Overview:

Just like productive Jobs can have a Job Budget, Plant Items can have a Plant Budget. These budgets are most commonly used when performing work, upgrading, or modifying a plant item. You can budget for the anticipated labour and part costs and measure your actual expenditure against what you budgeted for. Revenue is not included in plant budgets.

This screen is reached by navigating to Plant Items, then clicking on the blue ellipsis button on the item you want to budget for and selecting Plant Budget.

Screen Guide:

Initial List

• + New Plant Budget will open the new budget screen.
• Filters are available to narrow down the budgets you wish to see.
• Budget Header is the Hierarchy Level 1 Job, or the top-level Plant Item if there are subjobs present. Budget containers can have lines for multiple Plant Items in the hierarchy.
• Internal Reference is a required free text field that keeps your budgets organised, and serves as a link to the Create/Edit Budget screen. This can be whatever your company needs it to be to match internal expectations.
• Description is custom text meant to define what the budget container represents.
• Year/Period is the financial year and period in which this budget was created. Note that this field will affect which periods this budget is recognised in reports.
• Budget Date is the date that was entered as the creation date for this budget. This date determines what Year/Period it is in.
• Cost Rate is the total of all cost rates in the underlying budget lines.
• Cost is the total cost amount of all underlying lines that this budget contains.
• Approved Date is the date that this budget was approved if your company uses budget approval.

Create/Edit Budget

Header:

• Plant Code is automatically populated from the selected Plant Item.
• Budget Type can be one of the following:
  • Original Contract - the original work planned.
  • Approved Variations - for all variations to the original work.
  • Increased Costs - a budget type that can be used to add expected costs.
  • Other Costs - a generic type that your company can use in whatever manner it deems appropriate.
• Budget Date determines which Year/Period this budget begins in. Note that budgets which exist in a period beyond that of a report or forecast's parameters will not be included in said report.
• Year/Period is derived from the Budget Date field.
• Internal Reference is a required field, and the primary link from the previous screen. The reference must be unique within the Plant Item.
• Description is custom text meant to define what the budget container represents. This is important for variations to make sure your team knows what the variation signifies. This field is limited to 50 characters.
• Details is an optional field to give more definition or explanation to the budget. This field is limited to 2000 characters.

Lines:

• Type begins the process of determining which cost element is being used for this line. You can select from the following types, after which the field selections on the line will change:
  • Activity allows you to enter a traditional Activity directly on the line, and will disable the Line Code and Plant Rate fields.
  • Employee provides a selection of Users, populating the cost fields with the selected user's Employee Class rate.
  • Labour changes the Line Code picker to select Employee Classes. You will still need to enter a valid Activity, Work Centre, and Quantity, but the Cost fields will automatically be populated with the chosen Employee Class data.
  • Plant changes the Line Code picker to select from Plant items. Plant Rate will be populated with the default rate set up in the plant item, but can be changed if needed. The Activity will also be set to the default activity for the selected plant item, but you will need to select the Work Centre. Description, Unit, and Cost Rate will also default from the plant item, leaving Quantity to be entered.
  • Item changes the Line Code picker to select from Stock items. Plant Rate will be unavailable and Activity, Description, Unit, and Cost Rate will be derived from the item defaults, leaving Work Centre and Quantity to be entered.
• Line Code will change depending on the element Type being used.
• Plant Rate will display all available rates for the selected plant item in Line Code when the Plant Type is selected.
• Activity may default depending on the Type used, but this can be manually changed. Availability depends on the Activities in the global list as well as the Activity Group selected for the Plant Item.
• Work Centre will need to be selected from the Work Centres available for the Plant Item.
• Description will default based on the previous selection, but can be modified.
• Unit is the unit of measurement for this line.
• Qty is the quantity of units being budgeted.
• Cost Rate may default based on the previous selection but can be modified.
• Cost is the Qty multiplied by the Cost Rate fields.
• Details is an option field to add more information or specification about the line.
• The Bin column allows you to select lines to delete. Be sure to tick each checkbox that you wish to delete then click Save.

Button Section:

• Print will generate the default budget report . Other reports may be available as well using the ^ button.
• Attachments can be added using this button. Some examples would be a budget workup spreadsheet, quotes from suppliers, etc.
• Import is available to bring in data from a spreadsheet, and has multiple import methods using the ^ button. Note that the data must match the expected column format and requirements exactly for the import to be successful.
• New Line adds a blank line to the above section.
• New Plant Budget is useful when you need to enter multiple budgets after each other. This button creates a new blank budget for the same Plant Item.
• Delete will attempt to delete the entire budget (not individual lines). This button will be pale red if there are budget lines present. You must delete all lines before deleting the budget container itself.
• Save will attempt to commit all entered data to the system. If there are any errors, a red bar will display at the top of the screen with the error. You must fix these errors before the data will be committed to the system. A green bar will appear if the data has been saved.

Next Steps:

Once budgets are entered, they can be viewed and tracked in Plant Enquiry.