Project Budget: Budget Control on Document Entry

The following sections explain how you can control documents that are entered for the project.

Control of Document Consistency for the Project

If the Cost Codes feature is enabled on the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000), to ensure that document lines are entered for the appropriate budget lines, the system controls the cost code entry in these documents by doing the following in the Cost Code column of the document entry form for each document line:

  • When a user clicks the magnifier icon in this column, in the lookup table that opens, the system displays only the cost codes that exist in the project budget for the specified combination of project task and account group.
  • If a user enters into the column a cost code that does not exist in the project budget for the specified combination of project task and account group, a warning is displayed.

Control of Document Entry

The project budget can be exceeded as users enter documents. The system can be configured to check whether an entered document is within the cost budget of the project, taking into consideration the portion of the budget that has already been consumed. This validation occurs if Show a Warning is selected in the Budget Control box on the General tab (General Settings section) of the Projects Preferences (PM101000) form.

With Show a Warning selected on the Projects Preferences form, when you enter one of the following documents related to a project, you will see a warning if the amount of a document line exceeds the cost budget of the corresponding project budget line (even if the project budget has no corresponding budget line):

  • A purchase order of the Normal or Project Drop-Ship type and the On Hold or Pending Approval status on the Purchase Orders (PO301000) form.
  • An AP bill with the On Hold, Pending Approval, or Balanced status on the Bills and Adjustments (AP301000) form.
  • A change order with the On Hold or Pending Approval status on the Change Orders (PM308000) form.
    Note:
    Change orders are available in the system if the Change Orders feature is enabled on the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form. For more information about the processing of change orders, see Tracking Changes to the Project Budget.
  • A subcontract with the On Hold or Pending Approval status on the Subcontracts (PO301000) form.
    Note:
    Subcontracts are available in the system if the Construction feature is enabled on the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form. For more information about the processing of subcontracts, see Subcontracts: General Information.

The warning message in a document line shows you how much the line amount exceeds the budget. The system compares the document line with the corresponding cost budget line of the project and shows you the following amounts in the warning:

  • Budgeted: The revised budgeted amount of the budget line.
  • Consumed: The amount that has been spent already—that is, the sum of the actual amount and the committed open amount of the budget line.
  • Document: The total amount (the Ext. Cost minus the Discount Amount) of all the lines of the validated document that correspond to the same budget line, including the current one.
  • Available: The amount of the budget that is available for the document. The available amount is calculated as the difference between the Budgeted amount and the Consumed amount.
  • Remaining: The amount that exceeds the budget. The remaining amount is calculated as the difference between the Available and Document amounts.

For example, suppose that you have budgeted a cost of $400 for the project (the budgeted amount). You have already spent $150 (the consumed amount). When you create an AP bill for the project in the amount of $300 (the document amount), the system will display the following warning:

Budgeted: 400.00, Consumed: 150.00, Available: 250.00, Document: 300.00, Remaining: –50.00

The warning does not prevent you from processing the document; it just informs you that the document processing will result in an excess of the budgeted values.

You can see the list of all document lines that potentially could exceed the budget of a selected project on the Potential Project Budget Overruns (PM404000) form.