What is a Budget Check?

A budget check contains the budget checking rules for an account, or range of accounts, by identifying the budget for the accounts.

When a ledger, purchase invoice or purchase order transaction is entered for an account, the expenditure and commitment checking facilities determine whether there are budget funds available to cover the amount of the transaction. The system searches all budget check definitions to determine:

  • where the account's budget is held
  • whether commitment checking is required.

A set of budget values are held in a separate budget ledger for a business unit. Typically budget values are held in the 'B' ledger, with actual expenditure in the 'A' ledger.

Budget values can be held at different levels, depending on how your organization imposes budgetary control. A budget can be assigned to:

  • individual accounts
  • a range of accounts
  • analysis codes within an account, or range of accounts.

A budget check links an account in the actuals ledger, to the account in the budget ledger that contains its budget. A budget check can link several actual accounts to the same budget account. It can also identify a number of analysis codes, if the budget is held at analysis code level.

Budget Checks are defined using Budget Check Setup (BCS).

An account can be checked against a combination of the budgets available at analysis code and account level. For example, a marketing budget may be allocated across a number of departments at analysis code level, but if a particular department's budget is exhausted it may be able to use a budget allocation held at the marketing account level.