Category or Reserve Fund takes on its parent Category's authorized users. (Line Items always assume their parent Category's authorized users.) If you have a branching budget and a clear delineation of who may use each branch, enter the authorized users first, then allocate further.

Many grantmakers have several giving programs, not all of which are tracked within the budget. For instance, you may have a Cash Grants program that is part of the budget, but an In-Kind program for non-monetary gifts that are not tracked within the budget.

Grantmaking enables you to exclude those Payments that are not relevant to your budget. In order for a Payment to require budget appropriation, both its Request's Type and its Payment Type must be selected here.

First, select the Request Types whose Payments may hit the budget.

Then, of those Payments, clear any Payment Types that you do not want to hit the budget.

In order to access your Annual Budgets, select Launch, Budget in your Grantmaking menu.

The Annual Budgets page opens, listing all Annual Budgets and, for each budget, its top level Categories and Reserve Funds:

Here you can add an annual budget to set up a new Annual Budget for another fiscal year, print the list of Annual Budgets, and view the closed, open, or planning stage budget.

The body main body of the page provides information about all your Annual Budgets.

• Year: The fiscal year of the Annual Budget. The color of the font in each year row indicates the Budget's status: Red for closed budgets, green for open, blue for budgets in planning.

• Description: The Description of each top level Category or Reserve Fund in the year's Annual Budget.

• Status: Indicates whether the budget is closed, open, or in planning stage.

• Current: The current amount of the Annual Budgets and each top level Category and Reserve Fund. Hover your mouse pointer over this button to see a budget or item's original amount. The “original” amount is the amount of the budget or Category when the budget was initially opened; the total can change later if budget items are adjusted or added.

• Paid: This is the total of Payments for approved Requests which have been appropriated from the top level item and/or its descendants -and- have a status of Paid, Void, or Refund.

• Committed: This is the total of scheduled/contingent/hold Payments for pending and approved Requests which have had funds appropriated from the top level item and/or its descendants.

• Balance: Available balance of the budget or top-level item. The formula follows: Current - Paid - Committed = Balance