Manage Budgets : Dynamic Budgets Helpdesk

Step by Step Tutorial - Manage Budgets

CLICK ON THE BLUE LINK ABOVE TO VIEW TUTORIAL

See attached PDF's, and Other Tutorials & Freshdesk Page Links below

Purpose: To provide tools to manage budgets such as budget list, budget creation, delete/purge budget, lock budgets/acct #s, link actual GP data & display setup, display budgetids, forecast setup, create historical avg for spreads.

This screen provides the tools to manage budgets including:

a) list of existing budgets;

b) creating new budgets (please see 10 - 14);

c) deleting or purging budgets (please see 3 - 4)

d) locking budgets or budget/budget account numbers (please see 5 - 7);

e) linking actual data from Great Plains Accounting ("ERP") software and setting up its display;

f) managing the display of BudgetIDs (please see 14 D - I);

g) setting up a forecast and including any number of months of actual data which are locked; and

h) creating an historic average for spreading purposes.

Standard functionality is Print, Export to Excel, Print to PDF, Autofit Columns, Expand/Reduce Column Width, Copy and Paste, Filter, Column Data Sort - Ascending/Decending and Select/Deselect All.

Right-Click Menu and Short-Cut Keys are as follows:

1. To display all the available budgets select from the dropdown menu the CompanyDB (<all> to view all CompanyDB) you wish to view and then click "Show Budgets".

2. To display or hide Company Tags click this button.

Please contact Dynamic Budgets if you wish to change or utilize this sensitive field.

Before either Deleting (3) or Purging (4), please contact Dynamic Budgets for assistance.

3. Deleting a BudgetID deletes the Budget Header records listed in this table - the related underlying data still exists.

Select the BudgetID you wish to delete by clicking in the arrowed far left box. Click the "Delete" button, and the below Confirm message box appears. Click "Yes" to continue deletion.

4. Purging a BudgetID deletes the Budget Header records listed in this table, all the Account Number (Budget Account Numbers), Assumptions, Comments and Attachments associated with this BudgetID.

Select the BudgetID you wish to purge by clicking in the arrowed far left box, Click the "Purge" button, and the below Confirm message box appears. Click "Yes" to continue purge.

5. BudgetIDs or BudgetIDs with related Account Number (Budget Accounts Numbers) can be Locked or Unlocked. To access this functionality Drill - Blue Underline into the indicated box.

Please note that when drilling down for an ERP ledger the following message box will appear. Click on "OK" to clear the message.

6. To lock the budget only, click on the "Lock Budget Only" button. Please note this action does not change the locked status for any of the Accounts. In the example, AccountNum 000-4110-02 is locked and will remain so.

After clicking the "Lock Budget Only" button, the screen is updated as below, namely the button is now the "Unlock Budget Only" button, it is noted "Budget is LOCKED". AccountNum 000-4110-02 remains locked while the others accounts unlocked.

The Manage Budget screen is updated with a "Locked" status for the BudgetID.

By locking the budget, the BudgetID will be unavailable in the search dropdown menu on Create Budget Accounts and therefore new Budget Accounts will not be able to be created for the locked BudgetID. AccountNums on the Dashboard tab on Basic Budget Entry are Locked.

And AccountNums on the Accounts Detail tab available through drill - blue underline are available for data entry provided the AccountNum was not previously Locked like 000-4110-02 above.

7. By clicking the "Lock Budget and Accounts" button, both the Budget and all its AccountNum will be locked. Please note that only AccountNum 000-4110-02 was locked before clicking the button.

This is what the screen looks like after the button is clicked; namely the button is now the "Unlock Budget and Accounts" button, and it is noted "Budget is LOCKED" . As highlighted all AccountNums are now checked as Locked.

The Manage Budget screen is updated to "Locked" for the BudgetID as below:

And accounts on the Accounts Detail tab available through drill - blue underline are Locked.

A. Clicking the "Save Locked Status on Accounts" button will save the AccountNum status. In the above example, all accounts were locked and will be saved as such.

B. Then by clicking the "Unlock Budget Only" button, the budget will unlock. The accounts will remain locked on the Budgeting Dashboard and the Basic Budget Entry screens.

Clicking the "Unlock Budget and Accounts" button will unlock the budget and all its AccountsNum. AccountNums that have data flowing from modules, such as payroll, will remain locked.

9. In order to display actual data by year from Great Plains Accounting (ERP) software in Dynamic Budget, a linked BudgetID for each fiscal year of actual data needs to be setup . Please see How Do I Setup and Display Actual Reporting (ERP BudgetID)?

Please note that the "Source" of these linked BudgetIDs is "ERP", the "Actual" is True as is the "Imported". For non-linked BudgetIDs, the Source is "DynamicB" and the "Actual" and "Imported" are False.

10. To create a new BudgetID, select the CompanyDB for which you wish to create the BudgetID. By selecting <all>, a new BudgetID will be created for all CompanyDB that are available for budgeting.

11. Enter the name of the budget/forecast in the box. In our example, "2017 T1". Please note that a budget/forecast name/description is mandatory to save the new BudgetID.

12. Click the "Create New Budget" button to create the new budget/forecasts, and below "Confirm" message box will appear.

13.To create the BudgetID/s click on the "Yes" button.

Please note that the above steps create the BudgetID template however NO Budget Numbers (Budget Accounts Numbers) have been setup. To create budget accounts numbers please see Create Budget Accounts.

14. This is the newly created BudgetID. Please note the data in the yellow highlights. Namely, the CompanyDB and BudgetID (which are defined in 10. and 11. above) and system defaults for Source "(DynamicB"), Locked status ("Not Locked"), whether the Budget data is ERP "Actual" data ("False"), and whether the Budget data is ERP "Imported" ("False").

Please note that any changes made to the BudgetID (A. -H.) below need to be saved by clicking the "Save Budgets" button.

A. The Description is user-defined and system default is the name of the BudgetID defined in 11. Here the name was change to "Test 2017 Budget".

B. Please review the "Year" the system defaulted to and change according. In this example, the system default was "2016" and as this is a 2017 budget, it needs to be changed to "2017".

C. Please review the system default for "FromDate" and "ToDate" and revise accordingly. In the example, the dates need to be changed. "FromDate" should be "01/01/2017" and "ToDate" should be "12/31/2017".

D. The system defaults to a checked IsBudgeted box. This means the BudgetID is available for budgeting and also can be viewed in the "Budgets" Search dropdown menus. Also, please see How Do I Add/Delete BudgetIds on the Budgeting Search Dropdown Menu?

E. The system defaults to a checked InSummary box. This means that the BudgetID can be viewed in the Budget Summary. Also, please see How Do I Add/Delete BudgetIDs Displayed on the Budget Summary and How Do I Display a Forecast in the Budget Summary? The checked box also means another budget can be spread according to the spread of the check-boxed BudgetID. Please see Using the Simple Spread Methods, item C.

F. The system defaults to a checked InLookups box. This means that the BudgetID is available for Lookup. Please see the related article: How Do I Add/Delete BudgetIDs that are Available in LoopUps?

G. The system defaults to a checked InReports box. This means that the BudgetID is available for reporting and also can be viewed in the "Reports" Search dropdown menus. Also, please see How Do I Add/Delete BudgetIDs Displayed on Reporting Search Dropdown Menus?

H. The system defaults to a checked InVariances box. A checked box causes the BudgetID to be available for selection in Manage Variances.

I. By checking the "InCapex" box for a given BudgetID, the BudgetID will be available for selection from BudgetID drop down menu in Manage Capex and Capital Expenditures Report.

15. Per 10.-12 above BudgetIDs can be created for forecasting purposes. The "IsForecast" functionality provides the ability to include Locked ERP Actuals data for specified months in the forecast.

To include Locked ERP Actuals data check the "IsForecast" box.

A. Check the "IsForecast" box which changes from Locked (grey in color) to editable (white) the "Actuals Cutoff Period" and "ComparativeBudgetID" cells.

B. From the dropdown menu in the "Actuals Cutoff Period" cell select the last month that you wish to include actuals data for. This is a Year-to-Date (YTD) selection. In the below example actuals will be included from the beginning of the fiscal year (in this example, January) through April.

C. Select the "ComparativeBudgetID" from the dropdown menu. The data from this BudgetID is used in the non-actual data columns.

The dropdown menu displays all the BudgetIDs with the same "Year" as the "Year" of the Forecast which is "2014" and Source is "DynamicBudgets". It then uses the "Year" and the "Actual" column to be "True" to identify the BudgetID that will be used in the Forecast Actuals. In our example, the BudgetID for "2014 Actuals".

Below is 2014 Forecast displayed on the Basic Budget Entry. Please note that Jan- Mar are Actuals and that the data is Locked and cannot be edited.

In our example Actuals were locked from January - March and as future months actuals close it may be desirable to include those months as well in the forecast. To do so select the required YTD month, say July, from the drop-down in B. above, move your curser to another cell and then click "Save Budgets".

The action will lock April - July on the Budget screens but it will not update (synchronize) the Actual data for April - July. In our example below, Apr - Jul were locked but the data for Apr remained $250 and data for May $750. As can be seen on the "Actuals/Forecast Total" row and the 2014 Actual information the Budget Summary Apr should be $0 and June should be $48. Synchronizing Actual data is a process that is completed on the Forecast Builder - Design Forecast Templates/Update tab for a single CompanyID or Forecast Builder - MultiCo Sync for multiple CompanyIDs using the same Forecast Template Name.

16. To Create an Historical Average to use for Spreading (see C. of this article) a budget according to the calculated average:

A. From the dropdown menu select the Company DB (or <all>) for which you wish to create the average;

B. From the dropdown menu select the Budget Year for which you wish to create the average. This selection determines which Budget Years will be used in creating the average. For example, by selecting 2017, 2013- 2015 will be used. By selecting 2016, 2012- 2014 will be used.

C. From the dropdown menu select the number of years you wish to include in the average calculation;

D. Click the "Create Average" and the below "Confirm" message will appear.

E. Click "Yes" to continue to create the average and a new BudgetID will be created which is based on the selected criteria In our example, the name of the BudgetID is "FY2017-3yr-Avg"