Create Budgets

In this help document, you’ll learn the various methods by which you can create budgets in Zoho Procurement.

You can create budgets for your business spend and compare your actual spending with your set budgets by taking a look at the Budget vs Actuals analytic report.

Create Budgets

To create a budget for your organization:

• Click Budgets on the left sidebar.
• Click + New Budget in the top right corner.
• Enter the following details on the New Budget page:
  • Name: Enter a name to identify your budget.
  • Fiscal Year: Select the financial year for which you would like to create a budget. You can create budgets for the current year, as well as up to two years before or after the current year.

• Budget Period: Select a period for your budget. The budget period can either be monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, or yearly.
• Tag or Project: You can associate a tag or project so that only the records that belong to the selected tag or project will be included for calculating the actuals for the Budgets vs. Actuals analytic report. To associate, click Create this budget for a specific tag or project and select the Tag or Project.
• Budget Type: Select whether the budget will be category based or a fixed amount.
  • Amount: Allocate a fixed amount for the specified budget period. This budget will be applied to all categories in your organization.
  • Category: Create a budget for the categories in your organization.
    • Select the Actuals Tracking Preference:
      • Individual Category: Track actuals separately for each category and sub-category for which the budget is configured.
      • Sub-Categories grouped with Parent Categories: Tracks actuals at the parent category level. Actuals from all sub-categories are added together and shown under their parent category.
    • Click Add Categories, select the required parent and sub-categories, and click Add to include them in the budget.
• Enter the budget amounts.
• If you want block transaction approval, enable the toggle next to Block Approval of Transactions. Once enabled, approvers will be blocked from approving transactions that exceed the configured budgets.
• If you want to warn users, enable the toggle next to Get alerts when the budget has exceeded. Once enabled, the configured email and in-app notifications will be triggered whenever the approved transactions exceed the budget percentage in the warning slab.
  • Specify the percentage of the budget consumption at which a warning should be triggered (for example, if you enter 50, email and in-app notifications will be sent to users when 50% of the budget is used).
  • Select the alert Type and the Name of the alert.
  • Click + Add New to add more alerts to the same warning slab.
  • Click + Add warning slab to add more warning slabs, and follow the previous steps to configure alerts for them.
• Click Save. A new budget will be created.

Ways to Enter Budget Amounts

Zoho Procurement provides you with three ways to enter budgets amounts. You can enter the budget amounts by entering them manually, pre-filling them based on previous year’s actuals or by autofilling the budget amounts. Here’s how you can enter the amounts for your budget:

Enter Them Manually

If you would like to enter the budget manually, you can enter the amounts in the fields, next to the respective categories.

Pre-fill Based on Pevious Years’ Actuals

If you want to create a budget based on one of your previous year’s business expenditures, you can do that in Zoho Procurement. Here’s how:

• Click Pre-fill from Previous Years’ Actuals.
• Select a previous year.
• Click Pre-fill.
• Click Save.

That year’s actual spend will be filled in as the budget amount.

Autofill Budget Amount

Instead of entering the amount for each category individually, you can just enter the amount for the first period and choose to autofill values for the subsequent periods (monthly, quarterly, or half-yearly).

To autofill the amount:

• Hover over an category and click the Autofill option next to it.
• Enter the Initial Amount.
• Choose how you want to autofill. You’ll be able to preview the budget you’ve auto-filled based on the method you’ve chosen.
• Click Apply.

You can autofill the budget amounts for the subsequent periods based on the first period’s amount and any of the following methods:

• Apply a Fixed Amount for Each Period
• Adjust by Amount for Each Period
• Adjust by Percentage for Each Period

Autofill by Applying a Fixed Amount for Each Period

If the category is projected to incur the same amount for each period in your budget, you can select this option. You will have to enter a fixed amount for the initial period. The subsequent periods will be autofilled with the initial amount you entered.

Autofill by Adjusting the Amount for Each Period

If the category is projected to incur spend incrementally or decrementally by a specific amount over the course of the budget period, you can select this option. You’ll be able to enter the adjustment amount and it will be added to the:

1. First period’s amount
2. Each period’s existing amount

1. Add the adjustment amount to the first period’s amount

You can enter an amount for the first period and the adjustment amount will be added to it for the subsequent periods.

Example: If you have set the first period’s amount as 1000 and the adjustment amount for each period as 100, then 1000 will be the amount for the first period, 1100 for the second, 1200 for the third and so on.

2. Add the adjustment amount for each period’s existing amount

You can select this option if you’ve already entered your budget for each period and want to update them with an adjustment amount.

Autofill by Adjusting the Percentage for Each Period

If the category is projected to incur spend incrementally or decrementally by a specific percentage over the course of the budget period, you can select this option. You’ll be able to add the percentage of amount to the:

1. First period’s amount
2. Each period’s existing amount

1. Add the adjustment percentage to the first period’s amount

You can enter an amount for the first period and the subsequent periods will be autofilled based on the percentage of adjustment.

2. Add the adjustment amount for each period’s existing amount

You can select this option if you’ve already entered your budget and you wish to update them with a percentage adjustment.

Clone a Budget

If you want to replicate a budget you had made earlier, you can just clone them. For example, if you want to create a new budget with most of the budget amounts from an existing budget, you can choose to clone it and update the required values. To clone a budget:

• Click Budgets on the left sidebar.
• Click the More icon in the right corner of the budget you want to clone.
• Select Clone.
• The New Budget page will open. Provide a name for the budget and you can edit the budget amount based on your needs.
• Click Save. A clone budget will be created.