Budget Management

Overview#

The Budget Management system enables organizations to plan, track, and analyze financial budgets across legal entities. It supports multiple budget versions, approval workflows, dimension tagging, and real-time variance analysis against actual results.

Key Features#

• Version Control -- Maintain multiple budget versions per fiscal year
• Approval Workflow -- Draft, submit, approve, lock, and archive with proper authorization
• Scenario Planning -- Compare budget, forecast, stretch, and actual snapshot scenarios
• Dimension Tagging -- Break down budgets by department, location, project, employee, and more
• Real-Time Variance -- Automated budget vs. actual comparison with favorable/unfavorable analysis
• Bulk Operations -- Import and update multiple budget lines at once
• Template System -- Reusable budget structures for consistent planning

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Key Concepts#

Budget Hierarchy#

Organization
  Budget Template (optional, reusable structure)
    Budget Version (one per entity/year/scenario)
      Budget Lines (account + period + amount + dimensions)
        Budget Line Dimensions (dimension tags)

Scenarios#

Granularity#

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Budget Version Lifecycle#

Budget versions follow a controlled status flow to ensure proper governance:

Draft --> Submitted --> Approved --> Locked --> Archived
            |                         |
          Draft (if rejected)      Archived

Status Transitions#

Once a budget is locked, no further edits are possible. This is typically done after the budget has been approved and the fiscal year has begun. Archiving preserves the budget for historical reference.

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Creating Budgets#

From Scratch#

Create a new budget version by specifying the legal entity, fiscal year, scenario type, granularity, and currency. The budget starts in draft status, ready for line item entry.

Copy from Previous Year#

Roll forward a prior year's budget to create a starting point for the new year. All budget lines are copied, and you can then adjust amounts as needed. This saves significant time when the budget structure remains similar year over year.

Create Forecast from Budget#

Clone an approved budget into a forecast scenario for mid-year revisions. This lets you update projections while preserving the original budget as the baseline for variance analysis.

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Budget Lines#

Each budget line represents an amount for a specific account in a specific period:

• Account number -- The GL account being budgeted
• Period sequence -- Which period (1-12 for monthly budgets)
• Amount -- The budgeted amount
• Description -- What this budget line represents
• Source -- How it was created (manual, formula, import, template, or copy)
• Dimensions -- Optional tags for department, project, customer, vendor, etc.

Bulk Upsert#

You can create or update multiple budget lines in a single operation. Lines are matched by a combination of budget version, account number, period, and dimension values. Existing matches are updated; new combinations are inserted. This is ideal for spreadsheet-based budget preparation.

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Budget Templates#

Templates define reusable budget structures that can be applied when creating new budget versions. A template specifies:

• Template name and code
• Granularity (monthly, quarterly, or annual)
• Dimension coverage (which departments, cost centers, etc. to include)

When creating a budget version from a template, the structure is pre-populated, ensuring consistency across entities and fiscal years.

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Dimension Tagging#

Budget lines can be tagged with dimension values for drill-down analysis:

• Department -- Budget by organizational department
• Cost Center -- Budget by cost center
• Project -- Budget for specific projects
• Location -- Budget by geographic location
• Employee -- Budget for specific personnel costs

Dimensions can be set individually or in bulk. You can replace all dimensions on a line in a single operation.

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Variance Analysis#

How It Works#

The system automatically calculates variances by comparing budget amounts to actual GL transactions for each account and period. This comparison is available in real-time -- as actuals are posted, variances update automatically.

Favorable vs. Unfavorable#

The system correctly identifies whether a variance is favorable or unfavorable based on the account type:

Analysis Dimensions#

Variance analysis can be viewed by:

• Account -- Which accounts are over or under budget
• Period -- Which months are tracking well or poorly
• Dimension -- Which departments or projects are driving variances

Admin Dashboard#

The Budget vs. Actual report in the admin dashboard provides:

• Budget version selector
• Summary cards showing total budget, actual, variance amount, and percentage
• Filterable table with period, account, customer, vendor, project, and dimension filters
• Favorable/unfavorable highlighting
• CSV export for further analysis

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Bulk Import#

Budget lines can be imported from Excel or CSV files. The import system tracks:

• Total rows, successful rows, and failed rows
• Validation errors with row-level detail
• Import status (processing, completed, failed, partially completed)

This supports organizations that prepare budgets in spreadsheets and need to load them into the system.

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Access Control#

Budget operations use granular permissions for proper authorization:

Example Role Configurations#

• Budget Owner -- Create and edit budgets, manage lines and dimensions, submit for approval
• Budget Approver -- All owner permissions plus approve or reject submitted budgets
• Finance Admin -- All approver permissions plus lock, archive, reopen, bulk import, and template management

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Budget Planning Intelligence#

For advanced budget planning capabilities -- including forecasting methods, employee cost modeling, project budgeting, and variance interpretation -- Artifi offers a budget planning plugin that provides:

• Build from scratch methods: growth-based, seasonal, driver-based, zero-based
• Copy forward with adjustments from prior years
• Forecasting: run rate, trend, seasonal, moving average
• Employee cost budgeting: burden rate calculations, headcount planning
• Project budgeting: cost structures, milestone-based planning, profitability forecasting
• Variance interpretation: materiality thresholds, drill-down strategies, corrective actions

All plugin operations work through the same 25 budget workflow operations, ensuring consistent governance.