Advanced Fund
Management Solutions

Hi Everyone,

Version 3.05, is to be released in about a month, and will offer the new Budget Development module! This valuable, and frequently requested, budget tool will allow you to work entirely within the AccuFund system and modify your budget any way you wish. We feel this module is so important that we are devoting the entire issue to it this month! As always, if you have any questions regarding an Accufund® issue, please contact me at (318) 253-8556, or email me at jgarv@afmss.com

Budget Development

With the introduction of the Budget Development (BD) module in version 3.05 (due to a computer near you, soon!) the budgeting process will be made much easier and entirely within the AccuFund Accounting Suite environment. This article, and in fact this whole issue of the newsletter, is devoted to introducing you to the major features of this new module.

We will take this in several steps. First, since the BD module relies on the display of the accounts you will be budgeting, we must first look at whether you are setup to display accounts with classifications (you probably are, since you'll have classifications for the most commonly budgeted accounts-Revenue and Expenses). Secondly, we'll focus on getting the proper annual dollar amounts on your accounts. Finally, we'll distribute those annual budgets in several ways (evenly, by distribution table, or by prorating based on historical data). Let's get started!

You may have more than one budget defined for each fiscal year, if you wish. For example, you could have a budget for just Expenses for FY2008. And you could also have a separate budget for Revenues for FY2008. Each can be prepared separately and eventually posted to your General Ledger when you wish. We will be combining Revenues and Expenses in the same budget in our example. In our case this will require us to create a new classification that contains the Revenue and Expense classifications (you don't have to do it this way, you could create two separate budgets by using your existing Revenue and Expense classifications separately). Go to Setup/General Ledger/Classifications. You will see a list of your classifications similar to the one shown below:

Under the Account Type folder, we see the standard five account types. The most frequently budgeted account types, Revenue and Expense, are shown. We can combine them, for budgeting purposes only, under an umbrella classification that we will call "Net Income" (seen below). When combined, they yield the Net Income. Using the Insert key, we add the new classification. The normal balance is shown as Credit. Click on OK to save the new classification.

Open your Account Type folder, if necessary. Highlight Revenue or Expense and click on the "Left" button at the bottom of the form. Your classification will probably appear below the new one you created (if not, use the left and up or down buttons to place it immediately below the new classification). Once below the new classification, click on the "Right" button to indent the classification and make it appear under the new Net Income classification. Do the same for the other classification. Your list of classifications will look something like this:

Close the Browse Classifications form. We're now ready to create our first budget revision!

Open the Budget Development menu item. The Browse Budget Projects form opens. This is where we create and work with our Budget Projects (which may also be known as budget revisions). Click on the "New" button. This is where we begin the process of creating the new Project.

Fill in the form as shown below. We used an Activity Date of 6/30/2005 because that is the last month of a fiscal year that has some data. It will shown on reports and can form the basis of a new budget revision amount. The Post From and To date fields indicate that we are creating a twelve month budget (FY2008), although, it could be for 18 months, or 5 months. Click on the "Next" button.

Some worksheets will be organized for us depending on instructions we enter in the next form. We will assume that we want to have a worksheet for each of our departments. Highlight the appropriate account structure elements (Fund and Dept in this case) one at a time and insert them on the Assigned Elements screen as indicated below:

Click on the "Next" button.

On the Worksheet Rows form we control what information will appear on our worksheet rows. We added a new classification called Net Income, and assigned the Revenue and Expense classifications to it. They show up here. Select the proper classification (in our example it is the Net Income classification that contains the Revenue and Expense classifications that will pull the accounts we will want to see on the worksheets. Click on the "Next" button.

Once the Historical Columns form opens, click on the "Insert" button to add columns to your worksheet. Below is shown the first column. It is an amount column with annual actuals from last year. Click on the "OK" button after entering the instructions.

Click on the "Insert" button again to add a budget column from last year. Here's what the form looks like:

Click on the "OK" button. If you would like a current Year-to-Date actual column, insert this one:

Click on the "OK" button. You will now see all of your columns entered:

Click on the "Next" button. Next we get to limit what accounts will appear on the final worksheets based on ranges in the account elements. Here we selected only Fund 001, and Departments 000 through 002 (this is the only range that has interesting data in our database). After inserting your choices, click on the "Next" button.

You'll see the worksheets that were created based on your element selections (here we're only going to get three worksheets:

Click on the "Next" button and receive your Congratulations! After relishing the moment, click on the "Finish" button. You'll see your Budget on the "Browse Budget Projects" list:

Let's take a look at the worksheets we have created. Click on the "Change" button. And then select the "Worksheets" tab. You'll see the three worksheets that resulted from our element selections:

In our database, the first one is the only one with much data. Highlight it and click on the change button.

On the next form you see an Access tab that can limit who can see this worksheet. We won't be dealing with that in this article. Instead, click on the "Budget" tab.

Here you see the first of our worksheets (only a portion is shown for space reasons). Note that the rows reflect the contents of the classification we created (which contain the Revenue and Expense classifications). The accounts are shown collapsed (they can be opened by clicking in the "+" signs to their left. You will probably have to widen the form and use the slider to see all of the columns. Note that there is a Budget (Rev 1) column added by the system. We'll bring in last year's actuals as a starting place for the first Budget revision.

Click on the "Calc" button. The form shown below opens:

The "Budget fields" column is highlighted. Double click on Col1-Annual Actual, and that will be placed in the Calculation field below. The actuals will now appear in the budget rev column. We want this to apply to every row in the worksheet, so we select the "Worksheet" option at the bottom of the form. If we make other selections, we will limit which accounts get the actuals from the previous year. Click on the "OK" button.

Obviously, many types of calculations can be placed in a revision column (notice the list of functions and operators, for example). However, the calc options go beyond our scope here.

Now you'll see last year's actuals in the revision column. If you don't like what you see, click on the "Undo" button to remove the last action. What we have accomplished is to copy from one column to another.

Open up the first row by clicking on its "+" sign. Double click on the number in the Budget Rev 1 column for the first account, as shown:

The number may now be changed (we changed ours to 55,000). Remember, we are dealing with an annual amount, we haven't distributed it yet. After changing the number, press the down arrow or the enter key. Using the tab key can get you to the Notes field, where you may explain why you made a change. (The "Quick" button at the bottom of the form will allow you to print out the worksheet for review.) We'll assume that we have completed the necessary Budget Rev 1 entries. Check the "Complete" box with your mouse-this tells the system that the worksheet is complete. Click on the "OK" button to close the worksheet. Other worksheets could now be modified (we opened each of ours just to mark them complete). Close the List of Worksheets form by clicking on the "OK" button.

You should now be back on the "Browse Budget Projects" form. Click on the "Lock" button to prevent anyone from changing our work. Several button have now become active. You may Revise Budget 1, creating another revision, distribute the revision into periods that you wish, or Purge the revision from the system. First, we'll look at a distribution table.

Click on the icon with the % sign on it. This will show any distribution tables that have been created. We have one for quarterly distributions of Grant revenue. It is shown below in the view mode:

Here, 25% is distributed into each of four periods. The percentages must add to 100%, but, otherwise, any percentage can go into any period. Click on the "OK" button.

To distribute our budget, go back to the Browse Budget Projects screen. Highlight our Budget and then click on the "Distribute" button. The form opens as shown below . There are a number of distribution options. All in the first period creates an annual budget with the amounts in your first fiscal period. Evenly across all periods places about 8.33% of the annual amount in each of your twelve periods (if you're budgeting twelve). The distribution table may be selected as well. The annual budget can also be distributed in a prorated fashion based on previous years posting of actuals, budgets, etc. Or, finally, based on this year's posting of actuals, budgets, etc. We'll start with evenly across all periods. Check it and click on the "OK" button.

Now open the budget in the change mode and go to the Worksheets tab. Highlight the proper worksheet and click on the "Change" button. Click on the Budget tab and you will see the evenly distributed budget. You may change any distributed period (though the distributed amounts must add up to the annual amount).

On our first distribution we have evenly distributed all of the accounts. There is another distribution button at the bottom of the Worksheet that lets you redistribute any account or accounts on the worksheet. For example, you may highlight the row of Federal Grant income accounts. Click on the "Dist" button to elect to distribute by using a quarterly distribution table. Any combination of even, annual, prorating on history or current year's activity may be used to get each account distributed as needed.

With the Budget Project completed, click on the "Post" button that is found on the Browse Budget Projects form. The form shown below opens:

The "Calculate Net" button is checked, in this case. This means that if you are budgeting an expense account for $100. and it already has $50 budgeted in General Ledger, then only an extra $50 will be sent to General Ledger to bring it up to the desired $100 total. The "Post Type" allows us to post budget revisions if we create another Budget Project and post it later. The reference and description allow us to explain the posting. Click on the "OK" button. Close the Budget Development forms-you're done!