Setting Up Budget Iterations

The Budget Preparation System allows you to set up templates that staff members can use to save copies of the budget figures for selected ledger accounts. These templates are called iterations.

Iterations

Iterations allow flexibility in the budgeting process in the following ways:

• You can capture a "snapshot" of budget data by saving Expenditure, Revenue, and Project Ledger accounts into an iteration. Budgeting personnel can then load an existing iteration into a live Budget Preparation budget worksheet to view the saved budget figures, make adjustments, and re-save the ledger worksheet to the same iteration or a different one.
• Employees can have their own iteration records. This way, people in the same department can avoid overwriting each other's budget figures.
• A single iteration record can be used for saving budget accounts for one or multiple ledgers: Expenditure, Revenue, and Project.

Phases

If you are using budget iterations, you also need to create records in the Phases table. Set up the table before setting up the Iteration List since each iteration must be associated with a phase record.

The Phases table serves a couple of purposes:

• The table gives you a way to identify final iteration data for the three standard levels in the budgeting process: Requested, Recommended, and Approved.
• The table allows you to have additional approval levels beyond the three standard levels. For instance, you may decide to have the budget go through two phases of approval before it can move from the Requested to the Recommended level. The final budget cannot be posted until all phases in the Phases table are closed. A closed phase has a final saved iteration for at least one of the budget ledgers: Expenditure, Revenue, or Project.