Budget/Forecast Maintenance
The General Ledger allows you to store budget and forecast amounts in the system for each account in each division, department, and period. The Budget and Forecast amounts are stored in the account period records for each account and they can be printed along with the actual activity totals stored in the account period records when comparative financial statements are produced. The procedure for viewing, entering or updating Budget and Forecast amounts are described below.
1. Select the Budget/Forecast View from the General Ledger Pull-down menu.
2. Change or accept the division, department, and year shown in the top section of the program (these fields determine the business segments (div, dpt) and year for which you are entering amounts.
3. Select the account and sub-account for which you wish to view or enter budget or forecast amounts. You may find and select an account in the Budget/Forecast View by using the PROMPT key or button in the Account field, or by keying in the appropriate account number and subaccount number and pressing the ENTER key to find the account. Once you have selected an account, the Budget/Forecast view will display the Budget and actual totals for the account in the year, division and department specified.
4. Determine if you wish to enter budget or forecast amounts for the account. Each account period record can store both a budget and a forecast amount. The Budget & Forecast View defaults to showing the Budget amounts for the account selected. You can toggle between viewing the budget and forecast amounts using the Toggle Budget/Forecast button in the lower section of the View. You should ensure the program is displaying the same information you wish to update if you are entering or updating amounts in the program.
5. Verify the program is showing the correct values (budget or forecast) and determine how you would like to input the budget or forecast amounts. The options for entering budget or forecast information are as follows.
• You may highlight the appropriate period and press the ZOOM key to enter the amounts for that period. When you press the ZOOM key, the Account Period Detail panel is displayed, and this panel allows you to update budget and forecast amounts by keying the amount in the appropriate field and pressing the save key. Please note, the budget and forecast amounts are shown as positive or negative based on the account type. Asset (Type 10, 20), Cost of Sales (Type 60) and Expense accounts (Type 70) are treated as debit balance accounts. Liability (Type 30), Equity (Type 40), Sales (Type 50) , and Other income and expense (Type 80) accounts are treated as credit balance accounts. A postive number entered into the budget or forecast field for a debit balance account is treated as a debit. A negative amount entered into the budget or forecast amount for a debit balance account type is treated as a credit.
• You may press the “Enter amount to Spread” button. This button allows you to automatically load amounts into the budget and forecast fields of the displayed account period records. When you select this feature you have the option of either loading a specific amount into each of the period records (10,000 for each period), or you may enter a total for the year and have the program automatically spread this total across the periods (120,000 for year). In both cases, the program will update only the account period record that you have highlighted when you press the button and any account period records following the highlighted record (this allows you to automatically load one number into one range of account period records (ie 1st 6 months of year) and then load or spread a second number into another range of account period records (ie the last 6 months of year). Once you have entered the appropriate amount to be spread or loaded, you may update the records by pressing the appropriate button below the amount. At this point the account period records are updated and the Budget Forecast View will display the updated information for the account.
6. Verifying Budget or Forecast amounts. You may verify the budget and forecast amounts entered for each account by viewing the account information in the Budget/Forecast view or by running comparative financial statements
More:
Printing a Journal Entry
Proof