Setting and reading budgets

Overview

Budgets are worked from Purchasing → Budgets. Pick a period at the top; the summary band shows four figures for the whole org, and the table below ranks cost centres worst-first, flagging any that are Over budget, Would go over, or Nearly spent.

The four numbers

• Authorised — what finance set for this period.
• Spoken for — money that's reserved by approved requisitions, committed to suppliers on issued orders, or already spent (goods received).
• Available — what's left after everything spoken for.
• Projected — available, minus requests that are submitted but still undecided. It answers "if everything in flight is approved, where do we land?"

A line under the band states what the figures count (goods plus tax, freight, and duty, per your budget rules) and which exchange rates were used.

Setting a budget

Each cost centre row has a pencil action. In the Budget for CC-… dialog, type the target amount the centre should have for the period — not a delta. The dialog shows what the change does ("Adds $5,000." / "Takes back $5,000.") and records the movement in the ledger, along with the Reason you give.

Reading a cost centre

Click through to a cost centre to see This period — the available figure, a composition bar splitting Spent / Committed / Reserved / Pending — and History, one row per period showing how each one ended. The movements ledger at the bottom is covered in The budget ledger, period close, and rules.