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Budgets hold the money set aside for a financial year as a tree of heads, and show against each head what has been sanctioned, released, committed by orders and actually spent — so a buyer finds out a head is exhausted before an order is approved, not at month end.
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The budget heads register: a maintenance budget carved into two site heads The budget heads register: a maintenance budget carved into two site heads Budgets track approved spend. Depreciation tracks what the fleet is worth — a separate question.

Heads

A budget is a tree. A head can be a total carved into smaller heads beneath it, or a leaf — the level money is actually charged at. Only a leaf can be charged: charging both a head and the heads carved out of it would count the same money twice. A head with something charged to it cannot be divided, so the tree never ends up with money against a branch. Every head belongs to one fiscal calendar and year (the calendar names the company and therefore the currency), is either Capital or Operating spend, and can be scoped to a site and a cost centre.

The four figures

The register

Stat strip

heads, committed, available and over (leaf heads with negative availability).

Banners

The Heads tab leads with what nothing else in the product can see:

Budget heads table

Rows are tinted red when a leaf is overdrawn and amber when money is sanctioned but held back.

Opening a budget

Click Open a budget (needs Open a budget head). If your organisation has no fiscal calendar yet, the form says so and links to setting one up. The Open a budget form: code and name, calendar and year, kind, scope, sanction and enforcement The Open a budget form: code and name, calendar and year, kind, scope, sanction and enforcement Click Open it. The head opens as a draft and takes nothing until Activate, which releases the whole sanction. If your approvals release money in a second step, take the balance back out afterwards with Release and a negative amount.

Inside a head

Click a head’s row to expand it. A budget head expanded, showing its company, calendar, enforcement and actions A budget head expanded, showing its company, calendar, enforcement and actions It shows Company, Calendar, Cost centre, Enforcement, Compared on (the whole document, or net of recoverable tax), Documents, what it is Carved into, and its movements.

Releasing money

The Release dialog, showing sanctioned, released, committed and spent The Release dialog, showing sanctioned, released, committed and spent Release shows the four figures and asks for an Amount and Why. A negative amount takes unspent money back. Neither direction can take the release above the sanction or below what is already committed and spent. Where your organisation has an approval workflow on releasing money, Release it sends the release for approval instead: the dialog says Sent for approval. Nothing is released until it is signed off, and you can follow it under Approvals. An approver who sends it back for revision returns it to you; Edit and resubmit in Approvals reopens the release dialog with its amount and reason, and Send it again sends only what you changed.

What charges a head

A document in a different currency from the head is refused unless it carries a converted figure in the head’s currency.

Movements

Every commitment and actual against every head: Date, Head, Kind, What, Reference and Amount. A correction is a row with the opposite sign, so every figure on the register is an account of documents rather than a number somebody maintained.

Amendments

The Amendments tab, with no amendments raised yet The Amendments tab, with no amendments raised yet A change to an approved budget is a document, not an edit: it says who wanted the money moved and why, can carry the cost sheet, and where an approval chain is configured nothing moves until it is signed. Raise an amendment (needs Raise a request to change a budget, and withdraw your own): Raising it moves nothing. Carry it out applies it immediately where no approval chain is configured, or sends it for signature where one is; an approved amendment is applied by a scheduled sweep. Withdraw takes back your own; Turn it down refuses one with a reason. An amendment approved but no longer able to apply — somebody spent the money in the meantime — is flagged at the top. Edit changes an amendment you raised — as Change the amendment — while nothing is asking about it, and while it is with you for revision after an approver sent it back. Closing or removing a head closes any request still open on it.

Over or late

Over or late: a capital project past its commissioning date Over or late: a capital project past its commissioning date Heads spent beyond what was released, and capital projects past their budget or their commissioning date — What, Kind, Approved, Over by, Late and Due. Anything with a request already open drops off, so what is left is work nobody has picked up. Raise a request (needs Raise approval to exceed a budget or a project) records how far over and how late — Over by, Why it cost more, Late by (months), Why it is late — each half with its own reason. Overrun requests lists them; Accept it or Turn it down needs Accept or turn down an overrun. Edit changes a request you raised — as Change the request — while nothing is asking about it, or while it is with you for revision. Accepting moves no money — the amendment that follows does.

Capex planning

Where capital budgets are planned before heads are opened.

FF&E plans

A hotel’s five-year reserve, whose Year 1 is opened as budget heads.