Defining activity period budgets

You can define activity budgets for three time frames: life only, annual, or period. Period budgets designate the budgeted amount and units by period for an activity and account category. Annual budgets are updated automatically when you define period budgets. Use this procedure to define activity period budgets.

You can copy and modify existing budgets to save time. See Copying an activity budget.

Before you begin, you must define an activity budget header before you can define the activity budgets. Define any necessary factors or spread codes that you will use to define the budget. Details on doing these tasks is found elsewhere in this user guide. For more information, see the Project Accounting User Guide.

You must define an activity budget header before you can define the activity budgets. Define any necessary factors or spread codes that you will use to define the budget. Details on doing these tasks is found elsewhere in this user guide. For more information, see the Defining factors and Defining spread codes.

Follow these steps to define period budgets:

  1. Access Period Budget (AC20.3).
  2. Define the period budgets. Use these guidelines to specify the field values:
    Activity Group

    Select the activity group associated with the activities for which you want to define budgets.

    Activity

    Select the posting activity for which you want to define budgets.

    Account Category

    Select the account category for which you want to define budgets. The account category must be assigned to the activity you selected in the Activity field.

    Budget Number

    Select the budget number you defined in the header for this budget. See Defining activity budget headers.

    Note: When defining budgets for multiple activities, be consistent with budget numbers. For example, if you are defining an approved project budget for periods in the year 2002, and you have determined that budget 200 identifies the 2002 approved project budget, then use budget 200 for all activities.
    Year

    Specify the year that identifies the periods for which you are defining activity budgets. Ensure that the year is within the date range for the activity budget and the Life Only option on Activity Budget Header (AC20.7) is set to No.

    Compute, and Parameter

    These fields are used only if you are defining a budget using a compute statement. See Defining computed budgets.

    Action

    Select one of these action codes as an alternative to typing budget values in each period:

    • Last Year Actual (A): Copies last year's actual amounts and units into the budget.

    • Last Year Budget (B): Copies last year's budget amounts and units into the budget.

    • Compute Amount (C): Uses a compute statement to calculate the budget amounts. You must specify a compute statement.

    • Compute Units (U): Uses a compute statement to calculate the budget units. You must specify a compute statement.

    • Duplicate (D): Copies the budget amount you specify for the first period to blank periods, stopping when an existing budget value is encountered.

    • Spread (S): Spreads the amounts and units you specify in the first period to all periods. If you do not specify a spread code, amounts and units spread equally to all periods. If you enter a spread code, then the budget amounts and units are populated in each period based on percentages defined in the spread code.

    Spread Code

    If you selected the Spread action, then select a spread code to control how the budget amounts and units you specify in the first period are spread across all periods. Spread codes contain percentages that determine the percentage of the amount and units to populate in each period. You can define spread codes using Spread Codes (AC23.1). See Defining spread codes.

    Period

    Specify the number of each period for which you want to establish a budget.

    Amount

    Specify the budget amount for each period. You can use the amount in conjunction with the Spread and Duplicate actions.

    As an option, you can define a factor and units or a rate and units to automatically calculate the budget amount.

    Note: Define activity budget amounts in the budget currency defined in the budget header.
    Factor

    Select a factor to calculate period budget amounts using budget units and a standard rate. The system multiplies the budget units times the rate defined in the factor. Factors are defined on Global Factors (FB00.1).

    Rate

    Specify a rate to calculate the period budgets amount based on budget units times the rate.

    Units

    Specify the projected units for each period. As an option, you can define a factor and units or a rate and units to automatically calculate the budget amount.

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