Budget Reports
Budget Reports compare, for the period you choose, how much you budgeted against how much you've actually Executed on your ledger accounts, how much you have Ordered on authorized purchase orders that haven't been billed yet, and how much budget Availability you have left. The budget itself (the amounts per account and period) is captured on the Budgets screen; this area only reports it, cross-checked against what has actually happened in your accounting.
What is it and what is it for?
AdmCloud offers two families of budget reports, depending on how you want to view them:
- By ledger account: compare budget, executed, ordered and availability account by account. It includes variants by period range, by parent account (grouping its child accounts), and by month of the year (with or without the line-by-line breakdown of each indicator).
- By profit center: compare budgeted Revenue, Cost, Expense and Profitability against actuals, grouped by Division, Department, Location or Item Class, instead of by ledger account. Each dimension has a Detailed variant (with hierarchy, when the dimension has parents and children) and a Summary variant (a flat list).
In both families, the Ordered figure comes from already-authorized Purchase Orders that haven't yet turned into a vendor bill, placed in the month of their document date. This lets you see, in addition to what's already spent, what's already committed and about to consume budget soon.
How to use it
- Open any of the budget reports (for example from the Accounting menu) and use the top link bar to jump between the variants of the same family (Budget per Account, per Parent Account, Monthly per Account, Monthly per Account Detailed; or per Item Class, Department, Location, Division, each either Detailed or Summary).
- Set your filters: Subsidiary (if your company uses them), an Accounting Period range or a Year (depending on the report), and optionally Location, Department, Division, Item Class, Project or a specific Account to narrow down the result.
- If you don't set a period range, AdmCloud automatically uses the current accounting period back to the start of the year (year to date).
- Click Refresh to generate the report with the chosen filters. Before you click it, the screen just shows a message asking you to set your filters.
- From the results grid you can export, print, reorder columns or save your own report layout, just like any other AdmCloud report. On the account-based reports, each month's Executed amount is a link that takes you straight to that account's ledger movements for that period.
If your company operates in more than one currency, you can turn on the Average Budget Rate filter (if your company has that feature enabled) to manually set a single exchange rate and compare budget, executed and ordered consistently, instead of using each transaction's historical rate.
Main capabilities
- Budget vs. Executed vs. Ordered vs. Availability comparison, with its execution percentage, either account by account or grouped by business dimension.
- The "Monthly per Account Detailed" variant also includes a Projection row per account: what's already executed in prior months plus what's budgeted for the remaining months of the year, highlighted in red when it's projected above the total budget and in green otherwise.
- An automatic summary of Revenue, Cost, Expense, Gross Profitability and Net Profitability at the bottom of the monthly per-account report, calculated from each included account's classification.
- On the Division, Department, Location and Item Class reports, the Detailed variant rolls up child-dimension amounts into their parent dimension, so you see a whole group's total without adding it up by hand.
- A direct link from each account and month's Executed amount to the ledger movements that make it up.
- Consolidation of subsidiaries with different currencies, when your company uses that feature.
- Quick switching between all variants of the same family without re-entering your filters, using the link bar or the report's variant selector.
Key fields
| Field | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Budget | The amount budgeted for the account (or dimension) and the selected period, as captured on the Budgets screen. |
| Ordered | The amount of already-authorized Purchase Orders for that account and period, still pending to become a vendor bill. |
| Executed | The amount actually posted in your ledger movements for that account and period. It's a link to those movements' detail. |
| % Execution | The percentage Executed represents of the Budget for the same period. |
| Availability | Budget minus Ordered minus Executed for the same period; shown in green while there's still budget left, in red once it's been exceeded. |
| Difference / % Difference | The difference between Budget and Executed (and its percentage), available on the period-range reports. |
| Projection | Only on "Monthly per Account Detailed": what's Executed through the prior month plus what's Budgeted from the current month onward, to estimate the year's close. |
| Revenue / Cost / Expense / Gross Profitability / Net Profitability | Closing totals on the monthly per-account report, based on each included account's ledger classification. |
| Budgeted, Ordered and Actual Revenue / Cost / Expense / Profit | On the Division, Department, Location and Item Class reports: the same set of indicators, grouped by that dimension instead of by account. |
| Average Budget Rate | A fixed exchange rate applied to the whole report on multi-currency companies, when that filter is enabled. |
Validations and report messages
- Year is not valid: on the monthly reports, the Year field must be a number; if it isn't, AdmCloud warns you and doesn't generate the report.
- Exchange rate not valid: when the exchange rate filter is enabled, the value entered must be greater than zero.
- Period range required: on the period-range reports, if you don't pick a From/To period, AdmCloud fills in the year to date automatically; the report only runs once both periods are set.
- You must set your filters: until you click Refresh with your filters set, the screen only shows an informational message and brings back no data.
Availability, plans and conditions
- This feature requires the Enterprise edition with the Budgeting module enabled for your company. Without this module active, the screen shows a "not available on this edition" message instead of the report.
- The Average Budget Rate filter only appears if your company has that specific feature turned on; without it, the report still works, using each transaction's historical exchange rate.
- Access is controlled with the "Budget" permission of the user group.
Tips and common mistakes
If an account or dimension has no budget and no actual movement in the chosen period, AdmCloud automatically hides it from the report so it doesn't fill up with zero rows; use the Account filter if you're looking for a specific account and don't see it listed.
If Availability shows up in red, you've already spent or committed (counting Ordered) more than what was budgeted for that account and period; check whether you need to adjust the budget or hold off on new purchases against that account.
Use the "Summary" variants when you only need the total by Division, Department, Location or Item Class, and the "Detailed" variants when you also need the breakdown by each child dimension within its group.