Manage budgeting
Building blocks
Budget models and submodels group budget register entries; budget codes classify them as original budget, transfer, revision, encumbrance, or carry-forward. Entries are created manually, imported from Excel, or generated from a budget plan, and they follow their own workflow - an unapproved entry funds nothing. Budget dimensions are enabled on the ledger: a dimension not enabled for budgeting cannot be budgeted on, which is a frequent trap.
Budget control
Budget control configuration is per legal entity and only one configuration can be active at a time; the others stay on hold. Inside it you define the budget funds available calculation (which sources are subtracted), the budget control interval (fiscal year, quarter, month, or a budget cycle time span), the over-budget permission (deny, warn, allow) by budget group or user group, and which documents are checked (purchase requisition, purchase order, vendor invoice, journals). Trap: activating the configuration without an approved budget register entry gives zero funds available and blocks all spending.
Planning and spreading
Budget plans run through a process with stages and workflow. You can generate them from historical actuals, allocate across dimensions and periods, and push an approved plan into a budget register entry. Apportionment spreads a register entry across periods - evenly, by period key, or manually - so budget control can check monthly rather than annually.
Worked example
Budget 100,000 for the fiscal year as the control interval; a purchase order for 30,000 is confirmed → budget funds available becomes 70,000. With over-budget permission set to Warn, a further over-limit order can still be confirmed but is flagged; set to Deny, confirmation fails.
Rule of thumb: actual expenditure reduces available budget permanently; an encumbrance from an open purchase order reduces it temporarily.