Purpose
Budget Management keeps planning data separate from the accounting ledger. Every version belongs to one office and fiscal year and retains one controlled annual amount per account. Choose Annual for a simple yearly plan or Monthly Breakdown to allocate that annual plan across the fiscal months. Actuals always come from posted accounting journals; planning never changes ledger data.Before you start
- Confirm the office, fiscal year, and fiscal periods are configured.
- Confirm the office base currency. Budget amounts use that currency.
- Review the chart of accounts. Mark non-budgetable detail accounts with Exclude from Budget.
- Confirm who prepares and who approves the budget. The submitter cannot approve the same version.
Create a budget
1
Open Budget Master
Go to Accounting and Finance > Budget Management > Budget Master, then create a budget.
2
Select the scope
Select the office first, then select a fiscal year belonging to that office.
3
Define the version
Enter the budget code and description. Choose Original, Revised, or Forecast and the revision number.
4
Choose basis and frequency
Use Period Activity for debit/credit movement or Ending Balance for point-in-time balance targets. Choose Annual or Monthly Breakdown. A Draft annual budget can be converted later without deleting its account lines.
5
Generate lines
Save the header and select Generate/Refresh Lines. The action adds missing eligible account lines and, for a monthly plan, one allocation for every configured fiscal month. Existing values are never overwritten.
6
Enter amounts
For Annual, enter the amount on each account line. For Monthly Breakdown, open an account line and enter the values under Monthly Breakdown; the annual amount is read-only and rolls up automatically.
7
Review and submit
Check totals and select Submit Budget. A submitted budget becomes read-only.
8
Approve and lock
A different user selects Approve Budget. After final review, select Lock Budget.
While the budget is Draft, changing Annual to Monthly Breakdown creates every fiscal-month allocation automatically and preserves each annual total. Period Activity is spread evenly, with any rounding residual in the final month; Ending Balance carries the annual target to every month. Review the generated phasing before submission. Changing back to Annual preserves the roll-up and removes the monthly allocations. Comparison basis still cannot change after lines exist.
Annual roll-up rules
The Ending Balance rule avoids adding point-in-time balances together.
Lease schedules can populate both bases through Lease Payment Planning. Contractual payments feed Period Activity, while the projected lease liability at each fiscal period end feeds Ending Balance. The separately stored lease component can be refreshed without overwriting manual or other budget amounts.
Revisions
Use Create Revision from an Approved or Locked budget. JADE-ELS creates the next Revised Draft and copies its frequency, account lines, monthly allocations, amounts, and notes. The approved or locked source remains unchanged for audit and comparison.Actual versus budget report
Actual amounts refresh automatically when a saved Budget Detail, Actual vs Budget, Monthly Performance, or Budget Dashboard is opened. Only posted journals through today are included; future fiscal periods remain zero. Refresh Actuals remains available for an explicit refresh and audit timestamp. Use Actual vs Budget for the annual account analysis. A Monthly Breakdown budget also enables Monthly Performance, showing each fiscal month’s budget, actual, variance, favorable variance, utilization, attention count, and unbudgeted count. The printable Annual Actual vs Budget Statement remains available in Reports. Actuals are matched at report time through the common dimensions:Budget dashboard
Select Budget Dashboard from a saved budget. The KPI dashboard provides:- annual budget, actual, raw variance, and favorable variance;
- overall utilization and attention counts;
- an executive summary;
- performance by account group;
- the top 15 unfavorable or unbudgeted account exceptions.
Variance conventions
Controls
- Budget setup and lines can only be edited or deleted in Draft status.
- Office and fiscal year must match.
- One active account line is allowed for each budget and account.
- One monthly allocation is allowed for each account line and fiscal period.
- Monthly budgets must contain every configured fiscal month before submission.
- One active version is allowed for each fiscal year, basis, scenario, and revision.
- Only detail accounts not marked Exclude from Budget are generated.
- At least one non-zero line is required before submission.
- The submitter cannot approve the same budget.
- Approved or Locked budgets are revised by creating a new version, not by editing history.