Budget Change Requests

The Budget Change Request system (BCR) is an optional add-on to Martus that allows you to manage the process of mid-year changes to your budget within Martus. Approved BCRs update Martus budgets, and with Sage Intacct integrations, approved standard BCRs also update the Sage Intacct budget automatically. 

Features include:

• Budget change requests can include one or more items, with each item associated to a specific budget worksheet and budget line on the default Dashboard budget.
• Supporting documentation can be attached to a request.
• Submitted requests move automatically through your defined approval process.
• Change requests provide complete transparency about the approval process.
• Fully-approved requests automatically update the Dashboard budget in Martus. For Intacct integrations, they also update the Intacct budget. 

Menu Selections for the Budget Change Request System

There are two selections on the Planner menu:

• Budget change requests are created and reviewed via the Change Requests selection, which is available to all users with the Planner privilege.
• BCR Setup is available to users with the BCR Setup permission and is used to configure the Budget Change Request system. This identifies the change request approvers and the sequence of required approvals. It also specifies the budget year for which new change requests are to be added.
  
  

Budget Change Request Workflow

The status of a change request indicates where it is the approval process.

• Draft – a change request that has not yet been submitted
• Submitted – Submitted for approval, awaiting review within the approval workflow
• Denied – Denied by an approver
• Approved – Fully approved
• Failed – Request failed to update your accounting system
• Completed – Change request has been applied to the budget in Martus (and to the Intacct budget, for Intacct integrations).

The Approval Process for Budget Change Requests

The BCR approval process can include the worksheet approver and up to five additional levels of approval. You can tailor the approval process to your needs.

The first step in the approval of a Budget Change Request is the worksheet approver, the assigned approver for the budget worksheet that the change affects. If the BCR affects a worksheet with multiple approvers, or if the BCR affects multiple worksheets with different approvers, all are notified when the BCR is submitted. Approval by any one of these approvers meets the requirement for completing the worksheet-approver step.

The worksheet-approver step is skipped if any of these are true:

• The requirement for worksheet approvers is disabled in BCR Setup.
• There is no approver assigned to that budget worksheet.
• You do not use budget approvers at all (this flag is set at the client level by Martus Solutions personnel).
  
  

Up to 5 additional levels of approval may be required. Any users with the Planner privilege may be specified as approvers. One or more users may be identified as approvers at each level.  (Any given user may be specified as an approver at only one level.) Approval may be required from 1 or more of the approvers at any level.  

At each point in the sequence, an email is sent to the approver(s) to notify them of the request. The approver can deny the request; in this case, an email is set to the requester.  If the request is approved, an email is sent to notify the user(s) at the next approval level that the request is ready for their review.  

The BCR module can be configured to allow an approver to make changes; if an approver makes a change, any existing higher-level approvals are cleared and the approvers are those levels are notified.

Although the system is designed to be used hierarchically, any assigned approver can approve any pending request at any time. For example, an approver at level 2 could filter the list of pending requests for those that are not yet approved at level 2, then review and approve them, even if the level 1 or worksheet approvers have not yet done so. However, approval must be done at each level before a request can be considered completely approved.

When approval is completed at the final approval level, the request is applied to the default Dashboard budget and to the Intacct budget identified on the Planner/Intacct screen.

Creating, Viewing, and Managing Budget Change Requests

Select Change Requests to view a list of requests. Use the filters to list other budget change requests, limiting the display by year, status, creator, approver, or the dimensions that define your budget worksheets. You can also limit the list by showing only those that have not yet been approved at a specific level.

• For Admin users, the default is a list of all Draft, Submitted, and Denied change requests.   
• For a budget approver, the default list shows all Submitted requests awaiting that user’s approval.
• A non-Admin and non-approver requestor can only see change requests that they initiated, and Completed requests that match their dimension permissions.
  
  

Click the Create New Change Request button to create a new change request.

Click on View to see details about any change request. If the request is still in Draft status, and you are the request creator, you can also modify that request. (Even an Admin user cannot modify a Budget Change Request created by another user.)

The buttons at the bottom of the screen allow you to delete Draft or Denied requests that are no longer needed, as well as print or export a list of change requests.

Getting Started with a Budget Change Request

When you select to create a Budget Change Request, a blank Change Request screen is displayed. Click the blue Add button to start adding changes to this request.

Select the budget worksheet from the list displayed. This list shows the worksheets available to you within the default Dashboard budget for the budget year of this Change Request. No worksheets will be listed if there is no default Dashboard budget for this year.

Select the worksheet line for the change. Then use the Budget Change Request Widget to enter the specific details of the change, plus any relevant notes.

Using the Budget Change Request Widget

The details of each line of the change request are entered with the Budget Change Request Widget.  You can enter each new amount individually, or you can use the Adjustment Type dropdown. Click the Preview button to see the results of your selection, then click the Save button to add this to the draft of the change request.

Adjustment Type – Weekly, Bi-Weekly, Monthly, Annual, Adjust, Additional Amounts. The Adjustment is a percentage change. “Additional Amounts” can be a positive or negative figure in each month of the budget.

Starting Date – The date that this budget change should start being applied. Click in the Starting Date box to select either the Starting Day of a week (Weekly & Bi-weekly Adjustments types only) or the Starting Month as applicable, then click Preview to see the results.

Amount – Per interval selected. Annual amounts are divided by 12.

Notes may be entered for each month to explain the reason for the budget change. When the request is approved, these notes are added to the existing notes on the budget item.

Seeing and Reviewing Budget Change Request Details

After changes have been added to a request, the Change Request screen shows the state of the budget lines before and after the requested change, along with any notes explaining the reason for the change request. A Net Change line summarizes the impact of all the items in this request, and it is followed by a line detailing the total increase in expenses, total decrease in expenses, and net change in income.

The Change Request Explanation is a useful way to describe this request. This explanatory text is always included in the approval (and denial) emails for the request.

Any attachment that has been uploaded to the Budget Change Request may be viewed by clicking on the attachment.

After a change request has been submitted for approval, the Budget Change Request screen also shows the approval status of the request, listing the approvers at each level and identifying who has approved (or denied) the request. For approved.   The requestor has an Edit button on each request line, and other users have a View button to see details of each line.

Only the requestor can make changes to a Draft change request.  Any item in a Budget Change Request can be changed by the requester at any time until the request is submitted for approval. Once a change request is submitted for approval, it cannot be modified – unless it is denied. After that, the requestor can once again make changes to the request.

Reports and Outputs

From the list of Change Requests, select Report to print details about the listed budget change requests, as illustrated below.

From this report display, you can click Download Report to generate an Excel file of those requests.

BCR Setup 

Access to the BCR Setup screen requires the BCR Setup permission.  This screen is used to define the approval hierarchy for budget change requests. The approval workflow can be as simple or as complex as you wish.

• The first level of approval can be the worksheet approver. (You can disable this requirement if you wish.)
• You can set up one or more levels of approval.  
• At each level, there can be one or more approvers.
• No user can be an approver at more than one level.
• Each level can require approval by one or more of the listed approvers.

The BCR Setup Screen is also used to set these configurations:  

• The checkbox Allow Approvers to Make Changes determines whether approvers are allowed to make changes to submitted BCRs.
• The dropdown Select Year for new Budget Change Requests identifies the year for which new budget change requests will be created.  All new change requests will be created for this budget year. If this setting is left blank, then BCRs can be created for any year.  Changing this setting does not affect any existing BCRs.

Denied Requests

Any approver can deny a request, which changes the status to Denied.  An email is sent to the original requestor. A description can be entered when a request is denied, and that description will show on the Change Request screen next to the name of the approver who denied the request.  

Denied requests can be updated by the original requestor and resubmitted if desired.

Implementation Notes

There is only one attachment per request. If you attach another document, the original one is overridden.

There cannot be two requests pending for the same budget line at the same time.

Budget change approvers must be active users. (If someone leaves your organization, update the list of approvers before deactivating the user record.)

Expenses and revenue are both entered as positive numbers on the request. However, on the overall summary of the request, the bottom line impact is determined by showing expenses as negatives and revenue as positive.

The Intacct budget that is updated by completely approved BCRs is specified in the Budget Change Requests section of the Planner/Intacct screen.  If you use a different Intacct budget for each fiscal year, this will need to be updated annually.

Budget Change Requests

Dream and Capital Requests Option

Overview

An additional option allows you to enter Dream and Capital budget requests, as a mechanism for tracking and approving or disapproving requests.  Let Martus Support know if you are interested in more information about Dream and Capital budget requests.

• Standard BCRs are made in relation to the default Production budget.
• Dream and Capital budget requests are made in relation to the Planner budget.
• Dream and Capital budget requests automatically update the default Planner budget when they are approved.  They do not update the Intacct budget.
  
  

The standard BCR approval process and workflow is applied to Dream and Capital budget requests.

When the Dream and Capital option is turned on, the user will always have to select which kind of BCR they wish to work with, whenever they select Planner/Change Requests.