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Search and New Budget

The Budget command allows you to search, manage, and print budgets: you can create new ones (using the New button in the ribbon bar, or the New Budget command directly in the menu), modify existing ones, or even duplicate a previously entered one. The duplicate function, in particular, will display a management popup where:

  • you can define whether you want to create a New version (flag) of the selected budget, or create a new budget with the assignment of a new number (flag set to false);
  • you must set the Description for the copy to be created;
  • you can apply (Flag true) or not (Flag false) the Variation percentages assigned to the various accounting detail accounts.

The budget search form by default displays only the latest version of each budget (with the same Budget Number, Budget Type, and Period Type): by opening the filter section of the form, you can also view previous versions, which remain stored, by activating the Show all versions flag.

Note

The Variation percentages table, available in the Controlling tables, allows you to define a percentage variation value for the fixed and variable portions of the detail account values. Each code can then be assigned to the individual cost/revenue detail account within the chart of accounts.

Actual

The following menu commands, for searching and entering a new Actual Budget, allow you to create actual analyses to highlight variance analysis compared to the forecast prepared in this form, and thus assess management performance.

New Budget​

  1. Fill in the mandatory header data such as Budget Type, Period Type, Description. Modify other data if necessary, such as Date, Year, and the reference dates of the budget (Start Date - End Date). It is mandatory to set either the year or the date range (in the latter case, Fluentis will fill in the year field from the start date's year).
  • Final flag: makes the budget non-editable;
  • Default flag: identifies which budget is in use compared to other versions used, for example, only for simulation purposes;
  • Detailed by division flag: enables the possibility to associate sub-budgets to each specific company division.
  1. Fill in the upper grid data by entering the types of values that will be used in your Budget (defined below in relation to the sub-budget detail data), among those available, from the Budget object type field:
    • Accounting detail accounts
    • Cost / revenue centers
    • Reclassification models
    • Items

Depending on the data type, the relevant column for setting the data is enabled (in the case of accounting data or reclassification model). The Description column, optional, allows you to enter more details about the selected data;

The Department column is active only if the budget by division definition has been enabled in the header.

  1. Manage the lower grids according to the selected data type:
  • The grid at the left will contain the list with the detail values referring to the selected sub-budget above, so the available fields will depend on the type of sub-budget itself (data type), sharing the debit, credit, fixed amount, and variable amount fields. The percentage allocation of the fixed and variable amounts can be predefined in the chart of accounts, by filling in the variability field at the detail account level or at the detail account variability grid for cost center level.
Example

If the sub-budget is for detail accounts, you will have a list of detail accounts; if it is for cost centers, you will have the detail account and the cost center; if it is for revenue centers, you will have the detail account and the revenue center; if it is for a model, you can select the nodes of the associated model.

Once you start filling in the detail data of a sub-budget, the linked upper row will no longer be editable.

  • The grid on the right will allow you to allocate data period by period: in the case of manual entry in the left grid, there is currently no automatic allocation or reconciliation check between the right detail section and the left one.

Automatic sub-budget allocation procedures​

Within the budget there are some buttons that allow you to automatically allocate the data of the various sub-budgets, retrieving the data from other sections of Fluentis depending on the selected sub-budget.

BUDGET FOR ACCOUNTING DETAIL ACCOUNTS

You can allocate this sub-budget using two buttons:

  • Create from ledger records: displays a popup to filter registration dates, competence, any ledger record to exclude (for example, the closing entry for a previous period, to avoid having zero balances), flags to also include balance sheet accounts (the income statement will always be included); apply the variation percentages (defined in the 'Variation percentages' table); apply the relative value of the period or (alternatively) use the original economic competences.
Note

With these last two options, which are alternatives, Fluentis will allocate the period details (i.e., the grid at the bottom right) by reading the weights assigned to the individual budget periods, or by considering the original competence date ranges of the entries (e.g., if cost X has only one competence movement from 01/03 to 31/08, on the right you will find the values from March to August, proportioned to the actual number of days in each month)

  • Create from interim closings: displays a popup to filter the interim closing to be used as the data source, applying the same options already seen in the previous case (flag to include balance sheet data, apply variation percentages, and apply the relative period values from the period distribution or the original economic competences of the entries).

  • Group detail rows: used when the Use original economic competences option has been used: in this case, Fluentis will insert a detail row for each economic competence range found, which is convenient for calculation checks but inconvenient for subsequent management of budget totals. This button, therefore, allows you to total the values for each detail account, grouping the related period data.

BUDGET FOR COST / REVENUE CENTERS

For this type, the following buttons are available: (The first two and the last are the same options as in the previous point and do not require further explanation).

  • Create from ledger records

  • Create from interim closings

  • Create cost centers from accounting accounts: opens a popup to select (multiple selection enabled) the list of Sub-budget of type detail account to use as data source; the budget data of these detail accounts are read and the budget for cost centers is allocated by reading the default settings of the Chart of Accounts (links with centers, etc...) for each detail account, recalculating variability if necessary (same reference as the previous type).

  • Create cost centers from management entry history: opens a popup (useful only if the controlling module is fully used) to select the Management entry history (From year to year and from period to period and the Area) with the possibility to apply (Flag) the variation percentages.

  • Group detail rows

BUDGET ON RECLASSIFICATION MODELS

For this type, the only active button is Create model values, which opens a popup to select the sub-budgets to be used as data sources (the combo box allows multiple selection with Ctrl or Shift keys):