Phase 2: Create a new budget year

When you first launch the Budget module, the page is blank since you haven't allocated any budgets yet. To begin, click the Add Annual Budget link in the upper left corner to open the Annual Budgets creation page. Select the Fiscal Year. You have the option to go back or forward up to five years. In the Amount field, enter the total budget for the fiscal year selected.

The authorized users feature enables you to establish authorized users for Categories, Line Items, and Reserve Funds. 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.

Each annual budget is set up to use the authorized users feature.

The Budget Summary dashboard part only displays budget items to which the user is authorized.

Assigning authorized users for Categories is a help with data entry. 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 to Categories as you add them, then allocate further.

Each Reserve Fund you add defaults to having the same authorized users as its parent Category (except when adding top level Reserve Funds). However, you can add or remove authorized users, making each Reserve Fund's list different if needed.

Line Items take the authorized users assigned to their parent Categories. The list cannot be modified in different Line Items.

When adding or editing a Category or Reserve Fund, click + Authorized Users to expand the section.

The panel on the left lists Grantmaking users with permission to appropriate funds for Payments. To specify someone as an authorized user, select his or her user name and click Add. The user name moves to the right panel, which lists authorized users.

You can remove someone from the list as well; select them in the right panel and click Remove.

Tip: If you have a long list of users, use the search box to narrow it down. Enter part or all of the user name and click the binoculars button; the list of users in the left panel is filtered to users who match.

The authorized user option in the Annual Budget setup has two settings; the effect of adding a first authorized user depends on that setting:

• All users are authorized for unassigned items: By selecting authorized users, you prevent all other users from appropriating or transferring the funds. If you don't add any authorized users, everyone can appropriate these funds.

• No users are authorized for unassigned items: Only the authorized users you add can appropriate or transfer these funds. When you use this setting in your budget setup, it's important to add authorized users to all items. You want to make sure to add them to top-level Categories before further allocating those Categories, to save time.

This feature is only available to Budget Module customers with Branch Security enabled. Branch Security controls the visibility of budget features.

Grantmaking checks the group(s) the current user is assigned to in order to determine which branches they have full or read-only access to, which in turn affects what is displayed on the pages.

When the default <All> branch menu open is selected, only categories and funds for which the current user has full or read-only branch access are displayed.

The branch menu options are limited as well to only those branches the current user has full or read-only access to.

When creating child reserve funds or line items, the branch field is limited to the parent sub-category.

This change in how budget items are displayed is reflected in the Budget Summary dashboard part. Users are only able to view the items for which they have full or read-only branch access.