Budgets and Lines

A budget belongs to a programme, project, grant or event. It has lines (what the money is for), each with an allocation, and it goes through approval before anything can be spent from it.

Budget statuses

Status	What it means	Who moves it on
Draft	Being prepared. Only the budget’s owner and admins can change it.	Owner or admin: Submit for approval
Submitted	Waiting for approval. Lines can’t be edited.	Its approvers: Approve, or Send back with a reason (back to Draft)
Approved	Fixed. Changes now go through a numbered revision.	Owner or admin: Activate
Active	Accepts commitments and spending.	Finance or admin: Close budget
Closed	Nothing can be posted. This can’t be undone.

Create a budget

1. Go to Budget → Budgets and click + New budget.
2. Fill in:

Field	What to enter
Name	For example, “Cash Plus Programme”
Type	Programme, Project, Grant or Event
Start date, End date	The budget period
Over-budget policy	Warn (a finance approver may go over a line with a written, audited reason) or Block (nothing can take a line below zero, including Scolah Compass approvals)
Owner	Who prepares and revises it
External reference	Optional, for example the grant agreement number

3. Click Create budget. It opens in Draft.

Start from an earlier budget or a template

To reuse a budget’s structure, choose it under Start from in the + New budget form, or open the budget and click Copy. Give the new budget its name and dates. Its lines, sub-lines and allocations are copied into a new Draft; nothing spent or committed comes across. Untick Keep the phasing of each line or Keep the funding of each line to leave those out. Phasing that doesn’t fit the new dates is dropped and the line is spread evenly.

To keep a reusable starting point, open a budget and click Save as template. Templates are listed under the Templates tab of Budgets, can be edited like a draft, and are never spent from. Open one and click Start a budget from this template. Budget owners and admins can copy budgets and templates.

New budget form

Add lines

On the budget’s Lines tab:

1. Click + Add line, give it a Line name, a Category and its Allocated amount.
2. To split a line, click + Sub-line on it. A line with sub-lines becomes a heading: it shows the sum of its sub-lines, has no allocation of its own, and nothing is posted to it. There is one level of sub-lines.

You can also load lines from a spreadsheet: Import lines (CSV) (see CSV imports).

Phase a line by month or quarter

A line’s Phasing says when its money is meant to be spent. Reports then compare spending with that plan instead of an even spread.

1. In the line’s dialog, set Phasing to Monthly or Quarterly. One box appears for each month or quarter the budget’s dates touch.
2. Fill in the amounts, or click Spread evenly to divide the allocation equally (any rounding goes in the last period). Left to place shows what still has to be put in a period.
3. Click Save. The phases must add up to the line’s allocation exactly; a period left empty counts as zero.

A phased line shows Phased monthly or Phased quarterly in the list. Headings (lines with sub-lines) aren’t phased; phase their sub-lines. If you shorten a draft budget’s dates, Resources refuses while a line is still phased into a period that would fall outside them.

Fund a line from grants

Click Funding on a line to say which grants pay for it and how much each gives (Amount from grant). If the grant amounts don’t add up to the line’s allocation, Resources tells you. Grants are set up under Funding sources.

Finance release on a line

Finance can require a finance release on a line, so that Scolah Compass payouts from it wait until finance releases the money. See Finance release.

Submit, approve and activate

1. The owner clicks Submit for approval.
2. It follows the Budget approval rule on Approval config; the starter rule asks for one finance approver. The budget shows its approval chain, and its approvers find it under Approvals. Each approver clicks Approve, or Send back with a reason. The owner can’t approve their own submission.
3. Once the last approval is in, the budget is Approved. The owner clicks Activate. The budget starts accepting commitments and actual spending.

Other budget actions, such as creating or editing a draft, activating, closing, posting or reversing a ledger entry, are rights too. If your workspace has set one of them to need approval, it is held until approved, and the budget shows a banner while it waits. See Changes waiting for approval.

Budget detail with lines

Read a line

Every line shows Allocated, Committed (approved, not yet paid), Actual (spent) and Available (allocated − committed − actual), with how much of it is used. Click a line’s Ledger to see every entry posted to it: commitments, actuals, releases and reversals, with their source (expense, advance, purchase order, stock receipt, Scolah Compass, import or manual).

Manual entries

Finance approvers and admins can post an entry by hand from a line’s ledger, for example spending recorded outside Resources:

1. Click + Manual entry and choose the Type: Commit, Actual or Release.
2. Enter the amount, date and references, then click Check impact. Nothing is posted yet.
3. Resources shows whether it is Within budget, or over budget. Over budget on a Block budget can’t be posted; on a Warn budget you can Post with override and give a reason.

Entries can be posted only while the budget is Active.

With the starter rules, a manual entry, and a reversal, waits for one finance approver other than you before it is posted. A pending entry already counts against the line. See Changes waiting for approval.

Correct a wrong actual

Entries are never edited. To correct an actual that was posted by hand, imported or sent by Scolah Compass, reverse it:

1. On the line’s ledger, click Reverse on the actual.
2. Enter the Amount to reverse (all that is left, unless you change it) and Why it was wrong, then click Reverse.

The reversal is dated like the original, so reports for that period are corrected, and the actual shows Reversed or how much has been reversed. Post the right figure as a new entry if needed. Actuals that came from an expense, advance or purchase order can’t be reversed here; correct them from that record. Finance approvers and admins can reverse, while the budget is Active.

Change an approved budget: revisions

Once approved, a budget changes only through a revision with a reason and its own approval.

1. On the Revisions tab, click Request revision.
2. Give a New allocation for any line you want to change (leave others empty to keep them), or + New line to add one. A new allocation can’t go below what is already committed and spent.
3. Give a Reason and click Submit revision.
4. It follows the Budget revision rule on Approval config, matched on how much it moves the budget total; the starter rule asks for one finance approver. You can’t approve your own revision. The last approval applies the changes and the revision number goes up; rejecting needs a reason.

A phased line’s allocation and phases change together. In the revision dialog, its new allocation is refused; use Phasing on the line instead:

1. Click Phasing on the line. You can change its Allocated amount, its phasing, or both.
2. Give a Reason and click Submit revision. It waits for a finance approver like any other revision, and the revision list shows “(phased monthly)” or “(phased quarterly)” next to the change.

To move money between two lines without a full revision, use a reallocation.