Budget Maintenance
The Budget Maintenance screen provides users with the ability to create requests for revision of funds within a budget or amend/add funds to a budget. A History of requests for budget amendments and revisions are available for review at any time. Approvers and Requesters can access and review pending amendment and revision requests for approval, etc.
If the setting Forced balanced entry on budget amendment is enabled via Setup > Settings > Miscellaneous > Misc. section, equal expense/revenue totals on budget amendments are required.
The options available are dependent on your profile permissions set via Setup > Profiles > Budgeting/General Ledger tab > Budget Maintenance section, including the ability to submit requests and create tranfers between funds.
1. In the Budgeting/General Ledger menu, click Budget Maintenance.
2. From the Drafts tab, in the Create a Draft section, enter a Title for your draft.
3. The fiscal year defaults to the current year; however, it can be changed by selecting the applicable FY from the pull-down.
4. Click Create.
Clicking Create will open a new tab called Edit Amendment or Edit Revision; this is dependent upon profile permissions set up by the district. If you do not have permissions to amendments, you will only have the option to request a revision (Edit Revision tab). If you have permissions for both, you will have to make a selection as to which you would like to request.
If you created a draft and began creating a request for an amendment or a revision but did not submit, the draft will be saved on the Drafts tab under the Existing Drafts section.
5. Depending on your profile permissions, you may or may not have access to View All Users. If able, click this button to view drafts created by all users.
Once enabled, click Hide All Users to hide all drafts that weren't created by you.
6. The Title of any draft can be edited before final submission. Click in the Title field to edit.
7. Review the Fiscal Year, Date Created, and the Journal Date to help confirm which draft you would like to continue creating.
8. Click Duplicate to create a copy of an existing draft from which you can edit and submit.
9. Click Edit to continue editing/creating an amendment/revision draft for submission.
10. If available, click the delete button (red minus sign) in order to remove an existing draft.
For information on how to use the Filters and sorting option, see the section on Additional Features.
11. To create a new amendment, which is to request monies for a new budget, select Amendment in the top right corner of the screen. If requesting to make a revision, that is to move monies from one account to another, select Revision. Note: Many users may not have the option to select Amendment if they do not have permission to create new budgets. For these users, Revision will be selected automatically.
Amendment: A request to increase or amend the budget. It is not a reallocation of funding (like a revision), but an adjustment to the agreed budget. An example of when a budget amendment would be needed is if a district won a grant from a private company. In this case, you would need to add a new line to the existing budget because a new accounting strip must be added for the money.
Revision: A revision within a budget that involves moving funds from one area to another within the same project. You cannot move funds from one project to another. For example, you may need to move 5100 funds from one facility to another. This would be a revision to the budget.
1. From the Edit Amendment tab, select the Amendment radio button at the top right corner.
The Fiscal Year, Requester, and Created Date fields will all auto-populate and cannot be edited.
2. Enter the Journal Date, i.e. the date that you want the amendment to be posted. The date will default to the date of creation.
3. Enter a Reason. Note: The Reason is bolded because it is required in order to submit the amendment.
4. If creating multiple amendments or revision that you would like to flag as linked, you can create a Batch and select it for each amendment or revision created.
To create your own, click the green plus sign and name your batch. Once created, the batch then be pulled into the Board Packet Report (to review all linked amendments and revisions).
5. Select the correct elements for the accounting strip you are requested in either the Expense Budgets section or the Revenue Budgets section depending on what type of new budget you require.
6. If desired, you can enter a budget Description. Enter the Amount and press Enter to save and commit the line to be submitted.
You will know the line has saved when it blinks and turns blue. You will also see the delete button appear at the beginning of the line as a way to delete the information and start over.
Once the line has been committed, the current Budgeted amount, the current Balance, the Budgeted (new) amount, and the Balance (new) will populate. Note: If you are creating a brand new accounting strip, the Budgeted and Balance column will populate with “(new).”
This is a logging field meaning you can commit as many lines as you need. If you need to create a new budget for multiple accounts, it can be done all at once.
7. Once added, click the green plus sign to add a detailed row for the Program.
a. Select the Program from the pull-down in the new detailed row.
You have the ability to add detailed rows when the Allow Detail Rows permission is enabled via Setup > Profiles > Budgeting/General Ledger tab.
As you create new budgets either in the Expense section or Revenue section, an Amendment Summary of Fund amounts will display at the bottom of the screen for review.
8. To add supporting documentation, as indicated in the Files section, drag files directly into the box to attach documents or click the Select button to browse for files. There is also a Scan File button next to the Select button for direct scanning.
Click the Scan File button; this will prompt you to download Dynamsoft. This is a one-time download that allows you to attach files directly from your scanner. In doing so, you will bypass saving the file to your computer first.
9. To add a comment, enter the comment in the text box and click Post.
10. When all is complete, click Submit. Once submitted, a pop-up message displays letting you know that your draft was successfully submitted for approval.
When the Amendment is submitted and approved the accounting strip will be added to Setup > Settings > Accounting Strips tab.
1. From the Edit Amendment tab, select the Revision radio button at the top right corner. Upon switching from an Amendment to a Revision, you will prompt with a pop-up confirmation window; click Yes to continue.
For users who only have access to revisions, the screen will default to the Edit Revision tab and the radio buttons will not appear.
The Fiscal Year, Requester, and Created Date fields will all auto-populate and cannot be edited.
2. Enter the Journal Date, i.e. the date that you want the revision to be posted. The date will default to the date of creation.
When you submit a back-dated journal, Focus does a budget check the day the revision is submitted to determine if the budget is overdraw, as opposed to performing the check budget check on the back-dated Journal Date entered. This prevents a back-dated journal from overdrawing a budget in the present day even if the budget would not be overdrawn as of the Journal Date entered.
For example, you have a budget with a balance of $5,000 in January and $0 in February. You back-date the journal to January for -$5,000 which would bring the January balance to $0 (not overdrawn). However, this would bring the cumulative budget balance through February (present day) to -$5,000; therefore, Focus rejects the budget revision.
3. Enter a Reason. Note: The Reason is bolded because it is required in order to submit the revision.
4. If creating multiple revisions that you would like to flag as linked, you can create a Batch and select it for each revision created.
To create your own, click the green plus sign and name your batch. Once created, the batch then be pulled into the Board Packet Report (to review all linked amendments and revisions).
5. To move money, you must first enter where the money is currently located in the Transfer From section.
6. Select the correct elements for the accounting strip from which you are requesting to move funds. Enter the Amount and press Enter to save and commit the line to be submitted.
You will know the line has saved when it blinks and turns blue. You will also see a red minus sign (delete button) appear at the beginning of the line as a way to delete the information and start over.
Once the line has been committed, the current Budgeted amount, the current Balance, the Budgeted (new) amount, and the Balance (new) will populate. Note: If you are creating a brand new accounting strip, the Budgeted and Balance column will populate with “(new).”
This is a logging field meaning you can commit as many lines as you need. If you need to transfer money multiple accounts to another account, it can be done all at once.
You can create revisions that cause accounts to be negative if Allow Negative Revision Balance for Budget maintenance is enabled via Setup > Profiles > Budgeting/General Ledger tab.
7. Once added, click the green plus sign to add a detailed row for the Program.
a. Select the Program from the pull-down in the new detailed row.
You have the ability to add detailed rows when the Allow Detail Rows permission is enabled via Setup > Profiles > Budgeting/General Ledger tab.
8. Once you have selected where the money is coming from and how much money is to be transferred, you must selected where the money is going in the Transfer To section.
9. Select the correct elements for the accounting strip to indicate where the money is to be moved. Enter the Amount that is to be transfer to this account and press Enter to save and commit the line to be submitted.
10. Once added, click the green plus sign to add a detailed row for the Program.
a. Select the Program from the pull-down in the new detailed row.
You have the ability to add detailed rows when the Allow Detail Rows permission is enabled via Setup > Profiles > Budgeting/General Ledger tab.
While inputting information into the Transfer To section, it would help to review the following section, Revision Summary.
The first section, From Expense, shows how much money you are taking from expense accounts to be moved to other accounts. The second section, To Expense, shows how much needs to be moved to expense accounts.
The Grand Total shows your balance. As shown in the image, it reads -300.00 because 1200.00 has been entered to be moved, but only 900.00 has been entered to be moved in the Transfer To section. There is still 300.00 that needs to be moved. When finished, the Grand Total must read 0.00. You cannot pull money from an account without specifying where you want to go.
11. To add supporting documentation, as indicated in the Files section, drag files directly into the box to attach documents or click the Select button to browse for files. There is also a Scan File button next to the Select button for direct scanning.
Click the Scan File button; this will prompt you to download Dynamsoft. This is a one-time download that allows you to attach files directly from your scanner. In doing so, you will bypass saving the file to your computer first.
12. To add a comment, enter the comment in the text box and click Post.
13. Click Submit.
The Request History tab allows users to view any submitted requested including those that are pending or those that have been approved/denied.
1. Click the Request History tab.
2. Select the applicable fiscal year from the pull-down. The pull-down defaults to the current fiscal year but can be changed, as needed.
3. Depending on your profile permissions, you may or may not have access to View All Users. If able, click this button to view requests submitted by all users.
a. Click Hide All Users to hide amendments and revision submitted by other users and only view your own.
The Request History tab displays the Request # (this column will populate once the request has been approved), given Title, Type of request (Amendment or Revision), Batch name, the Requester who created and submitted the draft, the Journal Date, the Created Date (the date the draft was created not the date submitted), the total Amount of money being budgeted or moved, and the Approval Status.
4. Districts normally set up an Approval Flow for amendment and revision requests; this is usually made up of a couple of people. Hover over the approval status to view the Approval Chain.
While there is not a Reason column, you can hover over any column to see the Reason submitted for each request.
The last column contains several buttons: View, Duplicate, Cancel, and Remind Approver. The options vary and are depend upon the Approval Status.
5. Click View to open the request and view the submission. Clicking View opens a View Amendment or View Revision tab. All information will be uneditable and grayed, expect Files and Comments, which can be added at any time.
6. Click Duplicate to create a copy of a submitted request. Clicking Duplicate results in a pop-up window where you can name the new request.
a. All of the information entered in the original request will populate the duplicated request. From here, you can add anything or edit any fields and submit just as done in sections Editing & Submitting an Amendment and Editing & Submitting a Revision.
7. Once a request has been approved, you have the ability to Print. Click Print to generate a PDF print preview. A print preview pop-up window will display. Click the printer icon located in the upper right corner of the screen. Note: If you do not see the black bar across the top of the screen or any of the icons, move your pointer over the window to make it appear.
a. Click the Printer icon to print. Click the arrow to download the document as a PDF.
b. Click the white X to close the pop-up window.
8. If the request is still Pending, you can click Cancel to cancel the amendment or revision. That means that as long as the request is still waiting on approval by any number of approvers, you can cancel.
a. Upon clicking Cancel, a pop-up will display asking if you are sure you want to cancel the request. Click Yes to continue. Click Cancel to return to the Request History tab.
Once the request has been cancelled, the Approval Status will change to Canceled, but the request itself will remain in Request History where you will still have the ability to View and/or Duplicate the request.
9. Click Remind Approver when your request has been sitting for a while waiting on an approver to approve or deny your request. Clicking Remind Approver will send an email to the next person in the Approval Chain.
Once clicked, you will receive verification that a reminder has been send.
Instead of creating a one-time draft, it may be more beneficial for you to create a Template. If you will be continuously moving monies from one account to another, creating a Template to which you can enter the amounts in as needed will be a better option.
1. Click the Templates tab.
2. Select the fiscal year from the pull-down to ensure you are creating the template for the correct fiscal year. The pull-down defaults to the current fiscal year but can be changed as needed.
3. Enter a Title for your draft. Select the applicable year from the pull-down. Once entered and/or selected, click Create.
Once created, the only fields that will not be editable are the Fiscal Year, the Requester, and the Created Date.
Clicking Create will open a new tab called Edit Amendment or Edit Revision; this is dependent upon profile permissions set up by the district. If you do not have permissions to amendments, you will only have the option to request a revision (Edit Revision tab). If you have permissions for both, you will have to make a selection as to which you would like to request.
4. To create a new amendment template, which is to request monies for a new budget, select Amendment. For a revision template, that is to move monies from one account to another, select Revision. Note: Many users may not have the option to select Amendment if they do not have permission to create new budgets. For these users, Revision will be selected automatically.
Amendment: A request to increase or amend the budget. It is not a reallocation of funding (like a revision), but an adjustment to the agreed budget. An example of when a budget amendment would be needed is if a district won a grant from a private company. In this case, you would need to add a new line to the existing budget because a new accounting strip must be added for the money.
Revision: A revision within a budget that involves moving funds from one area to another within the same project. You cannot move funds from one project to another. For example, you may need to move 5100 funds from one facility to another. This would be a revision to the budget.
5. In creating template, you can input as much or as little information as desired. You can create a blank template to use later or you can enter a specific account and enter 0.00 for the amount to be changed later. For more information on how to complete the different sections, see the sections on Editing & Submitting an Amendment and Editing & Submitting a Revision.
6. When you are finished creating your template, simply click out of it. There isn’t a save button, the template saves automatically. To use or edit it at a later date, click on the Templates tab and scroll to the Existing Templates section.
7. Depending on your profile permissions, you may or may not have access to View All Users. If able, click this button to view templates created by all users.
8. Click the delete button (red minus sign) to remove a template.
9. You can click in the Title field and edit the name.
Here you can also view the Fiscal Year, Date Created, template Type, and the User (if View All Users is selected).
10. Click Use to actually use the template by creating an amendment or revision draft. You will be asked to name your request. Any information entered will pull into a draft for submission. See the sections on Editing & Submitting an Amendment and Editing & Submitting a Revision for more information.
11. Click Edit to open the template and make changes as needed.
1. To review an amendment or revision for approval, from the Budgeting/General Ledger menu, click Budget Maintenance.
While you can always access pending requests from the Budget Maintenance menu, you also have the ability to click directly on them via the Alerts section on your home Portal screen.
2. Click on the Pending Approval tab.
3. Select the check box to Show current pending.
From this screen, you can view the Title, Type (Amendment or Revision), Batch name, Requester name, Journal Date, Created Date, the Amount in question, and the Approval Status. Note: The Request # will remain blank until the request has been approved by all parties of the approval flow.
The last column shows you several options: View, Duplicate, Cancel, Remind Approver, Email Requester, Approver, Deny, or Send Back to Originator.
4. Click View to open the request and view the submission. Clicking View opens an Edit Amendment or Edit Revision tab. All information will be editable including Files and Comments, which can be added at any time.
You also have the ability to Email Requester, Approve, or Deny the request directly from this screen.
5. Click Duplicate to create a copy of a submitted request. Clicking Duplicate result in a pop-up window where you can name the new request.
a. All of the information entered in the original request will populate the duplicated request. From here, you can add anything or edit any fields and submit just as done in sections Editing & Submitting an Amendment and Editing & Submitting a Revision.
6. If the request is still Pending, you have the ability to Cancel the amendment or revision by clicking the corresponding button. That means that as long as the request is still waiting on approval by any number of approvers, you can cancel.
a. Upon clicking Cancel, a pop-up will display asking if you are sure you want to cancel the request. Click Yes to continue. Click Cancel to return to the Request History tab.
7. You also have the ability to Remind Approver, that is, the next approver in the approval chain. This feature comes into play when the request has been sitting for a while waiting on the next approver. Clicking Remind Approver sends an email to the next person in the Approval Chain.
Once clicked, you will receive verification that a reminder has been send.
8. If needed, you have the option to Email Requester before making any decisions. This comes in handy if you have questions about the request and need answers before approving or denying the request. You could also use this feature to email the requester explaining why you made changes or denied the request, etc.
9. Click Approve to approve the request. Once approved, the request will disappear from the Pending Approval tab and appear on the Approval History tab. The Approval Status may still show as Pending if there are more approvers in the Approval Chain.
10. Click Deny to deny the request. If a request is denied, it will disappear from the Pending Approval tab and appear on the Approval History tab.
The Approval History tab is very similar to the Pending Approval tab. All of the same columns are displayed. However, if the request has been approved by all parties, the option to Print becomes available.
11. Click Send Back to Originator to send the request back to the originator with notes for changes before approval takes place. Once clicked, enter notes for the requester in the provided text box, then click Send.
12. Click Print to generate a PDF print preview. A print preview pop-up window will display. Click the printer icon located in the upper right corner of the screen. Click the down arrow to download the image as a PDF file.
If creating new budgets or transferring money for many accounts already worked out in a spreadsheet, the information can be imported via the Import button directly from Excel.
a. Click Import, search for and select your spreadsheet. An Import CSV pop-up displays.
b. Before importation, be sure to title each column correctly.
c. The system will match the information, but you must verify that each pull-down is correct.
d. Once complete, click Import CSV to transport data.
Focus offers the functionality to import a file containing both Budget and Non-Budget fields directly into Budget Maintenance. This means you can upload a file that includes data for budgeted items as well as areas where no budget allocation exists.
For a quickly organized Excel spreadsheet to work in and then import, click on the Excel spreadsheet icon in the Export section. Downloading the file will ensure your columns are already set up.
Each of the element pull-downs has a Filter; therefore, you can begin typing the name or number of the element to pull it up quickly and click or tab to the next field.
Click Filters to breakdown data.
a. To add more than one filter to a column, click the green plus sign.
b. To delete an additional filter, click the red minus sign.
c. For additional filtering options, click the gray arrow for a filter pull-down.
See Filters for more information.
You can also sort data by clicking on any of the headers that contain the black double arrows. Click once for ascending results; click twice for descending results.
To navigate through the listed pages, click the Prev and Next buttons. To jump to a specific numbered page, type the number in the page text box and press Enter. Note: This option will not display if all data can be shown on one page.
Click the Excel icon to export the data to an Excel spreadsheet. Click the icon to download the file.
To print data in a section, click the Print icon.
