BUDGET OFFICER TRAINING  Mission Statement  Budget Responsibilities  Budget Management Module  Budget Revisions  Pooling Main Menu: Presented by: Kim McNab

Mission Statement

MISSION STATEMENT The Troy University Budget Office is responsible for developing the annual operating and capital budgets in coordination with the State of Alabama, the Troy University Board of Trustees, the University’s Executive Committee, budget officers and financial managers of the University. The Budget Office staff will prepare and submit the University’s budget to appropriate agencies and will assist legislative organizations in the justification of budget requests. Office personnel will assist executive University staff in reporting and will maintain sound financial status within budget limitations approved by the Troy University Board of Trustees.

Budget Responsibilities

 Budget Responsibility Identification defines an organization structure to use in the budgeting process. It can be the same as the organizational chart for the institution or it can different depending on the individuals who help to create budget line items and their amounts. We do not include on the budget responsibility tree anyone who does not perform budget data entry or who does not control budget information in the budget process.  A Budget Officer may be any user of the Datatel system with an assigned Datatel login.  Assignments are made in the Budget Management Module by SVC’s, deans and directors.  Individual unique assignments are driven by the Datatel login of the user.  As budget requests are entered into the system, approvals are made in a bottom-up approach.

Budget Management Module

T RAINING “BU” Budget Management

“RWLI” for line item entries T RAINING (C ONT.)

 The screen will populate with your budget information. If you have more than one area of responsibility, select the department that you are going to budget first and the expenditure accounts for that department will populate the screen. The first column is the Basic Amount (base budget amount for the requested budget moving forward). This is the column where budget requests will be entered. The second column reflects the original budget for the current fiscal year. The third column reflects actual expenditures for the previous fiscal year. These optional views can be changed by clicking on the arrow down at the top of each column to review different comparisons. These columns have been displayed for comparison purposes only.  Remember that the first column (basic amount) is where you will be entering your requested expenditure budgets. The other columns are view only for comparison purposes. T RAINING (C ONT.)

Budget ID is “TROYxx” T RAINING (C ONT.)

Column identification

 When an amount is changed in the Basic Amount column, a “c” will be shown underneath the general ledger account number. This notes a change to the original basic amount.  For all expenditures, enter a positive number in the basic amount column.  For all credit requests in contra accounts, enter zero minus the credit amount.  For ANY change to the previous years’ original budget, a justification is mandatory. You can enter the justification by clicking on the blue square beside the account number.  Choose “BJNS” to enter Justification Notes. T RAINING (C ONT.)

 After entering the justification note, save the justification and return to the previous screen. Save your changes by clicking on the single disk icon at the top of the screen. When prompted, click “update” and then “finish”.  A “j” will appear under the expenditure account number to show that a justification has been entered.  Save your budget requests. T RAINING (C ONT.)

Reviewing your Budget Projections  After entering your entire requested expenditure budget, you can view the budget by choosing “RWKS”.  Budget ID is “TROYxx”.  If prompted, select the department that you want to review by entering the sequence number for the items shown. T RAINING (C ONT.)

 Line Item Totals allows you to view the budget for which you are responsible. You can detail by clicking on the blue square (it will take you to the RWLI screen) to see the line item budget.  Reporting Unit Totals allows you to view not only your budget but all responsibility units that report to you. You can detail on the blue square to see the various reporting units/departments. Detail on each reporting unit/department to see the line item budget. The budget officer shown below has no reporting units, thus, the term “non-existent”. T RAINING (C ONT.)

Reporting You must have a Datatel printer in order to run reports, otherwise you’ll have to view reports from the screen.  The Detail Worksheet Report shows several columns of data both historical and projected. You can choose whether to see changes/justifications. Choose “DWSR”.  Budget ID is “TROYxx”. T RAINING (C ONT.)

 Report Connective: populate with “LIKE”.  Report which includes will automatically populate with your assigned budget(s).  Choose yes to indicate changes made to the base budget (changes will be indicated with an * in your report).  Choose yes if you want to only see those accounts that have been changed; select no to view all accounts.  Choose yes to see justification notes on the report.  Always enter no as there is only one active scenario. T RAINING (C ONT.)

 Click save and when prompted, select “update”.  The output device must say “P” in this form.  You must have a Datatel printer in order to use this feature. In the form name field, enter the printer ID for the report to print.  Enter “H” to hold the report to the screen, click Save All and once again in the next screen. The report should be available on the screen for view if you selected “H”. T RAINING (C ONT.)

Budget Revisions

 All fields are required in the Request for Budget Revision/Transfer of Budgeted Funds Form.  Identify the department that the revision will affect, the individual requesting the change and the date.  Once accounts and amounts have been entered, describe the reason for revision in the area provided.  Approval must be made at the department level, dean or director, etc. and finally by the Senior Vice Chancellor of the division.  Once these approvals have been granted, the revision will be forwarded to the Senior Vice Chancellor of Finance and Business Affairs to authorize changes in the Datatel system. Link:

Pooling

P OOLING  A budget pool is several expense accounts linked to a single budget account number, otherwise known as the expense umbrella account.  The umbrella account contains the budget figures.  The poolee expense account contains the actual posted activity, actual memo activity and the encumbrance activity.  Poolee accounts should not contain budget data.  Only the budget data entered in the umbrella account is used for funds availability.  The advantage of using a budget pool is that an institution does not have to budget for every single expense account in the chart of accounts.  Our application of the budget pool is grouping all discretionary account numbers such as supplies, travel, postage, etc. in one budget pool while budgeting major line items such as salaries and scholarships at the line item level.

End of Budget Officer Training Presentation (For any questions you may have please Kim McNab at