Enhanced Budget Monitoring Tools at your disposal
Posted 29th October 2018
Our latest release allows you to increase the range of assumptions made, whilst deriving a Projected Year End position that you most understand.
Until now the Budget Monitor has only used a one option (‘Standard’) approach to how the projected year end (Y/E) is calculated. This was predominantly driven by the data held in the budget, but the budget as saved to the schools finance system rather than SBS Online. However, to now utilise improvements with the way budget entries can be profiled and work in SBS Online (see prior blog post - Click here) we now allow your SBS Online plan to drive more Y/E assumptions than previously done before. The latest functionality has been released through two additional drop-down boxes, both displaying at the top of your Budget Monitor reports. ‘Box 1’ displays where the monitoring values are taken from and ‘Box 2’ displays which set of rules you want to govern your automated Projected Y/E calculations.There are now three considerations available in ‘Box 1’ when choosing which ‘values’ you want to use to monitor your budget against
Standard Values – These values populate the report exactly as before. All actuals are imported directly from your finance system, as well as all non-salary commitments. The only SBS Online values to feed this report come from commitments for future staff salaries. ‘SBS Actuals and Commitments’ - adds additional lines to include any budget codes used in SBS Online but not already included in the imported data. All values in the actuals and commitments columns are replaced with those profiled within SBS Online. ‘SBS Commitments’ - adds additional lines to include any budget codes used in SBS Online but not already included in the imported data. All values in the commitment’s column are replaced with those profiled within SBS Online for the remaining months of the schools’ financial year.There are now two considerations available to pick in ‘Box 2’ when choosing which set of rules you wish to govern your Projected Y/E calculations
Standard Y/E – These Y/E figures are calculated the same way the Budget Monitor used to work. Projected Y/E is calculated in two different ways, depending on whether the budget codes are ‘salary’ or ‘non-salary items.’ ‘Salary’ Projected Y/E = Total + Other Commitments’ ‘Non-salary’ Project Y/E = Total or Allocated Budget (whichever is highest) + Other Commitments ‘Variance’ is always: Allocated budget – Projected Y/E’Adjusted Y/E – changes the report so that all Projected Y/E figures are calculated the same way. All savings from the ‘Total vs Allocated Budget’ are now displayed. Projected Y/E always = Total + Other Commitments’ ‘Variance’ is always: Allocated budget – Projected Y/E’
We hope you enjoy exploring the latest enhancements to the software, and that these additions allow you to have even more confidence when monitoring your budgets! As always, if you have any questions, please call your Service Desk on 0345 222 1551 • Option 8.
