Set up and approve a budget

Create a budget for a department, get it approved so it becomes the baseline, and use spend requests to hold budget before a purchase.

For: FinancePlan: Advanced

Before you start

Finance is part of the Advanced plan. When your plan includes it, a “Finance” section appears in the sidebar with a “Budgets” item.
A role that can manage budgets. Finance staff can work with every budget. A department manager with only the budget permissions sees their own department’s budgets and can create budgets only for that department.
An approver who is not the budget’s owner. The owner can never approve their own budget. The approver is either the owner’s direct manager, holding the budget-approval permission, or someone in finance who can manage all budgets. The check is on who owns the budget, not on who submitted it: finance staff can create a budget with someone else as its owner, submit it and approve it themselves. The administrator role is not held to any of this and can approve a budget it owns — that approval is flagged in the audit trail.

Create the budget

Step 1: Open Budgets
Go to FinanceBudgets. Finance staff land on the “Budgets & Chargeback” tab of the Finance workspace; a department manager gets the “Budgets” page. Both show the same list under “BUDGETS VS ACTUALS”.
Step 2: Create it
Click “NEW BUDGET”. In the “New budget” window give it a “Name”, choose its “TYPE” (“Opex”, “Capex”, “Project”, “Cost center”, “Cloud” or “Headcount”; it starts on Opex), pick the “Scope” it covers (for example a department) and its value, and enter the “Budget amount”.
Say when the budget applies. “Period type” is “Monthly”, “Quarterly”, “Annual”, “Multi-year” or “Custom”. Enter the “Period key (YYYY-MM or YYYY)”, and for anything other than a single month or year also set “Budget period (start → end)”. When both dates are set, spending is counted from the start date up to and including the end date.
Finance staff also see “Owner”. Leave it blank to own the budget yourself, or pick the department’s manager so that they and their department can see it. Remember that the owner is the one person who cannot approve it. Then click “Create”.
“Warning at (%)”, “Over at (%)” and “Tags” are optional, under “Governance (optional)”. Leave them empty to use the thresholds set for all budgets in Finance settings (80% and 100% unless changed).
The budget is created as a draft. Open its row to see five tabs: “Composition” (line items, if you want to build the amount up from its parts), “Actuals” (what has been counted against it), “Forecast”, “Versions” and “Linked systems”. You can also leave a comment there.
Step 3: Submit it
On the budget’s row, click “Submit”. A department manager can only submit a budget they own; finance staff who can manage all budgets, and administrators, can submit any budget.
Step 4: Someone other than the owner approves it
The approver opens the same page, finds the budget and clicks “Approve”, or “Reject” and gives a reason. Approving locks the budget: it is now the baseline that invoices, purchase orders and spend requests are measured against.

Live with it

Step 5: Change an approved budget
A locked budget is not edited in place: click “Reforecast” to create a new draft version, change it, and submit it for approval again. Earlier versions stay on the budget’s “Versions” tab. “Copy to period” starts next period’s budget from this one. Someone with the finance-policy permission can instead unlock an approved budget; any edit made then sends it back for approval, the person who edited it cannot be the one to approve it, and until it is re-approved the previously approved amount stays in force.
Step 6: Ask for budget before you spend
Under “SPEND REQUESTS”, click “NEW REQUEST”. Choose the “Budget”, enter the “Amount” and, if you like, the “Vendor” and a “Description”. While the request is pending or approved, its amount is held against the budget, so what the budget shows as available already reflects it.
Someone who could approve that budget clicks “Approve” or “Reject”. The requester cannot approve their own request, and neither can the budget’s owner; administrators are the exception. Once the real purchase order or invoice exists, finance clicks “Fulfill” to release the hold.
Step 7: Stop spending against a budget
Finance can click “Freeze” on a budget and note why. While it is frozen, invoices that count against it cannot be approved, and the over-budget override does not get past it. “Unfreeze” lifts the hold.

Moving money between two budgets is a transfer. People with the budget-transfer permission see “BUDGET TRANSFERS” and a “REQUEST TRANSFER” button on the Budgets page. The requester cannot approve or reject their own transfer, and a transfer at or above the high-value floor must be approved by finance. How many separate approvers a transfer needs comes from the same amount-based approval rules as invoices. The administrator role is the one exception to these checks.

What you should see

Each budget shows its actual spend, what is committed on open purchase orders, and what is still available. Only approved and paid invoices count as actual spend.

When an invoice would take a budget past what is available, its approval is stopped until someone with the invoice-approval permission records an override with a written reason.

If something goes wrong

"You can only submit your own budget.": A department manager can submit only a budget they own. Ask the owner to submit it, or ask finance to do it.
"You are not an eligible approver for this budget (approver must be the owner's manager or finance, and never the owner).": This is by design. Ask the owner's manager, or someone in finance with the budget-approval permission, to approve it. Administrators are not held to this check.
"This budget is locked (approved). Reforecast it to create a new editable version.": Use Reforecast, change the new draft, and submit it for approval.
"An approved budget cannot be deleted — reforecast or freeze it instead.": Approved budgets are part of the record. Reforecast it to change it, or freeze it to stop spending.
"Budget FROZEN — … A freeze cannot be overridden; ask finance to lift the hold.": An invoice counts against a frozen budget. Finance has to unfreeze the budget before the invoice can be approved.