Monthly Divisional Budgets

Monthly Divisional Budgets is used to enter or load budgets into BI4Cloud Business Intelligence by divisions, cost centres or departments. Access Monthly Divisional Budget from the Cool Stuff button against the company on the main admin screen.  See the article on Cool Stuff features

New features added in Oct 2024 for budget Pre-fill and Reforecast 

Divisions are handled in different accounting packages as follows:

QuickBooks Online - Classes | Xero - Tracking Categories | MYOB - Jobs

Screenshot 2024-07-16 at 2.21.27 PM.png

BI4Cloud presents Divisions in the hierarchy as defined in the connected accounting system which simplifies navigation and allows analysis at level summary. 

Xero does not have tracking category hierarchy ☹️ . . however if you name your tracking categories with space - space in the TC text eg. "Classic - King Lear" then we will use this to create levels that you can use 😃

Using BI4Cloud Business Intelligence  you are  able to enter Monthly Divisional Budgets and then easily report on Actuals v Budgets using BI4Cloud over any date range. This feature is available in the Enterprise 5 (Cool Stuff) version.

Here is an Example Workbook with

  • P&L Report Dept filtered by Level House showing SubDept Bar and Cafe and Location EAST

Screenshot 2024-07-16 at 3.56.22 PM.png

Quick Video Overview

Monthly Divisional Budgets features

  • Budgets can be edited on screen or exported to spreadsheet.
  • Budgets can be segmented into sessions
  • Session can be prefilled for Actual,  Budgets or from Other sessions
  • Sessions can set filters for divisions and accounts
  • Sessions can be exported to spreadsheet
  • Spreadsheet formulas can be use and also reference other sheets
  • Imported spreadsheets will resolve formulas to their value
  • Budget can be reforecast effective from a particular month keeping original Budget. Reforecast Budget  use color code to show reforecast periods. 

Enter or Import Monthly Divisional Budgets

Login to BI as the main BI Account Admin User.

To get help from a BI Expert to setup Budgets in BI - Book a BI Consulting Appointment

Select Company to Budget

  1. Click on the Cool Stuff button for the company you are budgeting. ( need Bi4 Enterprise 5 version)
    Screenshot 2024-07-16 at 6.06.39 PM.pngSelect  either Class - Tracking Category - Job Budgets  to open Monthly Divisional Budgets

Edit Budgets on Screen

  1. The Divisional Budgets screen will display all of your Active Divisions in the hierarchy of levels.

  2. Select the Financial Year you are budgeting for.  The current Financial Year of the attached accounting file is shown with green underline.

  3. If there are many divisions you can  filter which are shown. These are pull down lists and are shown below in the dotted blue line. These only persist for the current session.

  4. To enter or edit budgets onscreen click Budgets to the right of the Division (Class / TC/Job).
    Screenshot 2024-07-16 at 9.29.33 PM.png

  5. All P&L Accounts will be shown and you simply enter or edit values as needed. Enter Income and Expenses accounts as positive numbers. Filter on Account number or Description to find specific accounts. Slide the Hide Zero Movements button to only display accounts with non zero values and then check the total Profit/(Loss) for each month. Screenshot 2024-07-16 at 6.20.57 PM.png
  6. For entering a small number of Divisions and Accounts one by one this may be adequate but when many divisions and levels exist we recomend you use the the Budget Session feature.

Using Budget Sessions

You can create a Budget Session where you can set persistent limits on

  • what Division Levels are budgeted for - used for segmenting budget entry activity
  • what Divisions are available in the session - this controls which Divisions are shown
  • what Accounts are available in the session - this controls which Accounts are shown

Once a Budget Session is configured it can be selected and will limit what is shown on screen and what is exported to Excel.

Using the default "2025 Budgets" as an example we will explore budget session configuration.

Screenshot 2024-07-16 at 9.29.33 PM.png

  1. Use the pulldown Select Session to select the Budget session you want to work on. In this example  we selected "2025 Budgets".
  2. Click on the Configure Session icon and the following screen is displayed. Screenshot 2024-10-17 at 5.54.35 PM.png

     

  3. You can Add Session, Alter Session, Reforecast a Session or Delete Session. Click on the down arrow below to read the details of each process. 
Add Session

When adding a session you name and describe it  chose if it's a budget by Months or Year.

You can chose to prefill the new budget from a source 

  • None
  • Actual with Year  
  • Budget and Year
  • An Existing Budget Session

When you prefill a budget you can

  • include or exclude inactive divisions
  • include or exclude inactive accounts
  • choose to prefill period 1 or all periods.

Screenshot 2024-10-18 at 8.32.46 AM.png

 Before you press Save learn about Budget For Levels

 

Alter Session

An existing session can be edited with ALTER SESSION . The Budget For can be changed  which Division Level this budget is for. It is designed that ONLY ONE Level can be selected and the Division Levels should be set to utilise this.

Screenshot 2024-10-18 at 10.40.32 AM.png

learn about Budget For Levels.
 
Reforecast

Selecting Reforecast will take the existing Budget session and create a new Session with the same name appended with text  "- Reforecast"  and the orginal budget will get a  <Reforecasted> badge. You can edit Name and Description and chose to set the Reforecast Start Month but all other fields are no entry.

Once the reforecast is saved the sessions will display a badge of <Reforecast> and <Reforecasted>  on the sessions on screen and in exported sheets the reforecast periods will be colour coded. 

Screenshot 2024-10-18 at 11.21.26 AM.png

Reforecast data is available as the Reforecast metric in reports.

 

Budget For Level ( Add / Alter )

Budget For Level  provides a pulldown list to select which Division Level this budget is for. It is designed that ONLY ONE Level can be selected and the Division Levels should be set to utilise this.

The Budget For controls a whole segment. In the example data we an EAST and WEST level. We can then chose to have two sessions "2025 Budget EAST" and "2025 Budget WEST". 
Another example is an education charity that funds students by Cohort Start Year. The Division name is constructed  as "<CohortStartYear - CohortEndYear> - StudentName"  . Level 1 is CohortStartYear, Level 2 is CohortEndYear and last is the Student Name. In this case the Budget For can be set to the CohortStartYear and so all students from the same year managed together
  1. If you change the Budget For Level then the session Name should reflect that eg. select EAST and in the Session Name edit to "2025 Budgets EAST"
  2. The SAVE button will now be enabled to save the chosen Budget For.Screenshot 2024-07-16 at 10.31.49 PM.png

Selecting Divisions

Now use Selected Divisions, labelled as Selected East(s)  and chose the following Divisions, press SAVEScreenshot 2024-07-16 at 10.48.27 PM.png

Selecting Accounts

You can also now use Selected Accounts to limit what P&L Accounts are displayed. The accounts are displayed in Name order, click on the heading to change the sort column and direction. As an example of accounts we chose the following. You need to SAVE any work.Screenshot 2024-07-16 at 10.24.24 PM.png

With this the Session Config is complete and any on screen edit will only present the criteria setup in the Session.

Export / Import Budget  Sessions

  1. In the Session Screen the budget can be Exported with the Export button
  2. You will be able to chose the Excel format either as  
    1. Rows - each row contains Division and the Account - or - 
    2. Sheets - One Division per sheet with each sheet showing AccountsMDB - Export.png
  3. The Exported sheet will be downloaded and will look like thisScreenshot 2024-07-16 at 11.03.19 PM.png
  4. The Export Statistics shows the last export and also provides a link to download it againScreenshot 2024-07-16 at 11.06.09 PM.png
  5. You can use the Exported Excel to key-in values or use Excel functions to link to other excel workbooks. When you import the spreadsheet the values in formulas will be resolved.
  6. Use the Import button to import the edited spreadsheet.
WARNING : You MUST not add rows or columns to the spreadsheet. This is because in column A, which is hidden,  the internal keys for the division and accounts are stored. If you don't have the divisions or accounts you need then import the work you have and then reconfigure the session to select the extra divisions and accounts and re-export. 

For Reforecast sessions the spreadsheet is colour coded to show the reforecast area. You can enter day in the Pre-Reforecast area as well ( but you aren't meant to ). Reforecast data is imported and available as the Reforecast metric in reports

Screenshot 2024-10-18 at 11.12.07 AM.png

 

 

Integrating Edits or Imports

  1. Once the Budget Edit or Imports are complete click Save & Exit to integrate the  Budget into your BI4cloud reports. 

 

 

 

Was this article helpful?
0 out of 0 found this helpful

Articles in this section

Ask the BI4 Community
Need help using this report or feature?